Just a few days after my last art expeditions in beautiful Turin BERLIN ART WEEK gave me another opportunity to challenge myself on how many art works I can see before the overload switch in my brain clicks down. I went to see Lee Bul’s exhibition at Martin-Gropius-Bau, the newly opened Palais Populaire showcasing paper works from the Deutsche Bank Collection, Arthur Jaffa’s video works at the Julia Stoschek Collection and of course the art berlin fair at the hangars of the former Tempelhof Airport. Tons of input, loads of fun and so much inspirational art!
Martin-Gropius Bau: LEE BUL – CRASH
Lee Bul is one of the most important Korean artists of her generation, having received significant international recognition for her formally inventive and intellectually provocative work. Her diverse body of work comprises of performance and installation art that explores dreams, ideals and utopias influenced by futurist theories and science fiction, bioengineering and visionary architecture. CRASH seeks to enthral and spark the imagination of many as a multi-sensory experience composed of several experimental elements. The works on display are characterised not only by sensual expressiveness and humour, but also by Lee Bul’s own experiences with and subtle allusions to the history and politics of Korea.
Featured Artists
Lee Bul
An exhibition organised by the Hayward Gallery, London, in collaboration with the Gropius Bau, curated by Stephanie Rosenthal.
Details
Palais Populaire: THE WORLD ON PAPER
Paper is easy to use and at the same time experimental. It has an unpretentious, intimate aura, is subtle and haptic. Even in the age of digitaliztion, paper is a medium on which the world is depicted. With around 300 highlights and new discoveries from the Deutsche Bank Collection, THE WORLD ON PAPER shows the fascination the medium of paper has exerted on artists since postwar Modernism and how this at once sensual and pragmatic material has continually opened up new creative possibilities.
THE WORLD ON PAPER presents three thematic “worlds” that deal with central aspects of contemporary art. The first part is devoted to abstract art. A leitmotif is the empty, white sheet of paper, a mental space in which initially rudimentary forms are shown, which then condense into gestural and geometric compositions and finally into numbers, symbols, words, and ordering systems. The next two sections of the exhibition concentrate on the self-image of people, their view of the body and identity as well as personal and collective history. The last section investigates artists’ examination of constantly changing urban spaces and deals with technologies and new economic and symbolic functions of images.
Featured Artists
Joseph Beuys, Parastou Forouhar, Ellen Gallagher, Hermann Glöckner, Waqas Khan, Nelson Leirner, Markus Lüpertz, Basim Magdy, Michel Majerus, Gerhard Richter, Sasaki, Mark Dean Veca, Andy Warhol and others…
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Julia Stoschek Collection: ARTHUR JAFA – A SERIES OF UTTERLY IMPROBABLE, YET EXTRAORDINARY RENDITIONS
Across three decades, Arthur Jafa has developed a dynamic, multidisciplinary practice ranging from films and installations to lecture-performances and happenings that tackle, challenge and question prevailing cultural assumptions about identity and race. Jafa’s work is driven by a recurrent question: how might one identify and develop a specifically Black visual aesthetics equal to the ‘power, beauty and alienation’ of Black music in US culture?
The title of the exhibition ARTHUR JAFA: A SERIES OF UTTERLY IMPROBABLE, YET EXTRAORDINARY RENDITIONS relates to the sense of absence that Jafa observes as haunting Black life. The word ‘rendition’ refers to the artist’s interpretation of the aesthetics associated with Black being, which are historically-inscribed in images, objects and artefacts. By re-performing these narratives in the present, Jafa imagines and constructs new possibilities for making them visible.
Featured Artists
Arthur Jaffa, Ming Smith, Frida Orupabo and Missylanyus
Curated by Hans-Ulrich Obrist and Amira Gad. Presented in partnership with the Serpentine Galleries, London.
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art berlin / Fair for Modern and Contemporary Art
Founded in 2017, ART BERLIN is a cooperation between the abc art berlin contemporary and Art Cologne. The 2nd edition of the ART BERLIN fair took place from 27–30 September 2018 and for the first time it took place in two hangars of the historical Tempelhof Airport. Around 120 galleries from 21 countries offered the international art world a comprehensive overview of contemporary positions while also showcasing works of Classic Modernism.
Featured Artists
Pawel Althamer, Asher Carlson, Julian Charrière, George Condo, Ákos Ezer, George Grosz, Stella Hamberg, Roy Lichtenstein, Tony Oursler, Fred Sandback, Jamel Shabazz, Yūken Teruya, Rosemarie Trockel, Tatiana Trouvé, Günther Uecker, Andy Warhol, Ai Weiwei, Wim Wenders, Tom Wesselmann and others
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Header photo by Ben Schumin