GALLERY WEEKEND BERLIN :: BY GRÉGOIRE BLUNT & EMMY SKENSVED

Gallery Weekend Berlin
by: Grégoire Blunt and Emmy Skensved

Max Eulitz @ Satellit Berlin

This was one of the most curious objects we came across on the entire Gallery Weekend. During the
boom years shortly before the financial crisis, a wave of mediocre commercial galleries opened their
doors in poshly renovated warehouses behind the Hamburger Bahnhof. Almost as fast as the Prosecco
ran out, they were gone. Now the bulldozers have arrived and the entire lot is set for demolition. In the
context of this boom to bust locale, it seems fitting that recent art-school graduate Max Eulitz made a
most curious dumpster find: a discarded carpet-piece by artist Sarah Morris, left behind no doubt in the
speedy exodus. Salvaging what he could from the heap, a strip of carpet was cut out and given new
life as a bench top and finally exhibited in what will probably be the location’s last exhibition. It was
initially disconcerting to see how one day’s luxury goods can be discarded so quickly, but ultimately,
Eulitz’s piece is a positive affirmation of a creative cycle that continuously adapts and re-invents itself.

Aleksandra Domanovic @ Tanya Leighton
With “The Future Was At Her Fingertips” Aleksandra Domanovic explores the contributions that
women have made to the development of prosthetic limbs, Cybernetics, the Internet and virtual reality.
The 3D-printed sculptures of artificial hands placed throughout the gallery not only recall this lengthy
history but also point toward future possibilities.

Barbara K. Prokop and Niels Betori Diehl @ Deutsche Bank KunstHalle

On the absolute periphery of the art world, was the second installment of the Deutsche Bank’s
‘KunstHalle,’ a massive 24-hour group exhibition open the anyone ‘artistically inclined’ and willing
to contribute a wall-work. The thinly veiled marketing campaign proved so successful that hundreds,
possibly thousands, of artists stood in the cold in up to three hour long queues to drop off their work,
evidencing a popular need for creative expression in a public setting. In the overwhelming wash of
images, the above-pictured piece managed to point out the futility of expression and protest from
within the well-defined parameters or confines of an external institution.

United Visual Artists @ Photography Playground

Jeongmoon Choi @ Photography Playground

Sponsored by a large camera company, ‘Photography Playground’ featured an impressive 7000 square
meters of exhibition space. Despite the company’s heavy-handed marketing strategy, a few artists’ works
managed to hold their own. Both Jeongmoon Choi and United Visual Artists used light to create
spectacular and immersive spatial environments.

Jon Rafman @ Future Gallery
Jon Rafman’s show at Future Gallery presents a series of objects that evoke questions about the motivation
and methods used for archiving information. In this exhibition he combines both old and new technologies,
transferring information from the digital to the material and vice versa. What results are objects, like the
antiquated slide carousel projecting images from Google Street View, which bind the virtual and the actual,
the contemporary and the outdated, and create a strange hybridized form.

Oscar Tuazon @ Schinkel Pavillion
Using common building materials Tuazon constructed a series of sculptures that effectively played off
the challenging octagonal shape of the pavilion. Dividing the space into sections using drywall, metal
beams, glass, mirrors and fluorescent lights, he created an architectural intervention that re-routed the
traffic flow and transformed the pavilion. With the DIY quality of the construction and the introduction
of window blinds and doors, Tuazon’s work lent the pavilion a human scale, making it feel more like a
domestic space than an exhibition venue.

Rachel Niffenegger-Tinder @ Club Midnight

A bone-like armature stands in the middle of the gallery with an incised gauzy painting draped on
top. In the corner hang a series of similar fabric pieces that the artist exchanges with the central work
over the course of the opening. A make-shift table sits nearby, presenting an array of trinket-like
objects. Rachel Niffenegger-Tinder’s work eludes easy categorization, straddling painting and sculpture,
fashion and art, exhibition and performance.

Jessie Holmes and Trevor Lee Larson @ Kurfürstenstrasse 1414

entrancing and offered viewers a much-needed break from the white-cube gallery shows.

 

Trisha Baga @ Société

In Trisha Baga’s installation at Société empty paint buckets, drop sheets and other forms of debris were
strewn around the gallery. In amongst these props stood vertical screens with projections of art works in
the process of being made. What’s more, these projections required polarizing 3D glasses for proper
viewing. Looking through the glasses, the videos came alive, appearing to jump off the screen into the
gallery, competing with the real objects that surrounded them, creating a mesmerizing collision of real
and illusionistic space.

Thanks again to Grégoire and Emmy.
More soon!