Last week we said goodbye to our lovely intern Eva who is heading back to Prague. Conveniently, the week turned out to be more eventful than ever; the parties lasted longer than usual and there were more openings than we could possibly attend. Here is what the Bpigs team managed not to miss.

 

WEDNESDAY 23.10

Vienna Berlin @ Berlinische Galerie

+11 for the lovely classical music that indicated immediately how high the 'fancy' bar climbed. There were all kinds of people at the opening (we had the chance to observe the variety while waiting outside for the huge queue to shrink a bit) but the well / expensively dressed ones prevailed.

- this is how Berlin looked like in 1920s - not much changed

- this is how the wasted ladies looked like - not much changed here either

I found this to be quite amusing - (obviously creepy) journalists as seen by the eye of an artist.

+9 for Franz Ackermann sneaking in. (A)

I forgot how magnificent some of exhibitions can be. After visiting many different galleries and project spaces it sometimes feels like each one is smaller than the other, but this doesn’t mean there’s a compromise in the quality of work. But when I came here I was impressed with the amount of modernist art, with the wide variety of different kinds of works and their perfect fit installations which use the space well. (E)

 

THURSDAY 24.10

Marco Montiel-Soto - Distanz Ohne Guayabo @ Kinderhook & Caracas

Mr Soto proved his talent for making a nice ambient once again. This exhibition was much more intense that the one we saw a couple of months ago (click!) probably due to the smaller dimensions of the space and everything that was going on there at once (one uncareful move proved to be enough for the installation to collapse. Sorry! -20 for me.)

It was impossibe to wait for our turn to see what was going on up there. We'll leave it to the imagination.

Everybody whishfully noticed the hammock not being in function. But what really counts - drinks were within a hand's reach.

 

Workout 1: Indulgence @ The Gym

The first thing you need to know is The Gym is not a gym. It’s a converted room in a Wedding flat-turned gallery space (you don’t need to bring your runners, except for the stairs). I love the idea of having to get ‘buzzed in’ to an art exhibition. It makes you feel privileged and perverse at the same time. 

Workout 1: Indulgence is The Gym’s inaugural show with three capable artists: Penny Rafferty, Benjamin Spalding, and Kandis Williams. The apartment setting was refreshing as the stuffiness of a gallery-cube can often cut off my circulation. It was a fun opening with acapella singing in the kitchen, animals roaming around, and a v.i.p. room playing rap. Finally an opening where the art was as good as the atmosphere.

 Looking forward to another workout at The Gym (because you don’t need a shower afterward).  +12 for the two dogs that came out and +23 for the owner’s parents being there! (C)

 

FRIDAY 25.10

Sieben - Ostkreuzschule Abschlussausstellung @ Uferhallen

Be pigs! Somebody misunderstood the concept...

+25 for my personal favorite - Anthony Sojka's melancholic set of photographs of an almost deserted island and its undernumbered inhabitants

A very decent Abschlussausstellung by photography school graduates; +30 for the students organising it so well. Besides the exhibition, there was an actual party going on (it rarely succeeds at openings but this one did; the music took over this great space and after the first couple of brave elderly people that came there to have some fun, pretty much everybody joined at the dancefloor). The lazier ones also enjoyed there just sitting and observing all the beautiful people. (A)

 

Hard Ware Soft Core @ Team Titanic

This opening could be described with a single word: hip. What makes it even cooler is the fact that the space continues to work late in the evening and serves well as a surogate bar. Plus points for the foggy room and the plastic animal rug that I accidentally stepped on with all my weight, which was a proof of high PVC quality - it did not crack. After discovering its durability, I honestly wish to own one in my room. (A)

 

SATURDAY 26.10

Would you ever write a tract @ AUTOCENTER

This weekend I made a new friend! His name is “The Invisible Man” by Claus Rasmussen, and while he is the tall-and-silent type who never answers my texts, I always know that if I want to hang out, I can find him at AUTOCENTER.

We met Saturday night at the opening of “Would You Ever Write a Tract”. As the gallery was crowded with strangers, I found myself being a wallflower against the talkative and energetic crowd. The artwork was accommodating, however, with videos I could sit and watch for half-an-hour at a time without having to worry about how to avoid eye contact with everyone in the room. 

My friendship with “The Invisible Man” was due to our similar natures—during the performance of E.E., the crowd had grown loud and chatty, overpowering the artist’s overwhelmingly rhyming poem until a member of the audience shouted, “SHUT UP!!!!!” +19 for altruistic audience members.

Compliant, both of us acted accordingly, catching each other’s eyes in dead silence. I don’t believe in fate, but our friendship seems inevitable, and our bond defies any words. +7 for new friends. (N)