ARTFRIDGE FOR iHEARTBERLIN # 6

Arnold Newman, “Pablo Picasso. Painter. Vallauris, France. 1954″

The art week starts, less dingy and more militant than the last one, with capitalism killing love, and it ends with a deathly poets’ battle at Volksbühne. In the meantime, two outstanding photography exhibitions crystallize to be the weekend’s highlights: Candida Höfer presents bombastic still lifes, and C/O Berlin dignifies Arnold Newman‘s portrait shots of the creative elite in a large retrospective.  Additionally, Allan Kaprow – the godfather of “happenings” – is reanimated and there is a group show at Künstlerhaus Bethanien that sorts out the black market of translations. Get all the information at iheartberlin.de

CAN'T WAIT FOR SPRING TO COME

BERLIN: "YOU KILLED ME FIRST" AT KW

   

film stills from top: 1+2 Richard Kern and Nick Zedd "The Manhattan Love Suicides: Thrust In Me", 1985; David Wojnarowicz and Phil Zwickler "Fear of Disclosure: Psycho-Social Implications of HIV Revelation", 1989; Richard Kern "Fingered", 1986; Richard Kern "X is Y", 1990; courtesy the artists

It felt like entering Berghain, or some other Techno Club, when I walked through the first hallway at KW's current exhibition "You killed me first". Black light, darkness, loud music. Kunstwerke - Institute for Contemporary Art dedicates a large show, staged on four floors only containing short films, to the Cinema of Transgression - an avantgardistic, low-budget and New York-based art movement from the 1980s and early 1990s. "Any film that doesn't shock isn't worth looking at", their manifesto claims and continues, "all values must be challenged, nothing is sacred." Nick Zedd, Richard Kern, David Wojnarowicz and the other members certainly did not respect borders and much less anything that could be sacred. Rather the opposite: Rock' n' Roll, sex, suicide, rage, rape, drugs - this show is hardcore in every sense. No surprise that it only welcomes visitors over 18 years.

BERLIN: MARINA ABRAMOVIC'S SILENT PARTY

video by Monopol TV

Last week, in the framework of the 62nd Berlinale's program, the movie "Marina Abramovic. The Artist Is Present" celebrated its European premiere. Referring to the artist's two-month-long performance at MoMA in New York, the movie documents her encounters with the visitors - those who agreed to the silent dialogue, those who cried, those who stole the attention and started their own performance and those who are already popular, enjoying to be part of an avantgardistic art event. After the screening, Abramovic invited a selected crowd to a silent party at KW Institute of Contemporary Art to shut up. Monopol TV, the video section on Monopol-Magazin für Kunst und Leben online version, was there and recorded the unusually quiet evening.

ARTFRIDGE FOR IHEARTBERLIN #5

My fifth Weekly Art Guide for iheartberlin.de just went online and it features several great events: Prostitution at Walter König, Pornography at KW, Pushy Kissers at Galerie Lüttgenmeijer - what the hell is going on? Beside all that filthy stuff, a great retrospective of Boris Mikhailov at Berlinische Galerie, loads of exciting artist talks and British conceptual art is to be expected in Berlin’s upcoming art week. Visit my guide here.

MERYL STREEP AND YO-YO MA

At the US-China Forum on Arts and Culture in Beijing, Hollywood actress Meryl Streep read the poem"A Letter to Agnes DeMille" by Martha Graham in a beautiful musical cooperation with Yo-Yo Ma and his famous Cello. This performance happend last year.

COLOGNE: I AM LOOKING FOR A CLOSED SHOP

  

Outside views by Immo Klink, fitting rooms by Jacqueline Hassink; all images: Courtesy Kaune Sudendorf

All thats left is empty name-dropping: Prada, Chanel, Bvlgary. The shop's windows are barricaded with plywood panels, protecting the luxurious insides. Wolfang Tilmans former assistant Immo Klink (*1972) documented the front view of closed shops and elevated them to an exhibition (-title). The contemporary photography gallery Kaune Sudendorf, located in the heart of Cologne's shopping paradise,  juxtaposes Klink's outsider-view to an absolute contrast: Jacqueline Hassink's (*1966) insider photography of shopping mall's elite fitting rooms. Both artists present highly aestheticized work - a glamourous facade that crumbles at a closer look - and they give a critical voice that highlights society's brand fetishism. Wood vs. mirrors -  momentariness vs. vanity, and the viewers still remain outsiders. Nice show!
All information below:

