This Sunday saw the longest queue ever and for a change it was not in front of Berghain. After a three year hiatus the Ngoro Ngoro group exhibition in Weißensee was back and it was again a huge success and magnet for art enthusiasts and the art-curious. Full disclosure: the place had a pool – so every other exhibition didn’t really stand a chance that weekend…
Jokes aside, the group exhibition is one of the biggest, independently organized ones that we have seen here and the diversity of the works and artists presented alone made the whole event worth a visit for pretty much everyone. The hidden backyard that is a shared space of gallery owners and artists also managed to create a bit of a festival atmosphere with drinks and food, and it was a quite family-friendly, which was embraced by the visitors.
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by Frank | Art, Photos
Debbie Harry (Blondie), 2014, photo: Florian Kolmer
New year, new art! In the next couple of weeks some really awesome exhibition will be opening (and already are) so we thought it’s time for another big exhibition guide to give you some recommendations were to see great art in Berlin in the beginning of 2016. Especially now in Winter when you don’t want to spend too much time outside it’s one of our favorite things to do: Go to the galleries and museums.
We selected a really fun and interesting mix for you including all the disciplines of art ranging from painting over sculpture to our favorite: photography. We have some big international names in our list such as Helmuth Newton and Ettore Sottsass, but also some long-standing local photographers such as Andreas Fux and Florian Kolmer. Enjoy our art highlights for early 2016.
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by Frank | Art
photos: Gerrit Engel, courtesy of Sexauer Gallery
The latest exhibition opening by photographer Gerrit Engel at Sexauer Gallery had me thinking of my early days in Berlin back in the beginning of the 2000s. I call myself lucky that I have been in Berlin long enough to have had the possibility to enter the former Palace of the Republic, the once glamorous Chamber of the People and cultural meeting point of former East Germany. In my early days of Berlin the place stood there grey and silently at the riverside of the Spree like a big headstone to the grave of the GDR. The space was mostly abandoned and shut down for public access. The shiny copper plates of the facade that made the building look quite impressive back in the day were long removed and a concrete block remained obstructing the view to any of the beautiful historic buildings around it, no matter from which angle you looked.
But all of a sudden the place was opened again for temporary use. I don’t remember exactly if this happened at the same time, but there was also the announcement that the building would get taken down soon, so maybe this was the reason for the city to sublet it for cultural events so they could collect some money for the expensive demolition. I remember being in there for a couple of big parties and one really magnificent big exhibitions called Fraktale IV: Tod in 2005. It was awesome to see the space from the inside used by artists for huge elaborate exhibits, but without all the glamorous lamps that I knew from photos and that gave the place the nickname “Erich’s lamp shop” it kind of just looked like any other abandoned industrial building that Berlin has so many of. Well, none of them have had such a magnificent location and such a controversial history…
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by Frank | Art, Photos
