Berlin might have got 99 problems, but shortage of events is certainly not one. In the middle of CTM and transmediale, with Berlin Fashion Week behind us and Berlinale coming up, we could talk ages about what you should not miss, and what is devastatingly overlooked in the abundance. As always, here we try to bring up the not-so-obvious gems, and (as always) remind you with our Music Tips that there are also wonderful things going on in the neighbor scene. 

 

WEDNESDAY 28.01

17.30 transmediale - "Capture All" @ Various locations

WHY: Berlin's festival year starts with transmediale - a year-round project that draws out new connections between art, culture, and technology. As a leading international culture festival, it offers an overwhelming five-day program including conferences, screenings, exhibitions, performances, and workshops. Under the title "Capture All", it aims to investigate the quantification of life, work and play and its limits. The activities of the festival aim at fostering a critical understanding of contemporary culture and politics as saturated by media technologies.

Various locations / ongoing until 01.02 / more info

 

THURSDAY 29.01

19.00 Patrick Lichty – "Artifacts" @ DAM Gallery

WHY: In his solo exhibition "Artifacts" the American artist Patrick Lichty presents results of his longterm work with digital media. Lichty is a conceptual artist, curator, and theorist exploring how media shape our perception of reality as well as the borders between the digital and the material. The core of the show is based on his video series "8 Bits or Less" and the series of tapestries and print objects which evolved from this work.

DAM Gallery / Neue Jakobstraße 6, 10179 Berlin, U Heinrich-Heine-Str. / open through 21.03 / free entry / more info

 

19.00 Bilderbuch Deutschland: Der kalte Krieg @ Gitte Bohr

WHY: As a continuation of the theme of western German aesthetics, Gitte Bohr invites to another collage of film clips and commentary, this time focusing on the aesthetics of the Cold War. The tense situation at the height of the nuclear stalemate, as well as an ongoing propaganda war, marked German image production. Gitte Bohr will give you an introduction to this selection at West Germany (Skalitzer Str. 133) - where else?

Gitte Bohr / Skalitzerstr. 133, 10999 Berlin, U Kottbuser Tor / free entry / more info

 

18.00 Jacques H. Sehy – "Berliner Kopfe" @ Haus am Lützowplatz

WHY: For Jacques H. Sehy, the analog black & white series of photographic portraits "Berliner Kopfe" is a tribute to an impressive cultural scene and its protagonists. The selection of the portrayed is an essential aspect of three years of artistic work. 100 Berlin heads are people with whom Jacques H. Sehy made a contact in different ways. It is thus not only a topographically limited selection of people, but also determined by the invested (life-) time of the artist.

Haus am Lützowplatz / Lützowplatz 9, 10785 Berlin, U Nollendorfplatz / open through 01.03 / free entry / more info

 

FRIDAY 30.01

19.00 Andrea Pichl – "Gun Hill Road" / Knut Henrik Henriksen – "Tools" @ L40

WHY: Three tower sculptures - ambivalent structures between display and work of art, whose components interlock like Eames famous House of Cards, are the backbone of Andrea Pichl’s latest comment on the often derided architecture of mass-produced building systems. They are stage and setting for her steadily increasing collection of architectural photographs taken in modernist towns all over the world.
In "Tools" or "sticks to measure volume to be rebuilt somewhere else", Knut Henrik Henriksen gives away some secrets of his trade. The site-specific installation is an attempt to generalize the concepts of length, area, and volume by closely entwining construction and aesthetics in a set of measuring-objects specifically made by the artist.

L40 / Linienstrasse 40, 10178 Berlin, U Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz / open through 22.02 / free entry / more info: "Gun Hill Road" / "Tools"

 

21.00 Berlin Graphic Days #5 - Opening Party @ Konzulát

WHY: Lately, Konzulát is where the party is at, especially when it comes to art events and their pre- and afterparties. The fifth Berlin Graphic Days are riding this wave the night before the big jolly market starts at Urban Spree. A very special opening night includes exhibition, live painting, live shows and DJ sets, as well as streetfood bites and Vodka sips.

