Berlin Art Week, we love you, but your website is confusing AF. After trawling through this year’s extensive and impeccable programme, we’ve soothed our September blues with the anticipation of the city’s hottest art events, and now we’re handing them to you on a platter. We’ve done the hard work so you don’t have to — in a span of installations, performances, lectures, and interactive events — may we present to you our definitive guide to Berlin Art Week, also available as an easy to read, downloadable PDF.
1. Bilderkeller (Akademie der Kunst)
The basement of the Akademie der Künste, which was covered in murals by master students some half a century ago, will open to the public for the first time on 28 September, at 5pm. Discover more.
2. Bisagra – Fashion Week (Kinderhook & Caacas)
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Subverting the idea of the maqila, a manufacturing process in which raw materials are imported to a country with cheap labour, artists in Lima will send patterns of fake fur coats to Berlin, with no instructions about how to put them together. A group in Berlin will then interpret the patterns and put on a fashion show at Kinderhook & Caacas. Find out more. |
3. Candice Breitz – Sex Workers in Dialogue with Works by William N. Copley (Museum Frieder Burda)
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Juxtaposing two artists whose work opposes discrimination against sex workers: American painter William N. Copley (1919-1996) and South-African video artist Candice Breitz (*1972), the exhibition at the Salon Berlin traces an arc from Copley’s eroticised nudes to installations by Breitz in which sex workers themselves are given agency and voice. See more. |
4. Agnieszka Polska – The Deamon’s Brain (Hamburger Bahnhof)
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An immersive sound and video installation in the Historic Hall of the Hamburger Bahnhof, Polska’s piece is developed around the real-life correspondence between Mikaloj Serafin, a polish official who governed the country’s salt mines, his workers, and his financiers. The work follows an illiterate messenger tasked with delivering Serafin’s letters, who one day ends up stranded in the forest. More here. |
5. Incense Ceremony at The Feuerle Collection (Feuerle Collection)
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The Feuerle Collection occupies a former WWII telecommunications bunker, recently renovated by architect John Pawson. Contemporary works sit side-by-side with imperial Chinese furniture and early Khmer sculptures in a massive synesthetic exhibition space that includes a Sound Room, a Lake Room, and an Incense Room. Incense Ceremony available by appointment only. Details here. |
6. Juan Atkins – Deep Space (Jewish Museum)
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7. Marathon Book Reading and BBQ (Broken Dimanche Press)
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Broken Dimanche Press bills itself as a space for contact between contemporary art practice and literature. On 30 September, it’s taking steps in the direction of performance art with a marathon book reading and (mercifully) a BBQ, from 2-8pm. More here. |
8. Lee Bul – Crash (Martin Gropius Bau)
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Guaranteed to be one of the most visually exhilarating events of the week, Crash is Lee Bul’s first solo exhibition in Germany and the first exhibition Stephanie Rosenthal has created as new director of Gropius Bau. The gallery always aims big, and this is no exception — Bul’s installation takes on utopias and dreams, drawing from futurist theories, science fiction, and visionary architecture. Prepare to be wowed. Info here. |
9. Julian Charrière and Inland – An Invitation to Disappear (Berghain)
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Berghain will host an audiovisual journey into the dystopian paradise of a palm-oil plantation. The setting refers to the eruption of Indonesia’s Tambora volcano in 1815, which disrupted global temperatures and set off a series of climactic natural events. Think Berghain’s apocalypse, anything goes vibe but also, like, climate consciousness. Details here. |
10. Berliner Festspiele – The New Infinity (Mariannenplatz)
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Artists Fatima Al Qadiri, Holly Herndon, William Basinski, and others will present works in a fulldome system, a version of a planetarium, encompassing a projective field to approach infinity. Rather than stars and asteroid belts, there will be a philosophical video game and a potpourri of audiovisual works designed specifically for the transformative space. Find out more. |
11. SLEEK’s Berlin Art Week Party at Clärchens Ballhouse
And last but not least, to kick off Art Week with a bang, we’re hosting our very own SLEEK party in the resplendent mirrored ballroom at Clärchens Ballhouse — one of the oldest dancehalls in Berlin. Alongside this, we’re also hosting an exhibition of visual artist Vera Kochubey’s works at Torstraße 138, as well as an immersive group show featuring a plethora of artists from Berlin and beyond.
Download the full map HERE.