ART AFTER WORK — AN EVENING AT THE BERLINISCHE GALERIE WITH DISCUSSION, DRINKS AND OPEN-AIR INSTALLATIONS

This summer, art is breaking out of its four walls: for the Park Platz summer program, the Berlinische Galerie has transformed its car park into a community space for outdoor art and interactive events. Surrounded by cold, gray concrete in the gallery grounds you can find a bright, fabric-adorned metal frame that is welcoming visitors to free open-air exhibitions and special events. The space is home to works by eight Berlin-based contemporary artists from many different countries plus regular workshops and talks which touch on the program’s themes of encounter and desire, identity and nature. You can weave these artworks into your week with Art After Work (08.07.2021), the latest in a series of cultural evenings organized as part of the Jung und Artig membership group of young art enthusiasts.

From 18h the architects at c/o now who created the Park Platz pavilion will join the director of the Berlinische Galerie Thomas Köhler to share how they transformed a rather drab area into a vibrant centre for visual arts, debate, workshops and food. After the talk you can help yourself to a drink, take in music by DJ Robot Girl and wander round the large-scale installations which include Brasilian artist Lucas Odahara’s eight-meter-long tiled catwalk inspired by the queer balls held in his home country in the 1980s. Also impossible to miss is Marinella Senatore’s installation “Bodies in Alliance”, a towering illuminated gate which recalls the bright colored lights of a fairground. You don’t have to be a member of Jung und Artig to attend Art after Work, but if you do opt for membership you will gain priority access to exhibitions, free entry to the gallery and – best of all – discounted tickets for evening art. See you there!

Text: Benji Haughton / Credit: Park Platz, Berlinische Galerie / Photos: Sandy Volz

Park Platz is home to a full summer program of outdoor events, workshops and performances. See the event calendar for the complete line-up.

Berlinische Galerie, Alte Jakobstr.124–128, 10969 Berlin–Kreuzberg; map
The Park Platz exhibition runs until 20.09.2021 and can be visited free of charge. Open daily, 10–19h

Tickets for Art After Work (08.07.21 18–22h) can be purchased online. The exhibition can be visited after 19h30 without a ticket. For details about how to join Jung und Artig check the website.

@jungundartig_berlin
@berlinischegalerie

Comment on this post (0) Post on Facebook

Culture

REFUGE — NEUKÖLLN INTERNET RADIO BROADCASTING HYPERLOCAL LINE-UP OF MUSIC AND TALK

In an era of endless playlists precisely matched to your music taste, it’s tempting to think that radio is dead. But the opposite is true: webcasting is booming and Berlin is leading the charge with Refuge, the vibrant Neukölln-based internet station that launched in January 2021. Broadcasting live Tuesday to Friday out of a studio on Weserstraße is a genre-packed program from some 140 resident artists plus regular guest slots including big DJ names like Hunee and Prosumer. Refuge has deep roots in Berlin’s music scene: the project was started back in 2015 by Glasgow-born George Patrick as a series of solidarity parties organized in local clubs in response to the refugee crisis. The initiative morphed into a radio station which is keen to remain hyper-local, with around 90 percent of the resident DJs based in Berlin.

Fans of electronic music will find the music policy right up their street, with the likes of legendary DJ Fred P offering cathartic beats with his monthly house hour. Other genres are covered as well: Move 78 celebrates independent jazz and hip-hop while Loose Ends sees DJ and violinist Kemback serve up lashings of sunny disco and soul. There’s talk too, with a monthly show from Black Brown Berlin hosted by a line-up of women artists who spin R&B and soul in between illuminating chats on life, business and politics. If you want to see where all this magic happens, the station’s studio space has an open-door policy and a well-stocked bar where from midday to midnight you can drop in, grab a drink, and tune into the music right from the source. Consider it your new sonic hangout.

Text: Benji Haughton / Photos: Albina Maks, Artem Podrez & Black Brown Berlin

Refuge broadcasts live Tuesday to Friday online. You can support the artists by joining the station’s Patreon.

@refugeworldwide

Comment on this post (0) Post on Facebook

Culture, Sponsored Post

MEADOWS AND MOUNTAINS — CHRISTIANE LÖHR AT HAUS AM WALDSEE

German sculptor Christiane Löhr opens your eyes to the things in the natural world you would otherwise overlook in her exhibition at Haus am Waldsee, which runs until 05.09.2021. Collecting inconspicuous weeds from the roadside, Löhr transforms them into graceful sculptures and spatial installations that you approach with caution and wonder. The precise, architectural plant formations that result are not contrived. On the contrary: Löhr allows herself to be guided in her form-finding by the organic nature of the flora. Löhr often works without sketches during her experimentation, following instead the natural bends of blades of grass. In the 1990s the artist began working with animal hair taken from the tail of her own horse, and today horsehair remains an important source material. For her first institutional solo exhibition in Berlin, she has incorporated grasses from the magnificent garden at Haus am Waldsee into new works.