BERLIN: DEATH ROW BY WERNER HERZOG

 

The 62. Berlinale offers several talks that are connected to previous screenings. These talks are dedicated to rather delicate issues, because “some topics simply demand more attention and a broader platform than the time allotted to them usually allows,” as Festival Director Dieter Kosslick comments. The death penalty is one of these issues and it will be discussed after the screening of Werner Herzog's amazing four-part series "Death Row", which shows interviews with individuals who have been sentenced to death. Herzog produced the documentary "Into the Abyss" with a similar topic last year. (I attached the trailer below.)
The screening takes place tomorrow, Monday the 13th of February - starting time is 3pm at Haus der Berliner Festspiele (Schaperstr. 24, 10719 Berlin).

DO YOU REMEMBER ANE BRUN?

I saw the Norwegian musician Ane Brun a couple of years ago at Lido Club in Berlin and totally loved her music. She is so mystical. This is one of her best videos, I think. A great weekend to you!

AMY'S LONDON: MEANS WITHOUT ENDS

   

from top: Daniel Sturgis 'The Social Question', Ian Davenport 'Puddle Painting (Yellow Lime Green Study)', Mark Francis 'Duality', installation view (sculpture to the right by DJ Simpson 'Isovist')

In a small but elegant gallery space, in a small but elegant courtyard behind Regent’s Street is a exhibition which demonstrates, in an equally restrained way, why abstract painting – after the clamour of Pollock and the silence of Minimalism - still has big things to say. Means Without Ends (at Pippy Houldsworth Gallery until February 18th) brings together four contemporary painters, Mark Francis, Ian Davenport, DJ Simpson and Daniel Sturgis, all working within the archetypal abstract tradition which privileges line – as both form and gesture – as the expression of a vital dynamism.

COLOGNE: "BEFORE THE LAW" AT MUSEUM LUDWIG

  

from top: Pawel Althamer, Bródno People © Pawel Althamer, Courtesy Sammlung Goetz; Paul Chan, Sade for Sade's sake © Courtesy of the artist and Greene Naftali; Marko Lehanka, Ohne Titel (Bauerndenkmal) © Marko Lehanka; Thomas Schütte, Vater Staat © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2011, Zoe Leonard, Tree © Zoe Leonard

"Before the Law" ("Vor dem Gesetz"), a title borrowed from the infamous short story by Franz Kafka, is an absolutely astonishing exhibition at Museum Ludwig, showing sculptural post-war works. Before the exhibition started, there was lot's of rumors that it couldn't live up to its expectations, as it is Kaspar König's last programmatic exhibition as the museum's director. But I am convinced that it does live up to it.
Contemporary and older artists, such as Bruce Nauman, Pawel Althammer, Alberto Giacometti, Joseph Beuys and Paul Chan, are assembled to discuss the individual's role, its dignity and its power in relation to the state. "Vater Staat" by Thomas Schütte and "
untitled: staircase" by Phyllida Barlow visualize the state's and system's giantness - its force - with monumental sculptures. Other works, as for instance the untitled farmers' monument by Marko Lehanka deal with rituals, intoxicating riots or possible revolutions. My favorite piece, however, is the silent, several-hours-long video projection "Sade for Sade's sake" by Paul Chan. It exposes a naked and trembling society that seems to be located in a frightening dystopian time: everybody is fornicating each other, crawling on the floor, pulling and pushing each other. Humankind is transformed into an anarchistic group of animals, simply following its instincts. The piece is hypnotizing and disturbing - revealing a nightmarish end (or a possible restart) of our society, as if it was silently and desperately screaming the sentence "human dignity is inviolable".
The exhibition is not preaching, its rather food for thoughts: As a mass confronted with the government - how much power do we really have? How much can we chance to the better? And how much dignity do we really have left?

ARTIST WATCH: SEBASTIAN SCHRAMM

Courtesy and Copyright:  Sebastian Schramm

My friend Michael from Designer Deutsch gave me a link to this artist, presented by huhmagazine's Submission Sunday pick. Sebastian Schramm, thats his name, is a photographer and an art director living in Frankfurt, Germany. Quite amazing, isn't it? I love the rotten and over-aestheticized paprika Click here to see his flickr stream.