Niche - Art & Architecture Tours Berlin

• 7 Aug 2010

  Un chien adalbert

  If you’ve ever seen ›Un chien andalou‹, Dalì’s and Bunuel’s surreal 16 min black and white  collaboration from 1929, you probably remember a very particular scene, involving an eye and a razor blade.

  Interestingly enough, the eye actually belongs not to a woman but to a donkey. And there is no dog in the movie. At all.

  At KWADRAT in Berlin’s Adalbertstraße, Madeleine Boschan and Daniel Kannenberg have installed…

  

  …their fantastic ›Un chien adalbert‹, an abstract beast with three oversized eyes. The eye’s glare might haunt you in your dreams. But don’t worry, there are no razor blades around. And the beast won’t harm you: It’s fast asleep. How do I know? It’s snoring like hell.

  Madeleine Boschan: Kalt, modern und teuer. On view until August 21st.

• 31 Jul 2010

  Niche @ Beijing II

  北京  OFF 二 : COMPANY

  Dating was yesterday! Nowadays artists meet on the web to find themselves conceptualizing the unprecedented: In 2008, while still at fine art academies, Chen Zhou (陈轴), Li Ming (李明), Li Ran (李然) and Yan Xing (鄢醒) co-founded COMPANY (公司) – some undefined »project in progress« without……»principles or precise characterization. The artists from COMPANY rarely communicate with each other; they work independently with no aims and no obligations towards doing things«. Lately COMPANY opened its exclusive circle. On the occasion of a series of projects named A Project (一个计划) young artists are invited to contribute to the ongoing discussion, through theme based research or artistic creation.
  Luckily for the old-fashioned among us, # 3 happened to result in an exhibition that Platform China put on display in their project space: For A Project - Incommunicable (一个计划 - 无可告知) Chen Zhou worked together with artists Li Ming (李明), Jin Shan (金闪) Chen Wei 陈维, James Elaine, Jia Hongyu (贾宏宇), Li Fuchun (李富春), Lin Ke (林科), Li Ran (李然), Liu Shiyuan (刘诗园), Lv Zhiqiang (呂志强), Guo Hongwei (郭鸿蔚), Shi Xiaowen (时小雯), Yang Junling (杨俊岭) and Yan Xing (鄢醒).

  Make sure you remember their names, these guys are just getting started!

• 22 Jul 2010

  Niche @ Rügen

  Yes. Rügen is not just about busloads of german tourists amidst chalk cliffs. You can find some real fine pieces of modern architecture there. Outstanding is the work of Ulrich Müther, who was born in Binz in 1934 and died there in 2007. He designed over 50 buildings with double-curved shells. The biggest part of his oevre is situated at Rügen´s coastline, like the beautiful not-so-well-known Inselparadies in Baabe…

  

  

  We think the ceiling with its embedded lights is fantastic! If you want to see it, you have to hurry: Next year the bulding will be part of a new hotel-spa-whatever. Oh, don´t you just love the new tuscan-mediterranean style?

  

• 20 Jul 2010

  Ganze/Teile

  by Simon Elson

  If it’s true that more and more art institutions are swept out of the city center by the tourism and gentrification wave that they themselves helped to create – latest example: C/O Berlin at Oranienburger Straße – then the exhibition Ganze/Teile is part of the future: It is located neither in Mitte nor in Kreuzberg, but in Treptow.

  
  Visiting the location at the Schuckert-Höfe reminds me of…

  …the opening exhibition of the Kunsthalle Berlin Pankow, an old cigarette factory that was reinvented as a space for contemporary art in 2005. But compared to this show, that in a way wanted too much and was not really focused, Ganze/Teile is extremely well-balanced. In the vast location (about 2800 square meters) the curators Heiko Rintelen and Heiko Pfreundt, that are artist themselves, create a minimalistic and stringent vision of the relation between entireties (Ganzheiten) and parts (Teilen) together with 21 other artists. And it totally works. The single pieces have enough space to breathe and are nonetheless connected to each other …
  
