October is the month for London and Paris to shine bright in the spotlight with their giant art fairs, but Berlin is not so far behind. For those who choose to stick to the home scene, here are some of the most interesting highlights in the next two weeks. 

THURSDAY 08.10

19.00 One Night Stand #5 with Liebig12 & Gitte Bohr @ KW

WHY: Liebig12 and Gitte Bohr invite you to an evening of art, performances and conversations at KW within the framework of the series “One Night Stand. Coming together over their common interest in the politics of aesthetic practices, the two art spaces will present themselves in a common event. The presentation includes the second publication by Gitte Bohr, “Oberfläche und Oberflächlichkeit”, as well as site-specific interventions curated by Liebig12, under the title “Rekursionen der Macht – on how to exit the loop“.

KW / Auguststr. 69, 10117 Berlin, U Rosenthaler Platz / free entry / more info

FRIDAY 09.10

18.00 Brace Position @ HilbertRaum

WHY: “Brace Position” presents collages, paintings, video and installations by Berlin-based artistHannah van Ginkel. The works on display offer a varied insight into a superficially different, sometimes horrifying world. This world is composed of fragments of common things, gathered from everyday life, put into new forms and contexts. Hereby they confront the spectator with the gaping abyss hidden behind the highly polished facade of sanctioned reality.

HilbertRaum / Reuterstr. 31, 12047 Berlin, U Hermannplatz / open through 18.10 / free entry / more info

19.00 Zufall / Chance @ Centrum

WHY: This exhibition approaches ‘chance’ as a definable beginning, furthered by repetition, consolidated in continuity. It brings together photography (Eva Vuillemin), drawing, performance art (Rike Horb) and sound installation (Matthias Krieg) which will be accompanied by a screening of Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Przypadek (Chance) and lectures on chance as understood by philosophy, physics and art history.

Centrum / Reuterstrasse 7, 12053 Berlin, U Rathaus Neukölln / open through 01.11 / free entry / more info

19.00 25 Karat – Goldrausch 2015 @ Kunstquartier Bethanien

WHY: For 25 years, the Goldrausch Project for Women Artists has worked to redress the gender imbalance in the art world. The anniversary exhibition will show work by this year's scholarship recipients. The show includes multidisciplinary conceptual pieces as well as photography, sculpture, drawing, film and video, installation, monotype, and painting. In addition, a large sculptural archival installation by Folke Köbberling will present comprehensive material on former participants.

Kunstquartier Bethanien (Studio 1) / Mariannenplatz 2, 10997 Berlin, U Kottbusser Tor / open through 25.10 / free entry / more info

19.00 Armin Chodzinski – "Malkontentista oder Hans Castorp II" @ Uqbar

WHY: Armin Chodzinski virtuously combines formats, contents, and contexts in his multi-faceted work. He condenses fragments of pop culture, advertising and entertainment television, corporate anthems, class struggle, organization theory, art and business into large-scale installations, videos, radio broadcasts or lecture performances. His exhibition at Uqbar combines drawings of graphs and charts, a fog machine, a self-made flag, and “The Magic Mountain” by Thomas Mann.

Uqbar / Schwedenstr. 16, 13357 Berlin, U Osloer Str. / open through 15.11 / free entry / more info

THURSDAY 15.10

18.00 Johannes Paul Raether -  "Transformellae ikeae – Constructing The Bio-Techno ReproTribe." @ District Berlin

WHY: At the center of this project by the artist Johannes Paul Raether, which includes exhibition, event and performances, is the character Transformella, Queen of Debris and Surrogate Mother of theInstitute for Reproductive Futures. She is one of the multiple fictive identities and hysterical-subversive drag characters that Systema identitekturae has cyclically developed since 2009. Raether’s performance system assembles embodiments, materializations, and visualizations of social paradoxes and catastrophic political actualities.

District Berlin / Bessemerstr. 2-14, 12103 Berlin, U Alt-Tempelhof / open through 13.12 / free entry / more info

19.00 Wechselraum @ Meinblau Projektraum

WHY: Ulrike Mohr invites artists coming from the fields of performance, sound and drawing for a collaboration to transform and dissolve her site-specific (char)coal work at project space Meinblau. Her new work will be the starting point and working material for each collaborating artist. The term “Wechselraum” comes from relay race (Staffellauf) and defines the zone in which one runner hands off the baton to the next runner. In reference to traditional (char)coal making, ongoing for many days, the exhibition is planned as a non-stop process.

MEINBLAU project space / Christinenstrasse 18-19, 10119 Berlin, U Senefelderplatz / open through 18.10 / free entry / more info

SATURDAY 17.10

16.00 Meet the artists & screening @ Scotty Enterprises

WHY: Galleria Huuto (Helsinki) and Scotty Enterprises (Berlin) are engaged in an artistic exchange, based on a process of translation of imagery. Each artist constructs a work that references a work of one of the artists from the other gallery. For the last day of the show, Scotty Entrprises will screen a selection of videos, and you will get the chance to meet the artists from Hutto: Satu Rautiainen, Kasper Muttonen, and Paula Puoskari.

Scotty Enterprises / Oranienstr. 46, 10969 Berlin, U Moritzplatz / open through 17.10 / free entry / more info

19.00 Overcast @ Kuckei + Kuckei

WHY: Jenny Brillhart´s work is concerned with a dialogue between made and found spaces and forms, and their relationship to place, structure and organization. She uses traditional methods of still life, studio practice, photography and paint to inform each object or painting, bringing to it a new history and diary of existence, and then proposing to forward that record to future unknown contexts. Concurrently, the gallery shows an exhibition with works by Hlynur Hallsson.

Kuckei + Kuckei / Linienstraße 158, 10115 Berlin, U Rosenthaler Platz / open through 19.12 / free entry / more info: Jenny Brillhart - Hlynur Hallsson