Willkommen: Hier finden Sie die deutsche Fassung des Briefes aus Berlin

Welcome to the Letter from Berlin!

We are delighted to welcome you next week for this year's Gallery Weekend Berlin. Below we compiled the latest updates of our program and share some videos to find out more before your visit. At the gallery we are presenting spring show, a solo exhibition by Ann Veronica Janssens, and Zwei Wölfinnen, a presentation by Julius von Bismarck. In the showrooms an exciting selection of works will be on view, among them Cemile Sahin's Alpha Dog. Around town works by Angela Bulloch, David Claerbout and Anri Sala can be found in exhibitions. On Sunday, April 26, 2pm Esther Schipper and ArtReview magazine invite you to an artist talk with Julius von Bismarck and ArtReview’s Editor-in-Chief Mark Rappolt. Our online bookstore will also focus on Berlin, highlighting publications and editions by our Berlin-based artists.

We look forward to seeing you in Berlin!

Opening: Friday, April 26, 6 - 9pm
Extended Opening Hours:
Saturday, April 27, 11am - 7pm
Sunday, April 28, 11am - 6pm

Ann Veronica Janssens
spring show
April 26 – June 15, 2024
www.estherschipper.com

Esther Schipper is pleased to announce spring show, Ann Veronica Janssens’ sixth solo exhibition with the gallery. Coming just a year after her celebrated solo presentation at Milan's Pirelli HangarBicocca, spring show brings together a wide range of new and historical works by Janssens.

Featuring a careful arrangement of works, spring show will in subtle ways materialize the empty space between them. Janssens’ “performative sculptures” require observers to move to fully experience them. Each has its own experiential rhythm, as if requiring a set of gestures from visitors to unlock their essence. We peer into the blocks of optical glass and tilt our head to see the light caught in their interior or step back and forth before the panels holding shattered security glass to see their kaleidoscopic colors and luminous spatial effects. Retracing our movement to recapture a color or effect, and finding it changed and not reproducible, the act of looking and the singularity of each experience becomes the focus of spring show.

Among the works are reflective sculptural works that appear to change color as you walk by them, large blocks of luminous optical glass that seem to encapsulate light in their very being, and swings visitors can use, their warmth changing the color of their surface. A recent series employs a combination of ripped glass and a sophisticated bio-chemical nanofilm coating to create enigmatic forms and colors. The space is punctuated by a large-scale gold shimmering screen hovering in midair. The works are testament to the fleetingness of human perception.

The invitation to interact is made even clearer by Swings, which invite us to sit down and feel the air rush past our face, experiencing simultaneously the materiality and the transparency of air. Covered in a heat-reactive film, the seat of the swing reacts to the warmth of the body, and the rainbow-colored traces become part of the sculpture, before slowly disappearing again. There is also a mnemonic aspect to the movement: it takes us back to childhood and the delight in the dizzying effects of disorientation. The natural world, caught in a dialectic of abstraction and figuration, is the subject of Atlantic. Characteristic in its elegant simplicity, a pile of nine panes of hammered glass immediately evokes its namesake, and with it, the hypnotic calm of watching the sea.

Watch the interview with Ann Veronica Janssens shot on the occasion of the exhibition Grand Bal presented at Pirelli HangarBicocca from April 6 to July 30 2023. For the exhibition in Milan, Janssens openend the monumental exhibition space to let in natural light and a breeze that animated several works and constantly changed the conditions.

The exhibition at the gallery will feature several works from series that were also exhibited in the Milan-based museum, among them Atlantic, Magic Mirrors and Swing which you can all see in the video.

Light, movement, energy, all contribute to the sense of constant transformation of the work. Since the late 1980s, Janssens has developed an artistic practice based on light, color, and natural optical phenomena. She continuously experiments with the characteristic attributes of carefully chosen materials (glass, mirrors, aluminum, artificial fog), shapes, and light, wielding our perception of reality to create a recurrent vocabulary of minimalist motifs and beautiful colors.

