wanderlust

Let’s Go Off-Roading!: Alternative Gallery Weekend Events

Berlin is teeming with alternative art spaces, venues and galleries that support some of the city’s most exciting endeavors. We’ve covered exhibitions in crematoriums, bunkers, and pools, so naturally our ear was to the ground for the response of Berlin’s unorthodox and alternative venues to Gallery Weekend. Alongside the official Gallery Weekend openings that will occur this weekend, there are endless alternative events as well. Below we bring you the best events to last you until Sunday. You’re welcome!

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

  • Kinderhook & Caracas – “Office Party: Multidimensional Spectrum of Voices” – Opening 6-10pm, Workshops Thursday-Saturday

One of our favorite alternative spaces, Kinderhook & Caracas, will be opening its doors to a project by Lorenzo Sandovel. Sandovel, one of many behind Altes Finanzamt, will be presenting a show in which four writers narratively interpret the photographs taken at an office party in West Berlin in the late sixties. While the opening is tonight, there will be workshops on collective narration throughout the week. Stop by for a taste of what’s in store for you this weekend!

  • Sammlung Haubrok – Art Projects & Bullitens, 1968-1989 – Opening 7pm – 10pm

​​The power collecters behind Sammlung Haubrok are opening up their new space on the eve of Gallery Weekend. Surprisingly located in Lichtenberg, the space will include a bar, multiple show rooms, and as well as craft studios. Do not be fooled by the exterior shots on the collector’s website, the space is huge––19,000 square meters in total! 

Entire Gallery Weekend, Friday – Sunday

Keeping in line with their status as one of Berlin’s most notable experimental exhibition spaces, the Bunker will be be experimenting during Gallery Weekend. For those of you who don’t know, the bunker is a former Nazi bomb shelter turned nightclub, and since Christian Boros purchased the property for his private collection in 2003, it has brought in works by heavyweight artists like Ai Weiwei and Wolfgang Tillmans. Given its cult status, an appointment for a Boros bunker tour usually takes weeks to obtain, but this weekend the bunker is open to all––no appointments necessary! Go early to avoid a madhouse. 

“OM-D: Photography Playground” is an exhibition of colossal proportions: twelve international artists are exploring the theme of “space and art” throughout three floors of the majestically spacious Opernwerkstätten. To further enhance the sense of exploration, visitors will also be allowed to borrow (for free) an OM-D Olympus camera for the durations of their visit, recording their experiences with the interactive works on display. Tip: Bring your seven-year-old self––you’ll have a blast!

Thursday April 25, 2013

To inaugurate a weekend as diverse as Gallery Weekend, it’s appropriate to highlight a show as international as “Vertigo.” With works by only three artists––Beatriz Crespo, Stefano Bosis and Winston Torr––the exhibition manages to cover nationalities including Spanish, Chinese, Canadian, French, Italian and American. The exhibition theme of obstacles in foreign territory is therefore understandable, and one to which I’m sure many of you can relate.

  • Mindpirates – Platform China featuring Jin Shan & Ma Ke – Opening 7pm, After party at 10pm, Exhibition Saturday 1-7pm

BAPs favorite Mindpirates is celebrating Gallery Weekend just right: by inviting another gallery to show in their beautiful, window-lit space. Platform China, a gallery based in Beijing and Hong Kong, will be showing works by video artist Jin Shan as well as recent paintings and drawings by Ma Ke. This will be the artists’ first time in our city, so stop by and show them some Berlin love.

A bit back we interviewed Mia Florentine Weiss, and if you were as inspired by her ten year personal quest as much as we were, then you’ll have to visit her special performance for Gallery Weekend. Continuing a work she originally performed guerilla style during documenta last summer, Mia will be sleeping at the Morgen Contemporary project space in Mitte. She will also be answering questions exclusively with BAPs’ readers on our website, so be sure to check back for more details!

Friday April 26, 2013

  • Galerie Thore Krietemeyer  – Annette Hollywood “The Art Song Collection” – Opening 6-9pm, Exhibition Saturday-Sunday 11am – 7pm

For several years the artist Annette Hollywood has been collecting vinyl records from a variety of musical genres that sing about the same thing: “love.” For this exhibition at Galerie Thore Krietemeyer, she will be presenting a piece where every time this word should be sung, it will be replaced with the another word just as powerful: “art.” A manipulated jukebox will play the songs (equipped with 80 different musical artists) and will allow visitors to make the selections themselves.

  • Epicentro – Arthur Schmidt “GVOON” – Opening 6pm, Exhibition Thursday-Sunday 12pm – 6pm

While Schmidt is not going as far as manipulating a jukebox from which the viewers can select songs, his exhibition will bring a bit of public interaction. The German painter started to garner considerable attention when he placed his works in public spaces and waited until someone found it, hoping that the finder would send a picture with said painting. For Gallery Weekend, he will be installing a large number of works in an exhibition promising to show you a new side to his oeuvre.

Opening Friday and lasting throughout the weekend, several galleries from Berlin’s central gallery district (Mitte) will be presenting  paintings by artists from around the world at Gertrue-Kolmar-Strasse 14. The catalog is huge, and the styles range from flora, fauna, people, and abstraction. Here is your mixed bag exhibition in which there is something for everyone.

Saturday Friday April 27, 2013

This party at Cookies should be a sweet ending to your night. Expect a line-up of DJs and electronic music to keep the grooves flowing all night. The “boundary-defying” act Planningtorock will play along with Mieko Suzuki, backed by video installations from Christian Graupner in the Cookies’s cinema along with “art interventions” by Ink Agop.

Sunday April 28, 2013

  • Alte Münze – Deutsche Bank Kunsthalle’s Open Call Exhibition Part II – Noon, Open for 24 hours

As reported a few weeks ago during the DB Kunsthalle’s massive open call for artists, the new space will be exhibiting the works of artists that couldn’t fit into the original “Macht Kunst” exhibition into a new space for 24 hours. Just like last time, there will be Jury Prizes as well as an Audience Prize, so be sure to vote. If you missed the excitement from the last show, this may be your last chance to see something just as historic.

Article by James Shaeffer

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