^{Lindsay Lawson (Sunday 12.01 @ Gillmeier Rech)}

...and we are back! So are the galleries of Berlin with new and exciting events. Do not forget to include in your new year's resolutions list: ATTEND MORE ART OPENINGS THIS YEAR (PS. clicking the button on facebook events does not count).

THURSDAY 09.01

19.30 Moving On @ LEAP

WHY: After three great years LEAP marks their last night at Karl Liebknecht Strasse with farewell drinks. Apparently it is time to say goodbye, but before that raise the glass, congratulate and have the last look through the windows of the art space with the best view in Berlin.

LEAP /  Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 13, Berlin 10178, S & U Alexanderplatz / more info

FRIDAY 10.01

17.00 A Planetary Order @ Galerie Christian Ehrentraut 

WHY: A Planetary Order brings together 3 artists who, though working in very different media, all explore meta-narratives of time, landscape and systematic abstraction with a combination of sincerity and playfulness. The works made both with highly traditional means and the most current new media technology hover between seriousness and humour, the romantic and the rational, reduction and sublime scale. The exhibition reflects a growing interest in a return to metaphysical themes, which though sincere, is not without critical distance and awareness of the comical.

Galerie Christian Ehrentraut / Friedrichstrasse 123, Berlin 10117, U6 Oranienburger Tor / open through 15.02 / free entry / more info

18.00 Andreas Fischer - The Head of the Clock @ Johann König, Berlin 

WHY: Andreas Fischer’s first exhibition at Johann König, Berlin, refers to time. With its connotations of the “face of the grandfather clock”, its “brainbox” as it were, can only refer to the artist himself, who plays with the cogs and wheels and so shifts and displaces time. The clockwork mechanism can thus be seen as a symbol of Fischer’s art. Visible and concealed cogs are the engine of his electro-mechanical machinery; objects swinging to and from, pendulum-like, give the rhythm – “tick-tock”.

Johann König, Berlin / Dessauer Strasse 6-7, Berlin 10963, U Potsdamer Platz / show open through 08.02 / free entry / more info

18.00 Manfred Kuttner - Was sollten Sie zuerst sehen? @ Johann König, Berlin

WHY: With „Was sollten Sie zuerst sehen?“ the gallery presents for the first time an exhibition devoted exclusively to Manfred Kuttner’s works on paper, attempting to reveal the forerunners and origins of the neon-coloured painting characteristic of the artist.

Johann König, Berlin / Dessauer Strasse 6-7, Berlin 10963, U Potsdamer Platz / show open through 08.02 / free entry / more info

19.00 What's the Time? @ ZK/U Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik

WHY: Video artist Prof. Maria Vedder has been in charge of the class of Media Art at Berlin University of the Arts for 22 years. She will be celebrating her departure from the university with an exhibition of works by her former students alongside her own. In the exhibition, current works of the alumni will be compared and contrasted with projects from their studies. The exhibition will be opened with a performance by the artists’ group Transforma which works at the interface of performance, art and music.

ZK/U Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik / Siemensstrasse 27, Berlin 10551, U9 Birkenstrasse / show open through 02.02 / free entry / more info

SATURDAY 11.01

19.00 Ditte Gantriis / Rolf Nowotny @ die raum

WHY: For their first exhibition in Berlin, Ditte Gantriis and Rolf Nowotny present a collaborative piece. Their installation plays with the non-functionality of the 5 square meter gallery space of die raum. Establishing a humorous dialogue between caricaturesque body parts, the artists set out to animate the space as a living being.

die raum / Oderbergerstrasse 56, Berlin 10435, U2 Eberswalderstrasse / show open through 02.03 / free entry / more info

19.00 Farhad Fozouni – Can a poem commit suicide? @ Uqbar

WHY: Uqbar starts the new year with an action and large-scale installation of the Iranian artist and designer Farhad Fozouni. His work can be seen as visual poetry. Fozouni is art director at Studio Tehran with clients from the cultural sector, as well as music and cultural magazines, and currently the recipient of a DAAD residency grant in Berlin.

Uqbar / Schwedenstr. 16, Berlin 13357, U8 Osloerstrasse/Pankstrasse / free entry / more info

SUNDAY 12.01

17.00 An Evening of Erotic Poetry @ Gillmeier Rech

WHY: "An Evening of Erotic Poetry" takes place in the recently opened gallery Gillmeier Rech, where Lindsay Lawson will be reading excerpts from the screenplay of her forthcoming short film “The Smiling Rock”. As the second part of her solo exhibition "Sad Hetero World" it reveals a fictional love story revolving aroud an eBay-auctioned smiling rock in the weird age of OkCupid romance and online dating.

Gillmeier Rech / Körnerstraße 17, 10785 Berlin, U1 Kurfürstenstr. / free entry / more info