For a deep-dive into Janssens' practice, watch In Dialogue with Physics. In this fascinating video Ann Veronica Janssens demonstrates the principles and processes behind a selection of her work to two professors in physics. Produced in advance of Ann Veronica Janssens solo exhibition Hot Pink Turquoise at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, Denmark in January 2020, the artist shows Associate Professor in Physics, Troels Petersen, around in her sculpture ‘Blue, Red and Yellow’ (2001), and talks to Professor in Physics, Kristine Niss about a number of her works, among them Aquarium’ (1991), Aerogel (2000-2002), Golden Dream (2011-15), Transparent Fantasy (2016), and Blue Glass Roll (2019).

Link to video

Julius von Bismarck
Zwei Wölfinnen
April 26 – June 15, 2024
www.estherschipper.com

Artist Talk with Julius von Bismarck and Mark Rappolt
in collaboration with ArtReview
Sunday, April 28, 2pm

Esther Schipper is pleased to announce Zwei Wölfinnen, a presentation by Julius von Bismarck, whose representation was announced earlier this year. On view are two sculptures of she-wolves: one appears as a taxidermied animal, the other is formally based on the iconic classical bronze of a she-wolf in the Capitoline Museums in Rome.

Fierce creatures looming large in the humanity’s imagination, wolves are endowed with distinct attributes in different cultures: seen as brutal and unrelenting, doltish or menacing, greedy and destructive, or implicated with witchcraft and magical transformation (werewolf) in some, others associate the animal with independence and freedom (lone wolf), courage and strength, cunning and intelligence. A recurring motif has the wolf turn protector and caregiver of a human infants: most famously, Zoroaster, Romulus and Remus, Rudyard Kipling’s fictional character Mowgli—all were supposedly suckled by a she-wolf, raised by a pack of wolves.

Rendered nearly extinct in the late 18th and early 19th century, the fate of the wolf can be understood in a larger context of the domination of the natural world, specifically, as part of the Western European notion of the world as something to be domesticated, toiled upon, exploited. Increasingly demonized since the Middle Ages, Christianity emerges as major force in the demise of wolves, partially justified by the bible’s use of the animal as a symbol of danger to the flock and, in the warning of false prophets who are “wolves in sheep’s clothing,” to the soul.

The large-scale figures of wolves in the gallery will continually collapse and reconfigure, revealing the elaborate construction that enables their constant movement.

They are a further development of Bismarck's series of monumental collapsing sculptures presented in the artist's solo exhibition at the Berlinische Galerie When Platitudes Become Form, in 2023, the new works emulate the mechanism of hand-held push-puppet toys with miniature animals. In the Berlinische Galerie, two works from the series, a life-sized giraffe and the replica of an equestrian statue of Otto von Bismarck located in Bremen, were exhibited under the title The Elephant in the Room. The format of Julius von Bismarck’s sculptures—their echoing the toy’s construction, anti-naturalistic awkward motions, and even the characteristic round base as plinth—has an anti-heroic effect: the imposing figures’ continuous collapse is a choreographed study in powerlessness.

Concurrent with his presentation at Esther Schipper, Julius von Bismarck will have a solo exhibition at alexander levy.

Find out more about Julius von Bismarck's practice in this new video produced on occasion of Gallery Weekend Berlin 2024.

Link to whole video

Special showroom presentation: Cemile Sahin

For GWB 2024, we are presenting Cemile Sahin's sculptures and wallpaper Alpha Dog in the showrooms. First exhibited at the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, the works were part of her solo presentation within the historical overview of Weimar visual culture, Look at the People! The New Objectivity “Type” Portrait in the Weimar Period.

Alpha Dog originates in Cemile Sahin's ongoing research into the history of classifications applied to criminals and those criminalized by society. The work examines the historical development to extrapolate into the future of mechanisms of surveillance. Alpha Dog draws on her research into the history of the so-called "mug shot" (documenting alleged perpetrators) and combines it with an examination of the glorification of such imagery in contemporary social media, such as TikTok.