  Excerpt from the press release:
  »We continuously attempt to seize entirety. We undertake through studies of the parts and pieces and reassemble them meticulously. In contrast, we might also try to capture wholeness at once, by a more straightforward, intuitive approach. However, if we achieve to get closer to the estimated wholeness by a reasonable assembly of components or via intuition respectively, we constantly realise that our idea of the whole is defined and pre-delimited by a personal definition that was executed long before. Which was imagined as the entirety turns out to be a part itself embedded in a broader framework of entirety, and we sense that this „matryoshka principle“ will continue. Nevertheless, it‘s just a diverted phantom pain which won‘t make us capitulate and the soon-to-be-formed new image of wholeness prompts us to blur our range of meaning once more - just to evoke another idea of wholeness.«

  picture: louie+jesse, Capillary Site, 2010.

  July 17 - August 8, 2010
  Opening hours: Wed-Fri 4-10 p.m. / Sat 12-10 p.m. / Sun 12-6 p.m.
  Am Treptower Park 28-30 (Schuckert Höfe), 12453 Berlin
  
  

• 29 Jun 2010

  北京 OFF 一 : Blackbridge Off

  Hell yes, Niche is in Beijing! And let us tell you, this city’s art scene has so much more to offer than 798 and figurative painting - as brand-new Blackbridge Off just happened to demonstrate!

  
  

  Hidden in some backyard of the Heiqiao art district, this non-commercial initiative made its opening with an outstanding group show. ›Yes and no. One is like the other - spacial strokes‹ (是与否 . 一个似另一个 - 特殊的笔画) curated by Austrian artist Anna Hofbauer assembles abstract works that, however different they may be, transcend painting practice: Whether the delicate yet aggressive site-specific installation of Yang Xinguang (杨心广) that literally hits the visitor at the entrance, the cheerful and very elaborate installations of Zhang Xinjun (张新军) that immediately catch one’s eyes or Wang Guangle’s (王光乐) meticulous painting that slowly but steadily absorbs the spectator - together with the works of Liu Wentao (刘文涛), Ma Jia (马葭), Anna Hofbauer, Martin Wehmer and Eddie Weki they’ve been arranged to a surprisingly harmonious ensemble that is more than worth the trip out of town.
  And for those who might not be able to see this show: Austrian artist Bianca Regl will from now on regularly invite young and mid career artists to curate shows in her white cube style studio - and we can’t wait to see more!

  Photo: Courtesy Anna Hofbauer.

• 26 Jun 2010

  Evas Arche

  
  by Simon Elson
  
  Shush … Modernity is back, with the most calm and fragile exhibition of the year. A small pavilion but a big group show with twelve artists and soup, deeply rooted in Berlins vanguard art scene of the last decade. Evas Arche und der Feminist ……entertained Auguststraße for a long time, now at The Taut and Tame, Hanseatenweg: »everything is done, everything has been, everything is better, everything is more, everything is history, everything is everything we know«. The space is right in the middle of Hansaviertel, once a big promise of modern architecture and now as quiet and fragile as the beautiful pieces by Marlous Borm, Tobias Buche, Simone Gilges, Nico Ihlein, Peter Kisur, Kitty Kraus, Jonas Lipps, Yoann Pisterman, Hanna Schwarz, Eni Steinhausen, Andreas Sell, plus performance by Reimo Herfort.

  Evas Arche und der Feminist
  Casa Durststrecken
  at The Taut and Tame
  Hanseatenweg 3, Berlin

• 23 Jun 2010

  Sleek, Summer 2010, p. 92.

  

• 13 Jun 2010

  Black Hole Universe – Mapping the Void | Vernissage at 5x6x9

  by Simon Elson

  This is unique: South Africa is everywhere! For decades it used to be nowhere, either lost in Apartheid hell or in the fucked-up post-94 struggle for equality. Now the people of this nation are represented and seen and talked about everywhere – even in Prenzlauer Berg’s Kollwitzstrasse, where normally you just find kids, family cars and organic home-made ice cream.