Konzulát / Leipziger Str. 60, 10117 Berlin, U Stadtmitte / more info

 

SATURDAY 31.01

19.00 Cycle 4: Chris Evans / Rimini Protokoll @ PRAXES

WHY: The fourth exhibition Cycle at PRAXES is dedicated to the practices of Chris Evans and Rimini Protokoll. It presents the first extensive investigation of the collective Rimini Protokoll in an art institution, drawing on a carefully orchestrated crash between live actions, exhibitions, and the making of a book. Concurrently, Cycle 4 presents works by Chris Evans, who operates through fronts of affiliations and loose collaborations evading decisive definitions of author- or ownership, and persistently laces this badland with poetic notes.

PRAXES Center for Contemporary Art / Alexandrinenstrasse 118-121, 10969 Berlin, U Prinzenstr. / open through 13.06 / free entry / more info

 

19.00 Reset / Restart @ Vesselroom Project

WHY: In relation to the work of Henry David Thoreau, Mit Borrás curates an exhibition together with a distrustful generation of artists and proposes a reconsideration of the foundations of a society and an imposed model. „Resist / Restart“ talks about renunciation as a dignified action, and could be interpreted as a reflection on disobedience against dynamic events. The five artists (Christoph Both-Asmus , Skugga Gudlaugsdottir, Rachel Lamot, Clement Loisel, and Mit Borrás) walk between the analysis and rejection of old socio-cultural paradigms, such as efficiency, welfare, stability and modernity.

Vesselroom Project / Adalbertstr. 4 (1.OG), 10999 Berlin, U Kottbuser Tor / open through 27.02 / free entry / more info

 

THURSDAY 05.02

Berlinale Film Festival @ Various locations

WHY: Every year in February, Berlin becomes the world's biggest movie star. Now for the 65th time, the city attracts celebrities and movie buffs to a ten-day cinematic fete with major international productions, experimental independent films, art-house cinema and, of course,  many afterparties. This year the limelight is on Forum Expanded, the artiest part of the festival program, which celebrates its 10th anniversary. Make sure to get your tickets to the red carpet marathon on time; the sale starts on 02.02.

Berlinale / ongoing until 15.02 / more info

 

FRIDAY 06.02

19.00 Framework 5: O.K. – The Musical (Pre-Production) @ Insitu

WHY: Christopher Kline will present an ever-evolving exhibition at insitu. Through workshops with locals, Kline will build props, rehears songs and produce content for his ongoing project ‘O.K. the musical’ based on his hometown of Kinderhook, United States, home to Frank Serpico, Ichabod Crane and the Kinderhook Creature.

Insitu / Kurfürstenstrasse 21-22, 10785 Berlin, U Kurfürstenstrasse / open through 21.02 / free entry / more info

 

19.00 Zkotty – ZK/U @ Scotty Enterprises

WHY: Scotty Enterprises is offering its space in Kreuzberg to current ZK/U (Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik ) fellows for the presentation of their research, artistic outcomes, and work in general. The first collaborative exhibition is focusing on works related to current developments in Berlin observed and digested by: Yoo Byongseo, Rika Febriyani, Luca Forcucci, and Kyung-Lae Oak.

Scotty Enterprises / Oranienstr. 46, 10969 Berlin, U Moritzplatz / open through 21.02 / free entry / more info

 

SATURDAY 07.02

19.00 Carla Guagliardi – „Opera“ @ die raum

WHY: The recent series of projects with Brazilian artists in die raum momentarily draws to a close, with an exhibition by Carla Guagliardi. „Opera“ is the continuation of an earlier project by the artist, which involves a block of ice and an old wooden table dynamically suspended in space. In this installation, the influence of duration on space and material articulates a sense and perception of life as fluid, and continually changing, giving a poetic measure of time.

die raum / Oderbergerstrasse 56, 10435 Berlin, U Eberswalder Str. / open through 08.03 / free entry / more info