Heart-shaped sculptures take up the imagery developed by Sahin in the context of this project. Based on thermal imagining used in surveillance technology, the images are printed directly only fluorescent acrylic panels employing a UV printing technique, while their outline refers to the heart-shaped like buttons found on Instagram. The sculptures are installed on a special wallpaper

Film
with David Claerbout
haubrok foundation

FAHRBEREITSCHAFT

Herzbergstraße 40–43, 10365 Berlin
April 21 – Juni 22, 2024
www.haubrok.org

Opening: April 21, 2024, 4-7pm
Gallery Weekend: April 28, 2024, 11am-6pm

With works by Marcel Broodthaers, Andrea Büttner, David Claerbout, Tony Conrad, Cerith Wyn Evans, Morgan Fisher, Jan Timme, Christopher Williams, and Carolyn Lazard

The term “film” has several meanings. For instance, it refers to the material that is inserted into a camera or the product that is created: a sequence of images that we can perceive as a result – the exhibition Film is dedicated to both of these aspects. The conceptual and structuralist works approach the technical conditions of production, address the seemingly fluid transition from still to moving image and play with abstraction.

On view is Claerbout's The Quiet Shore, which the artist has described as follows:

"The motif here is a beach in the town of Dinard, Brittany, a region that is known to have the strongest tides in Europe. The beach is fascinating at low tide, when parts of the sand are revealed that are silver-looking due to it being permanently soaked in water, mirroring the surrounding cliffs and houses on top. One of those houses served as a model for the house in Hitchcock's Psycho, who regularly visited the place and has his statue on the promenade. The stillness of the silvery water, with silver itself relating to the history of photography, must be what triggered the idea to apply an extraordinary stillness to the water of the sea, which in The Quiet Shore, has become one gigantic quiet surface. The whole scene has an icy feel to it, despite it clearly being set in summer."

Extreme Tension. Art between Politics and Society Collection of the Nationalgalerie 1945 – 2000
With Angela Bulloch
Neue Nationalgalerie
Potsdamer Str. 50, 10785 Berlin
Through September 28, 2025
www.smb.museum

At the Neue Nationalgalerie, Angela Bulloch's Happy Sacks Denim Re-edition offer a seat while watching some of the video programming. The Happy Sack is a large "bean bag"—a massive sack made of thick fabric, in this case denim, filled with styrofoam pellets. It is a sculptural object but can also be used as a seat. Its shape continuously changes because the impressions left by previous bodies are replaced once someone else sits down. Immersed in the amorphous cushion, the world around momentarily recedes. The piece however offers a double-edged comfort: while it is indeed comfortable, the bag is also almost impossible to exit gracefully. This ambivalent relationship between Happy Sack and the spectator—inviting, accommodating but requiring effort—may allude more generally to the interaction with works of art.

Angela Bulloch first conceived Happy Sacks for her solo exhibition at the Hamburger Kunstverein in 1994 which opened almost exactly 30 years ago. Happy Anniversary!

Nationalgalerie: A Collection for the 21st Century
With Anri Sala
Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart
Invalidenstraße 50, 10557 Berlin
Ongoing collection presentation
www.smb.museum

Don't miss Anri Sala's beautiful film 2005 Long Sorrow—and watch for a view of the Märkisches Viertel in Berlin from the early part of the century.

Specially conceived and realized for the artist's solo exhibition at the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi in 2005, the museum wrote about the film at the time:

"Long Sorrow is a requiem for the end of dreams. Its protagonist is the famous free jazz saxophonist Jemeel Moondoc, who appears in a surreal scenario, hanging in mid-air outside the top-floor window of a building on the outskirts of Berlin, a classic architectural example of 1960s housing developments. Neighborhood residents have rebaptized this building “the long sorrow”, a nickname that becomes the title of Anri Sala’s film. In it, the African-American musician’s improvisations build a cathedral of sound, imbued with a sense of mounting tension. Part social documentary and part metaphor for artistic creation, Long Sorrow closes with the image of an airplane that seems to crash into the building."

Last weekend the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published an in-depth profile on Anri Sala and wrote glowingly about the works currently on view in his solo exhibition at Esther Schipper, Seoul, concluding: "With this new series of frescoes, which only initially seems anachronistic, Anri Sala has opened up vast spaces and unexplored layers of time for the future." Read the article HERE.

For Gallery Weekend Berlin 2024 and during the month of May, the Esther Schipper online bookstore will feature a selection of publications and editions by our Berlin-based artists.

Discover the full presentation under this link.