  

  In Christian Ganzenberg’s and Anna Partenheimer’s project space 5x6x9 the South African artist Zander Blom creates a black hole universe, …

  …not only merging the history of modern art but all political questions of identity. The freedom to be abstract?

  Blom was born in 1982 in Pretoria, belonging to an in-between generation that is confronted with structures and problems of an old totalitarian system, to which no personal tradition relates them: neither a tradition of struggle against it nor of trying to conserve it. Being abstract, Blom says, is the only way to be political at this time. Why? By being political you can easily be trapped in exoticism, displaying the poor and strange South Africa for voyeuristic Europeans. Alright, so even this blog stops being political and just looks at the site-specific photographs of the Black Hole Universe, as well as the context of the in-situ installation that makes it possible to look specifically at the way the artist works. As it is a private and noncommercial art space, please check with Niche or visit 5x6x9’s homepage.

• 9 Jun 2010

  Pigs

  Why would you name something this useful ›pigs‹? Maybe because Pigs have been getting everyone’s attention lately. Or maybe because the ups and downs of Portugal, Italy/Ireland, Greece and Spain are reflected in the sometimes pecarious existence of Berlin’s independent spaces. What’s for sure is that ……in piggy times like these, all of us can use some orientation.

  Pigs is a guide for independent spaces in berlin, initiated by Despina Stokou. It came out on the 4th of June and will do so every 2 months; it is available for free in projects spaces, selected galleries and book stores. Every issue will feature an artwork designed exclusively for pigs. This time, it’s Hannah Arendt by Marc Bijl. Be sure to check it out and spread the word!

  

• 9 Jun 2010

  BERLIN KREUZBERG BIENNALE

  AYRAN & YOGA - 1st Berlin Kreuzberg Biennale for Contemporary Art
  June 10 2010 – July 31 2010

  Thursday June 10 2010: Professional Preview 9 am till 6 pm, various locations. Official Opening Reception 9 pm till midnight (rsvp by June 9 to info@BERLIN-KREUZBERG-BIENNALE.ORG). Location: Studio Tjorg Douglas Beer Admiralstrasse 17a 2nd Yard 10999 Berlin
   

  Friday June 11 2010: Exhibition open 11 am till 6 pm, various locations
   

  Saturday June 12 2010: Exhibition open 11 am till 6 pm. Location: The Forgotten Bar, Boppstrasse 5 10967 Berlin. FRESCO MONDO cocktail reception for the artists 9 pm till 11 pm

  Sunday June 13 2010: Exhibition open 11 am till 6 pm, various locations

  Maps available at most locations of exhibition. Route along exhibition starts and ends at Oranienplatz.

  For any questions or guided tours call +491782942675 
  Mail: Info@berlin-kreuzberg-biennale.org
  For Dates / Program / Locations / Map / Artists list visit the website.
  The Berlin Kreuzberg Biennale for Contemporary Art is initiated by Galerie im Regierungsviertel Berlin.

  Participating artists:

