There are artists whose works you love from afar. And then there are artists you absolutely want to meet in person – because their paintings are so touching, their words so profound and their stories so impressive. Etel Adnan, who was born in Beirut in 1925, is one of them. Though she passed away in 2021, you can still feel close to her and her work at Kindl: the art center is dedicating an exhibition to her, presenting her work in interplay with that of her life partner Simone Fattal. The show “Voices without borders” is designed as a dialogue between the two women: a conversation that focuses not only on their experiences as artists in the Arab world, but more importantly on who they are as people. What connected them was language. Fattal, a ceramist born in Damascus in 1942, worked as a publisher, while Adnan, the grandiose painter and filmmaker, also wrote. After many years in California, Adnan returned to Lebanon in the seventies to work as a journalist for French newspapers. Here she met Fattal, twenty years her junior. The two become a couple, but with the start of the civil war they had to flee. In Paris, Adnan began translating her lived experiences into both a novel and poems, which Fattal published. Later, Adnan discovered leporellos for herself and, inspired by the Arabic tradition of calligraphy, slowly moved away from writing to signs. She transposed her luminous formal landscapes onto paper – but also onto canvas and tapestry. One recognizes basic natural forms in Adnan’s abstract paintings. There are mountains, clouds and suns, observed and experienced between California and France. These are the same forms that one finds in Fattal’s sculptural work. Thus, “Voices without borders” not only opens up spaces that are decidedly feminist and queer. It is an exhibition that tells – of life, of love and connection between two people.

Text: Laura Storfner / Credits: Simone Fattal, The Estate of Etel Adnan / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2023; Photo: Jens Ziehe

KINDL – Centre for Contemporary Art, Am Sudhaus 3, 12053 Berlin-Neukölln; map

Etel Adnan & Simone Fattal: Voices without borders, until 01.01.2024
Wed 12–20h, Thu–Sun 12–18h

@kindlberlin

We admit it: We are fans. Of Savannah van der Niet – after all, she has been part of the Cee Cee team for many years. Besides her always optimistic and helpful nature, we also love her work: Savannah simply has an eye for special compositions and is above all a real explorer: she sees the details that others miss and makes Berlin appear in the best light. And now some of her private work is on display! In the middle of Weserstrasse, where the forest is probably at its scarcest, Australian photographer Savannah van der Niet opens her exhibition “This City is a Forest” tomorrow (Sept. 29, 2023) at Backhaus Projects. In images of simple fierceness that are as harmonious as they are balanced, she portrayed trees for over four years. The tree that stands in Savannah’s mother’s garden, the trees in strangers’ gardens from which she picked leaves for her father’s tea, and those that were particularly suited to climbing around in her homeland – when the trees in Berlin rest between the seasons, the photographer feels homesickness and longing for her homeland. Most of the body of work on display was taken in Berlin – other shots from Scotland, Australia, Spain, Slovenia and Italy complement the series and thus also tell the story of the artist’s own arrival. Delicate, austere, trees speak to the viewer, the tranquil plants brought into focus with complex personalities, often contrasting with the surrounding city. The exhibition is accompanied by a lively program: paper collages, a film screening and reading amidst the simple trees – amidst the city. Oh how nice that there is so much of everything in Berlin. 

Text: Alina Herbel / Photos: Savannah van der Niet

“This City is a Forest” at Backhaus Projects, Weserstr.168, 12045 Berlin–Neukölln; map
Vernissage 29.09.2023 18–22h. The exhibition runs until 06.10., 12–18h. 

You can buy tickets for the workshops and film screenings here.

@savvyv
@backhaus_projects