Notes on – Studio Berlin
First published on Architectural Digest
Photography by Noshe
Words by Lola Froebe
No queue: The legendary night club Berghain reopens – and turns into an art space. The exhibition “Studio Berlin” presents new works by more than 100 contemporary artists from Berlin.
Night clubs are places of magic and longing. They offer space for experimentation, delimitation, ecstasis and are an epicenter of pop culture. As such, the closure of the legendary Berghain in Berlin due to the Corona restrictions did not only mean a turning point in club culture, but also the close-down of a place filled with possibilities. The art business has been hit in a similar way: galleries and museums had to shut, exhibitions and trade fairs were canceled or postponed. After almost six months, Berghain is now being revived and turned into a new refuge – for art.
On the initiative of the Boros Foundation and the Berghain, the club is being transformed into a temporary exhibition space for contemporary art from Berlin. “Studio Berlin” showcases more than 100 artistic positions from the fields of photography, sculpture, painting, video, sound, performance and installation. Among those are many well-known names such as Olafur Eliasson, Elmgreen & Dragset, Anne Imhof, Alicja Kwade, AA Bronson, Wolfgang Tilmans, Katharina Grosse, Julius von Bismark, Julian Charrière, Isa Genzken, Adrian Piper, Henrik Olesen, Rosemarie Trockel and Sven Marquardt, but also numerous newcomers and less established artists – spanning the entire interior of the building, including the dance floor, darkrooms and Panorama Bar.
Commencing from the artist studio as a space of thinking and producing, the group show deals with current social, political and economic developments. All works were created during the international pandemic and have not yet been exhibited. While this is not the overall topic of the exhibition, it provides room for artistic introspection and an inventory of the present.
The center of the work shown by Alicja Kwade form 24 ampoules with the essential elements of the human body. Installed as scientific display, her self-portrait intends to be a reflection of being human, broken down into what remains.
Alicja Kwade, Selbstporträt 2020 (Photography: Roman März)
Julius von Bismarck, on the other hand, focuses on the stoic violence of the sea. Floating over the heads of its audience, his gigantic offshore buoy transmits the wave movements of its identical counterpart off the French coast in the Atlantic Ocean in real time via satellite, thus referring to the power of our oceans of data. Elmgreen & Dragset are bringing a piece of flora and fauna into the Berghain halls: “Vultures have been featured in several of our sculptures, previously titled 'The Critic’. Nature is possibly the scariest but also the greatest critic of all. Therefore this new vulture on a dead tree branch is called HOPE”, so both artists. The outside facade of the Berghain is equally covered in hope with the banner “Tomorrow is the question” by Rirkrit Tiravanija.
The message of the participating artists is clear: To understand the uncertainty of the future not as powerlessness, but chance. Not only do nightlife and art come together within the Berghain, but two poles of the same energy that keep the city rotating. Incidentally, a little reminder to the normal club visit remains: video, photo and sound recordings are still not permitted.
Courtesy Julius von Bismarck; Galerie alexander levy, Berlin und Sies + Höke, Düsseldorf. Copyright Julius von Bismarck, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2020.