  AYRAN & YOGA / Crosswalks
  A walkaround Berlin Kreuzberg featuring circa 40 different works by participating artists, positioned at mapped-out locations in the landscape of Berlin Kreuzberg.
  Terence Koh Deer Diary / Eoin Donnelly Golden Morning Plague / John Kørner Alles zusammen inklusive 100 Probleme / Sara Lunden Vielen Dank / Dionisis Kavallieratos Double Nazi / Tjorg Douglas Beer Three Monkees / Olaf Metzel Turbokapitalismus / Julieta Aranda / Malte Urbschat The Sheriff-Project / Ingo Gerken For The Free / Christoph Schlingensief Anna-Catharina Gebbers 10 Animal Films / Raul Walch Corner Bar / Raul Walch First and Only Kreuzberg Hinterhof Fountain / Christian Jankowski The Hunt / Julia Abstädt Ulrich Wulff Sculpturegarden Jenseits / Julia Abstädt Ulrich Wulff Wishing Well / April Lamm This Is a Single Sock / Franz Stauffenberg In God We Trust III / Thomas Helbig STUPOR / Cecile B. Evans Believe We’ve Never Met Before / Trevor Lloyd Stay, stay, stay, stay, stay / Dominik Halmer Man of Sorrows / Lado Darakvhelidze Museum TV Station / Stephan Moersch The Jungle Mosque / Calais France / Trine Borg-Kristensen BEYOND THE PALE / James Krone WAIST VERSUS / Madeleine Boschan Daniel Kannenberg Un Chien Adalbert / Daniel Knorr 1 Year Warranty | 1 Jahr Garantie / Marc Bijl Silver `n Gold / Arno Auer Hauser / John Kleckner Never Take Advantage Of Anyone / Isa Melzmeimer Zwischengebirge / Pola Sieverding I Like Revolutions / Gregor Hildebrandt Es schlaeft ein Lied in all den Dingen / Marcus Weber A&O Strassen / Elisa Vournasu INSTRUCTIONS / Klaus Mettig Tien an men 1978 / Thomas Julier Emanuel Rossetti Tbilisi Pattern I / Arfus Greenwood the dog is a wolf and that bitch is dope / Rainer Ganahl I hate Karl Marx / Kimberly Clark Sherry Arnett / Tobias Madison LASERBLUE / Black & White Photography / California Citrus Summer / Antoine Renard The Jewel
  AYRAN & YOGA / Studio Nights
  Program of lectures, screenings, dinners, presentations and events at artists’ studios and other locations in Berlin Kreuzberg.
  Marc Le Blanc James Krone Bachus Apotheke / Nevin Aladag Hochparterre / Raised Ground Floor / Martin Kwade Dinner in the Backyard / Ulrike Gerhard, Paul Sochacki Integrational Aesthetics / Cecila Szalkowicz, Gastón Pérsico, Hella Gerlach, Roman Schramm REUNIÓN - Interior al aire libre / Elshopo collective WHO EATS WHO? Silva Agostini, Mariechen Danz, Alicja Kwade Screening Conversation Dinner / Malte Urbschat The Sheriff-Project and other non-lethal weapons / Thomas Winkler / Ulrich Wulff / Raul Walch / Dj Ute: Micky Maus Club / Solveij Ovesen, IEPE & Helmut Kuhn Painting Reality and Chess-Boxing / Christopher Kline Snakebraid / Dionisis Kavallieratos Sifis Lykakis Three Movies / Tobias Bernstrup Neon Love / THE-NEW-WORLD.TV / Salam Berlin by Judith Albrecht / Tjorg Douglas Beer What was first? The egg or the hen? AND OTHER CONSPIRICIES Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel Julien Quentin Piano Piano Bar Night / Berliner Vereinigung der Verfolgten des Naziregimes - Bund der Antifaschistinnen und Antifaschisten e. V Jugend im Widerstand
  AYRAN & YOGA / Fresco Mondo
  A collective work on THE FORGOTTEN BAR’s ceiling featuring more than 180 artists.

• 7 Jun 2010

  Infernoesque ›Das Geschehen 3‹ Vernissage

  by Simon Elson

  Looking at a familiar planet from a spaceships window. It’s like the things you perceive are quite clear, but your perspective somehow is odd …
  The question is not: Why do you see this? It is: Why  do you see it from here?
  The group exhibition ‘Das Geschehen 3’ at Infernoesque consist of 24 small-scale pictures by 27 Artists (e.g. Moritz Stumm, Pola Sieverding). The pictures are all part of…… a hexagon prism in the middle of the space, you can view them individually through a lense. Nearby there is a DJ and small bar. Becks beer 2 Euro.
  With so many artists and just one picture-installation in the middle of the one-roomed space the visitors clearly are part of the exhibition. What Nicolas Bourriaud called ‚relational art’ we find as a byproduct of the picture-hexagon, young artists and visitors drinking, smoking, talking. Art happening ‘in the heat of inter-human relationships’ … but it is not hot! It’s cold, the ‘coldest May of the millenium’ (Bild-Zeitung). The spaceship gently moves on to another planet.

