Berlin Gallery Weekend (26-28 April)

Berlin Gallery Weekend is a three-day festival of gallery hopping. It is an art fair without the stuffy trade-fair halls and an art treasure hunt for anyone who loves exploring Berlin. Recommendation: buy, hire or steal a bike (all three options are possible in Berlin, even encouraged).

Berlin Gallery Weekend involves 51 of Berlin’s leading and emerging galleries, presenting some 66 exhibitions. Museum exhibitions are highlighted too (such as Martin Kippenburger at Hamburger Bahnhof and “relaunch” at KW Institute for Contemporary Art), as well as notable private collections (e.g. the Hoffmann and Boros collections).

Berlin is a very laid-back city, but not its gallery scene, which is ferociously competitive. The upside of this is that there are many extremely professional galleries presenting an extraordinary breadth and depth of artists from throughout the world, often in brilliantly curated exhibitions. The downside is that it can be vicious.

Some notable galleries are not participating in the official program, for instance Arndt, Alexander Ochs (which is showing an exhibition by Zhao Zhao) and dna galerie, but that hardly matters, as all are in prominent locations on Potsdamer-, Friedrich- and August Strasse respectively.

Berlin galleries that want to show at ArtBasel in Switzerland, the world’s most prestigious art fair, really need to participate in Berlin Gallery Weekend and its Fall art fair counterpart, abc (art berlin contemporary). Whether or not this is the case, what cannot be denied is the incredible influence Berlin galleries now wield in the art world, and which is most evident by the large presence of Berlin galleries at ArtBasel, which rivals in numbers those from New York, London and Paris, all much larger and wealthier cities with much bigger art markets.

Highlights

Eigen+Art presents Carsten Nicolai’s “crt mgn” in their newly renovated (dramatically transformed) galleries.
See article “A short, short history of Eigen+Art” and our Blog on Nicolai’s “crt mgn”

Johann König is showing Monica Bonvicini (Dessauer Strasse 6-7, Tiergarten, near Potsdamer Platz) and at his future gallery space at St. Agnes church (Alexandrinenstrasse), the Polish conceptual sculptor Alicja Kwade.

neugerriemschneider is showing Isa Genzken, as well as Billy Childish and (Linienstrasse 15)

Esther Schipper presents Ugo Rondinone (Schöneberger Ufer 65, near the Neue National Galerie).

randian 燃点 partner MOMENTUM is holding a panel discussion “On How To Collect and Exhibit Video Art” (Collegium Hungaricum, 28 April 4pm), with –
Prof. Dr. Wulf Herzogenrath (Director Fine Arts, Akademie der Künste)
Candice Breitz (Artist, Professor, Braunschweig University)
Christian Jankowski (Artist, Professor, Akademie der Bildende Künste, Stuttgart)
Ivo Wessel (Collector, Founder, Videoart at Midnight)
Sylvain Levy (Collector, Founder, dslcollection)
Elizabeth Markevitch (Founder, CEO, Ikono TV)
and moderated by Thomas Eller (curator/artist/writer)