Went to the
opening the other night of a new art project – KUNST (SHOT) http://kunst-shot.tumblr.com/
organized by curator Stefania Angelini www.bpigs.com/projects/have-you-metstefania-angelini
and Clemence De La Tour Du Pin (great name huh!). The event was the first of a
monthly series of one night only art events showing the work of emerging international
artists. The inaugural exhibition consisted of artists Benjamin
Laurent Aman, Buno Ollee, Filippos Kavakas, Angela Liosi, Stefan Riebel, Hugo
Des Gayets, Bill Patrick and Clemence De La Tour Du Pin and included sculpture,
installation, print, video and sound performance. The venue, S.K. Robinson is
usually a club, but the floor to ceiling concrete and lighting rig lends itself
perfectly to an exhibition space, and the show was well executed with the
selection of work befitting the industrially chic interior. I particularly
enjoyed the neo-mystic sculptures by Filippos Kavakas. It was a pretty sexy
show and a fun night. Looking forward to the next one......
Another opening - this time at
L'Atelier - Kunst(Spiel)Raum www.latelier-kunstspielraum.com
– rough translation to The Studio – Art (Play) Room in Kreuzberg of a solo show
by Spanish artist Bruno Olle www.brunoolle.com.
L’Atelier describes itself
as an artist run initiative run by Italian curator Stefania Angelini, and shows
the work of emerging international artists. It’s a pretty schmick space – after
going to many grungy stinky graffiti riddled art spaces full of hipsters and
pretenders where the art is secondary to the scene (which of course has its
place and can be fun), it is nice to finally see a professional space showing
some good work by emerging artists. The exhibition consisted of an immersive
installation - a sea of plastic rubbish bags in the lower half of the gallery with
which the audience interacts, a video work, and a series of pencil drawings
displayed on make shift shelving intersecting the gallery in an obtrusive maze
like fashion.
The thing I am finding most
interesting about art spaces in Berlin is the variety of models that exists,
unlike in Australia which seems fairly….homogenized – in a way that is
understandable, accessible and professional – in Berlin there are so many
models in operation. For example despite that fact L'Atelier operates as an ARI
– it doesn’t have open access in that it calls for applications for proposals
from artists; it’s programmed by a curator. Angelini will also be
curating a series of one night events of art called Kunst(SHOT) – the first of
which is happening this week….
“A PR Network for exhibition spaces and art
related venues in Berlin; it includes a printed guide & map, a weekly
newsletter and a blog. BPIGS comes out every three months and it is distributed
for free in project spaces, galleries and bookstores. The focus of BPIGS
is on showcasing Berlin's contemporary art scene from the artist
point of view.”
This is the
second time they have run this event and it is essentially like speed dating for
curators and artists. Artists are required to submit a portfolio and are
selected based on compatibility with the program of curators. I was one of 25
artists to participate.
There have
been events like this happening in Sydney and Melbourne in Australia, not so
much in Perth – it’s not necessary given that everyone knows each other as the
scene is so small. So it was my first time participating in such an event and I
spoke with 5 curators each for a period of 12 minutes about my work.
I met
curator Lauren Reid who is actually from Sydney (there are so many Australians
in Berlin!), who works with a gallery I admire called GRANTPIRRI http://www.grantpirrie.com. Lauren is
completing a residency with Node Centre for Curatorial Studies http://www.nodecenter.org/ - another
interesting professional arts organization - which for artists does studio
visits with groups of curators based on particular research topics. Node was initiated
and is run by Perla Montelongo and Ignacio García Gómez del Valle http://www.bpigs.com/projects/have-you-met.
The event
was good and I enjoyed it. It was well organized and the curators
were friendly and interested and the artists weren’t too
nervous.
People
often have mixed opinions about this kind of “meet and greet” events in
relation to artists and curators. But in a city that is overwhelmed with
artists, curators, designers and all kinds of creative activity, for me it
presented the perfect opportunity to accelerate connecting with people working
in the art scene in Berlin. There is no obligation on the side of the curators to
put you in shows, just that they are open to the possibility.
There was
also the team from Niche Berlin http://www.nicheberlin.de
present to meet artists and chat about their practices.
For anyone interested below is a few of the other participating artists picked at random to give an idea
of the breadth and quality of participants.