  

• 27 May 2010

  Heidestraße: gallery weekend afterglow

  by Simon Elson

  Well, well. Christof is inspecting Mark Lammert’s pictures in gallery fruehsorge’s exhibition ‘beauty is booty’. Christof says: There is not much to see on the pictures. Is it minimalistic depictions of bones? Joints? The colored soul life of insects? You can never be sure with abstract art, especially if you are into the Old Masters of Seventeenth Century Dutch painting, like Christof. How much do they cost? ……It’s 1500 Euro per piece, Christof thinks about buying one, but he thinks they are overpriced. Lammert was born in the GDR (DDR) in 1960, he’s not only an artist but a stage designer. His first stage design was for Heiner Müller. Christof thinks, the small oil on paper-pieces at fruehsorge implement that he is a stage designer. I don’t think so. We both agree that we can’t recognize his DDR-origin just by looking at the pictures.
  Back on the street. Rain. But nice rain, you just get wet, but not cold. Not that cold. Hey, it is May 20, about three weeks after gallery weekend, the shows are still on, but the art herds are gone. We were the only visitors at fruehsorge. Even Haunch of Venison’s Damien Hirst blast is quite deserted, which is fine with Christof and me. We like art normal. The desk girl at Haunch of Venison speaks English only. Christof is impressed by the huge space. You get the impression to just sneak through the door of a garage: Then a wide room opens, surely one of Berlins most spectacular spaces. My friend is not into the Young British Artist thing of the 90’s but curious, wants to know how much the zebra in formaldehyde costs – a piece of Damien Hirst’s most famous series. The girl at the desk smiles: The huge installation with the zebra was not in the official sales, it was a private deal, I don’t know. She smiles, she’s absolutely fantastic, so are the two guys who are watching the artworks at Haunch of Venison’s branch near the Halle am Wasser.
  Back in Heidestraße, the project space Infernoesque is closed, they are building up the next show. Quite sad, I wanted Christof to see it, because Haunch of Venison, fruehsorge and Infernoesque represent the Art-‘Kiez’ around the museum Hamburger Bahnhof at Heidestraße perfectly. This permanent ‘Off’-district is about three years old. It is still as strange as it used to be. It’s central, it’s deserted, it’s  nomansland like the whole central Berlin used to be in the 90ies. It’s a microcosm of what Berlin was once – but fewer people with vision now, and more mercantile attitude. Anyway, it is the first time for Christof to be here. He was born 1938 in Tübingen, Schwabenländle, as they say. He is now 72. He likes the galleries and the rough environment. We don’t go back to buy a Lammert. We buy chocolate at Mitte Meer, the Mediterranean supermarket around the corner.
  
  
  
  

• 23 May 2010

  Space experiments

  Just a quick recommendation: Olafur Eliasson’s students at UdK Berlin are showing their sometimes subtle (Laura McLardy’s folded papers), sometimes enormous (Julius von Bismarck’s falling heavy-weight metal sphere) interventions in a huge underground labyrinth in the Pfefferberg area. The space alone is worth the trip down into the basement, and most of the works are actually really good.

  These are the details:

  may 22nd to 29th
  christinenstrasse 18/19. 10119 berlin
  step into the grey triangle of pfefferberg’s carpark
  U2 senefelder platz
  opening on the 22nd: 16.00-24.00 
  open 23rd to 29th 16.00-20.00 
  
  The invitation also says: bring warm coats. It’s about 8 degrees down there. To keep you cool next to all the hot new art.

• 30 Apr 2010

  GW itinerary

  Whoa, Gallery Weekend….

  Tonight we attended Exile, a reliable address for interesting shows, were a bit disappointed by Ein Fest für Boris at Vittorio Manalese, and pleasantly surprised by Available Works at .HBC. For tomorow night, we’d like to recommend Zhivago Duncan at Cruise & Callas, a group show opening at Infernoesque and Tom Burr at MD72. And lots of other stuff. But these ones are worth it, guaranteed.

  Special recommendation for Sunday: The Sunday Fair, »a one day contemporary art event which will gather some of the most noticeable young galleries from Berlin and other parts of Europe under one roof«, featuring Chert and Supportico Lopez and other exciting places.

