Bringing light and hope to the landscape, British artist Holly Halkes will present her new body of work that she produced during her two-month residency at Better Go South in her Until Everything’s Forgotten solo exhibition. The canvases are a metaphorical love letter to loss and reconciliation towards renewal. Imbued with a sense of child’s play, they embody transformation amidst adversity. While at Better Go South, we will make sure to see Andy Kassier’s solo show Fortune Mirrors in the pop-up space.
In Kreuzberg, KÖNIG GALERIE has prepared a gamut of exhibition openings on the occasion of Gallery Weekend Berlin 2024. Starting with a showroom presentation with over 30 artists from both within and beyond the gallery's roster, the program will continue with solo exhibitions by Erwin Wurm and Emily Weiner at KÖNIG GALERIE, and St. Agnes and Agnes Questionmark at KÖNIG TELEGRAPHENAMT.
We certainly wouldn't miss the exhibition Andy Warhol – Late Works at Galerie Bastian, which presents drawings and silkscreens from the last decade of the artist’s work.
We kick off the tour with the topic that has been notably present in our lives over the past year, and look at how Berlin-based artist Markus Selg has translated it into his tech-forward and interactive exhibition at Galerie Guido W. Baudach. In TWIN ZONE, Markus Selg merges virtual and real objects in his computer-based paintings and sculptures. Through an AR app developed by the artist, virtual twins of the artworks appear on the audience’s smartphones and float through the room.
For a true taste of German Romanticism, head to Galerie Judin, where the Grand Dame of German painting Cornelia Schleime visually retells the story of independent and unbending imaginary characters who oppose heteronomy and egalitarianism. Ohne Lippen sind die Zähne kalt is the artist’s first solo exhibition at Galerie Judin, and is dedicated to the signature “oppositional gaze” in Cornelia Schleime’s portraiture from the last 10 years.
Just a minute walk away is the contemporary art gallery HUA International, where British artist Jenkin van Zyl illustrates in metaphors the desire for productivity and success through visual installations. Places of Wasted Footsteps portrays GRACE, a rat-faced visitor to the Paradise Engineering Endurance Partnership (P.E.E.P.) Hotel, where she starts competing in a series of bizarre tournaments in the hotel ballroom, challenging the limitations and expansiveness of the human body. The installation is inspired by the dance marathons of the 1930s Great Depression and the transient nature of Japanese love hotels.
This year, many artists hail from the US to present their works at Gallery Weekend Berlin. Specifically, we would love to see Rachel Harrison at Konrad Fischer Galerie in Kreuzberg.
Titled Bird Watching, the exhibition will showcase the artist’s signature sculptural work and a series of recent photographs that bring into dialogue estranged cultural forms with references from art history, politics, and pop culture.
For the first time in Germany, Gallery Weekend Berlin brings New York-based Argentinian painter Santiago de Paoli at Meyer Riegger in his solo exhibition Dear foghead, the Blue Bridge is open. His paintings are the least to say unconventional in terms of form and materials (copper, felt, plaster, recycled textiles or wood). Often resembling sculptural objects in space, they do exactly that - take us beyond time and space in their warm embrace.
On the photography side, we surely won’t miss the two greats - Wolfgang Tillmans and Jochen Lempert. Just a few minutes away from Meyer Riegger, Turner Prize winner Wolfgang Tillmans will present his photographs at Galerie Buchholz. As always, we will be able to dive into the three-dimensionality of the material world seen through the camera’s lens and morphing into sculptural objects of meditation.
In Mitte, at BQ, Jochen Lempert observes the melancholic details of clouds, migratory birds, mushrooms, spider webs, and the occasional human being, and imprints them onto analog black-and-white photographs on baryta paper. His exhibition, Arrival of the swifts: 26.4.2024, is inspired by the swifts arriving from Africa in April after a nine-month non-stop flight and signifying the coming of summer.
We will also add the solo show Seepage From My Primal Fountain happening in three event chapters at Marie 10 Showroom Jörg Johnen to our Gallery Weekend Berlin agenda. Artist Alanna Lawley has invited performance artist & embodiment facilitator Storm Hartley to craft a unique trilogy of events in response to her ongoing drawing series, Let Me Tell You How You Feel. The trilogy brings forth certain desiring female subjects that are covered beneath the gaze of patriarchal fetishisation and libidinal objectification.
Our journey will finish at the map gallery - Berlin’s new salon space - where design pieces mix with works of art. For Gallery Weekend Berlin 2024, the map gallery invites visitors to celebrate the art of escapism in the Beam Me Up exhibition. A range of artists and collaborators, including Ronja Berg, Leo de Carlo, Gabrielle Graessle, Alexandra Lier, Aldo Nason and Anselm Reyle, will take us through their personal and collective dream realities, featuring AI road trip photographs, interventions, and objects. We will dream our future together.
This is just a taste of all the amazing events happening during Gallery Weekend Berlin 2024, The Columbist’s personal curatorial guide. We invite you to explore the full program and curate your artistic route accordingly.
