Berlin Art Week is turning 10. The city-wide show brings together the finest in contemporary art for its big birthday bash from September 15-19. To help you celebrate, we bring you our top five tips.
Ferdinand Hodler and Modernist Berlin
Merging realism with post-impressionism, Ferdinand Hodler “created the soul by painting the body”. What is less known is the importance Berlin played in the Swiss artist’s ascendency. At the same time, one of Berlin’s favourite artists, Alicja Kwade, opens her new show In Absence on September 19 in the exhibition hall, with works that seek to distil the presence of a person through space and chemical elements.
Sep 9 – Jan 17 Berlinische Galerie, Kreuzberg
HR Giger & Mire Lee
Paring the Alien creator HR Giger’s cold biomechanoid airbrushed images with the synthetic/organic sculptural appendages of Mire Lee looks set to be a fascinating match-up. Prepare to see the dome of the Pavillon morph into an atmospheric womb-like space for an unsettling and outlandish take on eroticism, birth and death.
Sep 17 – Jan 2 Schinkel Pavillon, Mitte
The New Infinity
Where once planetariums were for scientists and stoned stargazers, they’ve been reimagined as immersive contemporary art showcases in recent years. Look out for the hyperreal abstract worlds of ‘Non-face’, the full-dome premiere of Lucas Gutierrez & Robert Lippok, and the video installation The Way Earthly Things Are Going by Emeka Ogboh.
Sep 17-19 Zeiss-Großplanetarium, Prenzlauer Berg
Impressionism in Russia: Dawn of the Avant-Garde
Vasily Kandinsky was so unsettled by Monet’s ‘Haystacks’, with their bright colours and lack of representation, that he renounced motif in his work and pioneered abstract art. That revolutionary time, when French impressionism changed Russian art forever, is the focus of the Barberini’s latest exhibition, which also features works by Kazimir Malevich.
Through Jan 9 Barberini Museum, Potsdam
art (not art), the Berlin Art Week Directors’ Lounge
Pop into Schokoladen for what promises to be an intriguing and chaotic evening of experimental live music, DJs, performances and video art – all with no admission fee. Old-school punk outfit Sheef kick off proceedings, followed by ‘Light Bulb Music’, an audio-visual performance that uses light to create pulsating electro-acoustic soundscapes. After that come the mesmerising loops of Erdal Inci, before the night gives way to a DJ set by Steve Morell, the founder of German-British label Pale Music.
Sep 17, 19-24 Schokoladen, Mitte
Want more art? Don’t miss the must-see art exhibitions this September