  See you there!

• 6 Apr 2010

  Street Art meets modernity: Turmkunst.

  
  
  

  Street Art meets modernity: Turmkunst.

• 2 Apr 2010

  Save Hejduk

  

  Please join us in the petition against the disfigurement of  John Hejduk’s Berlin Tower.

  picture: seier+seier+seier

• 31 Mar 2010

  Niche @ Oranienburg

  In springtime, it’s always nice to spend some time in Brandenburg, the federal state surrounding Berlin – best known for its beautiful landscape. On our trip to Oranienburg we found this beautiful railway bridge…

  

  …crossing the Oder Havel canal. The modular construction made of steel beams impressively contrasts the surrounding scenic river. Also, there is a little surprising detail: the steel sections of the railway are surrounded by some kind of synthetic fibre. We have never seen a material like that used to protect the steel from corrosion. It made us think of the fibre glass Charles and Ray Eames used for their chairs.

  

  The things you find when leaving the city!

• 13 Feb 2010

  Niche likes Walther Ruttmann´s Berlin: Die Sinfonie der...

  
  
  

  Niche likes Walther Ruttmann´s Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt.

• 3 Feb 2010

  Machine Love

  Ever seen a chicken fry potatoes in an art space? Us neither. Not until day four of Six Days of New Media, an exhibition project by David Barbarino, Friederike Hamann, Moritz Hirsch, Pola Sieverding and Ulrich Urban. The evening was dedicated to sculpture and installation. Baldur Burwitz presented »Heisser Feger« (loosely translated: »hot chick«) – a huge chicken robot with a motion sensor, dropping fried croquettes onto the art space floor.

  

  Neither had we ever seen… …a barrow coming to life by being transformed into a speaking mini motorcycle, reading passages of artist Nik Nowak’s China trip diary.

  

  Nor a picture rewarding its viewers by playing the guitar, as seen in Claus Elzholz’s installation.

  

  On the same evening, we stumbled over a motion sensored drawing machine at the promising new MMX Open Art Venue by Patrick Timm.

  

  Machines everywhere. Seems like they’re taking over art as well. At least they did a good job!

  Pictures: Stefanie Gerke

• 20 Jan 2010

  Niche and the Hood

  This weekend, altough Paris was visiting, we decided to dedicate ourselves to art spaces in our hood. We were greatly rewarded at FMAB and Feinkost, two galleries we fancy – although commercial – for their program and location.

  In her quite hidden first floor apartment, Fridey Mickel of FMAB showed »Eclectic«: works by Amelie Groenzinger and Viola Lopes. Groenzingers large everyday material sculptures from cables, tree branches. wire and audiotapes are remarkably present and, being hard to grasp, challenge one’s imagination. The surreal photography of Lopes, ……shot with nothing but nighttime light resources, are very poetic stills of quite banal objects such as scaffolds. Their vivid colours make them simply beautiful.

  32 year old Pittsburgh native Fridey Mickel has been involved in the Berlin art scene for about seven years now: She used to run Lifebomb, a Wedding based project space, before she opened FMAB in September 2008.

  

  Viola Lopes: What a difference a day makes.

  Gallery owner Aaron Moulton only came to Berlin in 2007. Together with Mette Ravnkilde Nielsen he runs Feinkost gallery, located in a former delicatessen store in a charming 50’s pavilion on Bernauer Strasse.

  The current show, »Hierophania« by Italian artist Cristiano Mangione, consists of a series of works on canvas, paper and aluminium that look both delicate and brute at the same time. Whether the linen is lined by gesso flakes and flimsy strands, the ink of ballpoint pens turns paper into an iridescent oil slick or the fissured surface of the aluminium testifies the meticulous yet violent intervention of the artist: Their sheer beauty is breathtaking. We strongly recommend contemplating in front of these poetic yet obsessive works.

  

  Cristiano Mangione: Untitled. 2009. Ballpoint pen on paper, 50x42cm.

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