016 - Sundays in Mitte
INDEX Berlin
An exclusive club
Hello Smart Art Lover,
Shocked, I realised last week that I haven't been to an exhibition in a month. Due to the tightened rules of the pandemic, things have changed, not only in my own life, but also in the contemporary art world. Berlin galleries are open as retailers, but my impression is that hardly anyone wants to look at exhibitions these days. To get my dose of offline art, I took advantage of Sunday Open to explore a gallery hotspot.
Sunday Open has been a monthly initiative of INDEX Berlin, the city's gallery guide, since spring this year. Offline, it is available as a folding map in many galleries right next to the press release and includes bar and restaurant tips. Online, this source of information has been relaunched in 2020. With solid implementation. Broken down into the headings exhibitions, venues and artists, you can search for galleries, institutions, private collections, other exhibition venues and other events, by dates and districts. An advertising banner presents the art magazines KUNSTFORUM International, frieze, TEXTE ZUR KUNST and Spike. There is even a tour plan function that creates a route from up to ten exhibition venues via Google Maps. Nice. And of course the INDEX sells the obligatory artists' editions. Also nice. For 20 years under the direction of Kirsa Geiser, the ex-partner of marketing genius Johann König, admission to this organ has been the equivalent of membership in an exclusive London gentlemen's club. Berlin - the city of hard door politics.
Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz © Unsplash
An hour in the triangle
But I want to tell you about an old gallery hotspot in Mitte that acquired new life in 2020. The triangular Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz is dominated by the modern theatre building of the Volksbühne and the round architectural style of Hans Poelzig. This place is so culturally charged that it inspired a group of Berliners to found the Verein zur Förderung von Kunst und Kultur am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz e.V. (Association for the Promotion of Art and Culture at Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz) in 2011. Under the direction of Susanne Prinz, co-curator of the summer flag exhibition south of Berlin, this institution resides on the edge of the square on the corner facing Prenzlauer Berg. Naturally, in a building designed by architect Roger Bundschuh and artist Cosima von Bonin in a contemporary modernist style. And bears its own name as L40. Capital Cool. A nice starting point for this tour, the current exhibition by Maurizio Elettrico is closed due to the pandemic.
Passing Rosa-Luxemburg-Straße with its elegant boutiques, I therefore start at the Nagel Draxler Gallery, which is exhibiting large-format paintings by Peter Zimmermann in epoxy resin. Interesting. For me, this gallery is an important place as I found my first job here after university 17 years ago. Mr Nagel is a sometimes grumpy Bavarian with his heart in the right place who opened the door to the Berlin art world for me and others.
Next door, the Mountains Gallery moved in in July. Founded in 2019 with spaces in Berlin-Wilmersdorf, it is one of the two newcomers on this tour. Its current group show, Assisted Survival, explores resilience in art. Okay. The work "Prehistoric Sunset" by Maximilian Rödel, in monochrome blue tones, catches my eye.
At the end of the building, BQ invites you to a great solo exhibition. The gallery is designed like a 1-euro shop, with the motto: Buy an edition by David Shrigley. Refreshing.
Passing the artist Bar Drei, I turn into Linienstraße, on my way to the gallery house of Dittrich & Schlechtriem. André Schlechtriem represents Julian Charriere and Andreas Greiner, two of the most successful students of Olafur Eliasson's Institut für Raumexperimente (Institute for Spatial Experiments). If you want to participate in the life of a Berlin gallery owner, follow André on instagram. Highly recommended. The current group exhibition gives you a good overview of the gallery's programme. It's worth it.
I continue on to the second newcomer at Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, McLaughlin Gallery, which is currently showing Ashkan Sahihi's celebrity photographs. Woody Allen in private at a very good price. The gallery resides in the new Suhrkamp Haus, which also houses the restaurant Remi. Which, according to the gallery director, serves an excellent business lunch. I will enjoy it greatly when the restaurants are allowed to reopen. The gallery opened in March, fittingly, for the first Lockdown. I'm excited about its upcoming exhibitions. And after an hour, I say goodbye to Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz.
Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Berlin-Mitte
Be brave, gentle and smart.
Yours,
Florian
