011 - Badly-dressed coolness photographs loudspeaker war with fox
KubaParis - Zeitschrift für Junge Kunst
Nonchalance with Tillmans
Hello Smart Art Lover,
Are you ready to get to experience another Berlin art magazine? In contrast to the elitist small talk of BLAU, KubaParis - Zeitschrift für Junge Kunst online screams at you. Launched as a printed magazine in 2014 by Saskia Höfler-Hohengarten and Amelie Darrelmann, the current editors Saskia and Nora Cristea are also running the communication agency preggnant. Clients include the Berlin Art Prize, Humboldt University Berlin and the Frankfurt Book Fair.
At first glance, the website is chaotic. Their style resembles a Berlin brat in an ill-fitting Beverly Hills 90210 outfit boasting an impressive nonchalance. And revealing a love for the photographic aesthetic of Wolfgang Tillmans. The last interviews conducted my friend Yvonne Scheja. I am biased in this respect, but I like them. In the editorial I find a photo series with an pancake-eating artist and mirrors. Nice experiment. The reviews give a journalistic insight into the very young offspace scene in Berlin and the global art hotspots. You will learn about exhibitions that usually go under the radar. The submissions are difficult to distinguish from the reviews because of the Monocle principle, press release is content is journalism. Then there is the shop with art editions under EUR 500,-. If it suits your taste, you can decorate an entire flat for under EUR 2.500,-. All in all this magazine is not my cup of tea, but it gives you a good insight into the very young art scene at the beginning of commercial success. And raises your coolness factor into the stratosphere.
Karin Knorr, The Recapture of the Territory is no more than an Appetiser to the big match (from The Gentlemen series), 1982
Photo by Karen Knorr
Everywhere I look - photos
Every two years, October is declared EMOP. This is not a new electric scooter, but the European Month of Photography. With more than 100 exhibition venues, I feel hopelessly overwhelmed by the question of what to look at. In a brief moment of enlightenment I write to Kulturprojekte, the cultural project agency that organises the EMOP in Berlin as well as the Berlin Art Week. I received some tips on what to follow this month. One of them is the touring exhibition Masculinities: Liberation through Photography, which will be shown after the London Barbican Center in the Gropiusbau. At the same time, I am curious to see which exhibition venues I will discover far off the beaten track. Let's go.
Nik Nowak, Schizo Sonics, 2020
War of the speakers
Of all the exhibition venues in Berlin, the KINDL in Neukölln definitely gives you the best views of the city. The name stands for a brewery whose bestseller is the Berliner Kindl Weisse. A disgustingly sweet swill of beer and syrup. A German-Swiss couple bought the listed Palast Berliner Braukultur in 2011. Burkhard Varnholt earns his money as a top banker, currently with Credit Suisse. He is also active in the African Acquisitions Committee of London’s Tate. Very cosmopolitan. Salome Grisard runs an architecture firm with an ETH background. She also works as a member of the board of directors for a major Swiss real estate company. Very helvetic. After the successful renovation by Grisard's Architects, the KINDL opened in 2016 as a centre for contemporary art in this imposing 1920s building.
Currently on the top floor, charmingly called Maschinenhaus 1, you find a postcolonial group exhibition by the new director Kathrin Becker. Former longtime director of the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein. Curatorial art with finger wagging. Below runs the solo exhibition of Lerato Shadi. The artist interprets art differently than I do, which is generally good. But the exhibited films, huge photographs and neon work seem like a cliché of contemporary art to me. In reference to the famous German TV crime series on Sunday evenings, I like to call it Tatortkunst, crime scene art. Ann Oren presents a film about a beautiful bald man who is a horse. Okay. If you miss all these exhibitions, your life goes on anyway. But it's worth visiting this place for the installation in the boiler house with its super high ceiling. In his work Nik Nowak deals with the loudspeaker war between West and East Berlin. And has created a Gesamtkunstwerk lasting almost an hour. Impressive with fox.
Nik Nowak
Schizo Sonics
September 13, 2020 – May 16, 2021
KINDL – Zentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst
Kesselhaus
Be brave, gentle and smart.
Yours,
Florian
