The 10 must-see events from Berlin Art Week 2020

Art has always served to provide enrichment particularly in times of crisis but as Berlin Art Week returns this September, the event faces a radically different landscape than it ever has done before. Launched in 2012 by Kulturprojekte Berlin, Berlin Art Week has served as an annual amalgamation of exhibitions and events highlighting the German capital’s contemporary art offerings. Based in both a variety of established and new unexpected locations, it serves as a hub for the most integral figures in the city’s art scene. 

Running from 9 to 13th September here is our selection of events that you cannot afford to miss:

STUDIO BERLIN by the Boros Foundation

As Berghain and the rest of city’s nightlife establishments attempt to contend with the pandemic-induced shuttering of its scene, the legendary club has found renewed purpose as an art space. The Boros Foundation is showing works by over 115 contemporary Berlin-based artists from September 9th. The exhibition offers emerging artists an opportunity to have work featured alongside the likes of Olafur Eliasson and Tacita Dean. Wide-ranging in both scope and variety, the ample club space will house works of photography, sculpture, painting, video, sound and performance.

STUDIO BERLIN by the Boros Foundation is available to visit at Berghain from 9 September 2020.

MIGRATION AS AVANT-GARDE by Michael Danner

Berlin UE lecturer, Michael Danner is exhibiting photography from his long-term project that culminated in an award-winning photobook entitled Migration as Avant-Garde (2008-2017). Danner secured the Fotobookfestival Kassel Dummy Award in 2018 for his moving, critical and startling photography that lensed the movement of people across the borders of Europe. The photobook and its accompanying exhibition is based on political scientist Hannah Arendt’s 1943 essay, We Refugees. Danner offers an alternative viewpoint to the classic narrative depicted by images in traditional media by interweaving his own photographs, archival recordings and Arendt’s quotes to create a visual dialogue about one of mankind’s oldest phenomenons: movement of people from one place to another.

MIGRATION AS AVANT-GARDE by Michael Danner is available to visit at C/O Berlin from 12 September 2020 to 23 January 2021.

TIME GOES by Rebecca Horn & Antonio Paucar

Through the mediums of performance, film and sculpture, Rebecca Horn situates her viewer in flux between life and death, past and future, and internal and external. As the pandemic has defaulted society to a more static existence, Horn’s work which is paradoxically both disturbing and moving finds new meaning. The exhibition is framed as an intergenerational dialogue between Horn and her former Masters student, Antonio Paucar.  The Berlin-based Peruvian artist explores both the fragility and power of the human body in his performances.

TIME GOES by Rebecca Horn & Antonio Paucar is available to visit at IFA-GALERIE from 9 September to 11 October 2020.

MARU A PULA IS A SONG OF HAPPINESS by Lerato Shadi

At the centre of Lerto Shadi’s challenging performance art, is her body which she uses to challenge White-centred narratives that have dominated Western art history. A highlight of the South African artist’s solo exhibition at KINDL is a new series of textile works that explore the relationship between panel painting and performativity.

MARU A PULA IS A SONG OF HAPPINESS by Lerato Shadi is available to visit at KINDL from 12 September 2020.

IT WASN’T US by Katharina Grosse

Katharina Grosse has transformed the historical hall and surrounding area of Hamburger Bahnhof into an expansive and surreal landscape. The existing order of the museum space has been radically altered in favour of a multidimensional kaleidoscopic image filling the viewers vision with vivid colour.

IT WASN’T US by Katharina Grosse is available to visit at Hamburger Bahnhof from 14 June 2020 to 10 January 2021.

OUR LOVE GOES TO THE ABSENT PERFORMERS by Gintersdorfer/Klaßen

Three days of open-air performances based on the research for methods of interacting with performers who are not currently moving from the continent: they follow their instructions, create embodiments, choreographies and material combinations. Connecting live, the absence of the team on site turns into a performative presence.

OUR LOVE GOES TO THE ABSENT PERFORMERS by Gintersdorfer/Klaßen is available to visit at HAU2 between from the 10 to 12 September 2020.

READINGS FROM BELOW by Various Artists

Featuring artworks from the likes of Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Hao Jingban and Yuichiro Tamura, Readings from Below offers unconventional suggestions for reading and interpreting boundaries of archives in our world. Traditionally, archives are characterised by durability and permanence, as well as often maintaining a physical location and recognisable architecture. The exhibition seeks to compile artwork that shows how archives in today’s world of digitised information can be radically temporised, released from space and live multi-modal in harmony with a dynamic user culture.

READINGS FROM BELOW is available to visit at Times Art Center Berlin from 9 September 2020.

SWINGUERRA by Bárbara Wagner and Benjamin de Burca

Bárbara Wagner und Benjamin de Burca’s work predominantly utilises the fields of film and photography to highlight the role of popular music genres in defining and portrayal of identity. Swinguerra was developed in collaboration with dance groups from the outskirts of Recife, away from the economic and political power of northeastern Brazil. Recife boasts a local pop-music scene that combines diverse influences that finds a way to merge sounds and practices from both religious African rituals and American pop.

SWINGUERRA by Bárbara Wagner and Benjamin de Burca is showing at BERLINISCHE GALERIE in the IBB Videoraum from 9 September to 11 October 2020.

EC(CENTRI)CITY by Akademie der Künste am Hanseatenweg

EC(centri)CITY – The Eccentric City is a 12-hour long event that combines talks, films, performance and installation with the aim of discussing ‘the European city of the 21st century’ as both a compressor and centrifuge for the arts. The event will allow visitors to meet with international visual artists, architects and scientists to react to new visions for global urban life of the future.

EC(CENTRI)CITY is showing at Akademie der Künste am – Hanseatenweg on 12 September 2020.

OPEN HOUSES at WERKHOF L.57

Open Houses at Werkhof L.57 is a celebratory open house showcase of various artists’ studio work from Berlin’s Moabit area. The event looks to provide a concentrated burst of art for visitors to consume with the likes of Karin Sander, Via Lewandowsky, Regina Schmeken presenting alongside Katharina Grosse and Anri Sala before a musical interval is delivered by ensemble mosaik. The second half of the event will involve a concept, media and video art presentation by Ivo Wessel’s before concluding the event with an exhibition by Peter Saul and Michael Mueller.

Openhouse is available to visit at Werkhof L.57 from 11 to 13 September 2020.