Running until autumn, the exhibition immerses you in a fairytale cosmos: delicate plant stems form fragile domes, seeds tower into miniature mountains, and cushions of dandelions appear to want to float away at the lightest touch. Using ink that spreads out rhizome-like on the paper, Löhr continues her botanical movements into two-dimensional forms. Her quiet arrangements never force themselves on you and yet – despite their often small format – assert space for themselves. With roots in the arte povera, minimal and land art movements, Löhr creates dreamlike parallel worlds that combine the romantic image of a pastoral utopia with geometric clarity.

Text: Laura Storfner / Credit: Exhibition view of Christiane Löhr – Organising the Wild, Haus am Waldsee, 2021 / Photos: Roman März

Haus am Waldsee, Argentinische Allee 30, 14163 Berlin–Zehlendorf; map
Christiane Löhr – Organising the Wild, until 05.09.2021, Tue–Sun 11–18h
@hausamwaldsee

Comment on this post (0) Post on Facebook

Guests, Culture

HAU REOPENS WITH ERSAN MONDTAG’S JOY OF LIFE — RECOMMENDED BY HARMONY LEVEQUE

Joy of Life – that’s the name of the dance work that is reopening Hebbel am Ufer’s main stage this week, and it’s the perfect message to celebrate the relaunch of Berlin’s performing arts scene. As you approach the doors of HAU 1 on the banks of the Landwehrkanal you can already hear lively music coming from the stage. On show is a dance work from director Ersan Mondtag, who is known for his experimental and interdisciplinary works and has gathered professional dancers, actors and young talents from Berlin’s Kinder Ballett Kompanie for their first choreographic piece together. It is a committed performance which touches on topics such as migration, climate change and how new generations are fighting for their future. The narrative draws on testimonies of Fridays for Future supporters and the tales of young people who have made torturous journeys from Africa to Europe across the Mediterranean.

The dance is in constant evolution with the narrative arc, going from simple, exercise-like, movements to harmonious choreography. The fascinating scenery with a turning stage, video projections, floating background and colorful props transport you to the same limbo as felt by the dancers, leaving you thinking and reflecting on your own beliefs. You don’t have to be a dance lover to feel the emotions conveyed in the performance; it encourages you to ask yourself what brings you joy – and one of the first answers must surely be the theater.

Text: Harmony Leveque / Photos: Armin Smailovic

Harmony Leveque works as a project and production manager in the field of contemporary dance in Berlin, Bielefeld and her home country of France.

HAU 1, Stresemannstr.29, 10963 Berlin–Kreuzberg, map
Joy of Life is showing on 24. & 25.06.2021 20h. Tickets are available online.

@hauberlin

Comment on this post (0) Post on Facebook

Culture

ONE WEEKEND, 50+ ARTISTS — HOT MESS AT NÅPOLEON KOMPLEX

How is Berlin’s art scene doing at the moment? If you want the answer, pay a visit to Nåpoleon Komplex, a new event space in Friedrichshain this weekend (18.–20.06.2021). Yolandé Gouws and Vanja Žanko – one an artist, the other a curator – have transformed the former Deutsche Bahn workshop into a temporary art gallery that is now home to works by over 50 of the city’s artists. Among them are well-known names like Alicja Kwade and Gregor Hildebrandt, but also exciting newcomers like painter Lexia Hachtmann and sculptor Nicoleta Auersperg. Yolandé and Vanja got to know many of them in the studios of established Berlin greats: among the 50 are some of Ólafur Elíasson’s collaborators. The exhibition organisers have deliberately left the overall theme of the weekend show open, while the forms range from painting to sculpture to photography. What unites the works is an engagement with the present. With their project, Yolandé and Vanja want to promote the city’s young scene and remind us that there are numerous talents waiting to be discovered not just in art, but from the architecture and design worlds too.

Text: Laura Storfner / Credit: Sebastian Körbs, NABLA DELTA, 2020; Maria Sécio, Scarecrow, 2020; Borghildur, I am still waiting for the title of this work

Hot Mess at Nåpoleon Komplex, Modersohnstr.49a, 10245 Berlin–Friedrichshain; map
18.06.2021 18–22h; 19.06.2021 11–22h; 20.06.2021 11–18h
Tickets can be booked online

On Friday and Saturday you can accompany the art with some natural wine at On The Skin festival, which runs in parallel.

@hotmess.berlin
@ontheskin.berlin

Comment on this post (0) Post on Facebook

Back Next

Language

ART AFTER WORK — AN EVENING AT THE BERLINISCHE GALERIE WITH DISCUSSION, DRINKS AND OPEN-AIR INSTALLATIONS

REFUGE — NEUKÖLLN INTERNET RADIO BROADCASTING HYPERLOCAL LINE-UP OF MUSIC AND TALK

MEADOWS AND MOUNTAINS — CHRISTIANE LÖHR AT HAUS AM WALDSEE

HAU REOPENS WITH ERSAN MONDTAG’S JOY OF LIFE — RECOMMENDED BY HARMONY LEVEQUE

ONE WEEKEND, 50+ ARTISTS — HOT MESS AT NÅPOLEON KOMPLEX