Gallery Weekend Berlin ( to has established itself as a highlight in the art calendar, celebrating Berlin’s galleries and artists with its unique format that combines high-profile exhibitions and the experience of city and gallery space. Here are KALTBLUT´s fave exhibitions and galleries you should not miss.
www.gallery-weekend-berlin.de
DITTRICH & SCHLECHTRIEM: Andrej Dúbravský – Anxiety of Subimago
DITTRICH & SCHLECHTRIEM are pleased to present our fifth solo show with Andrej Dúbravský. Titled Anxiety of Subimago, the exhibition opens on the occasion of Gallery Weekend Berlin, Friday, April 28, 2023, and is on view through July 1, 2023. The exhibition is open for previews beginning on Wednesday, April 26, and continuing through Friday, April 28, from 11 AM to 6 PM.
Dúbravský presents an empathetic yet critical study of the environment and its progressing devastation. The Anxiety of Subimago points to an unresolved tension between humankind and nature, resulting in frustrating restlessness akin to an adolescent subimago state—a winged preadult life stage of the delicate-looking mayfly. Over a layered wall, an installation of moulted studio canvases, Dúbravský presents a series of new large-format acrylic paintings on canvas with sweaty renderings of huddled running bodies paired with deserted landscapes and small-format portraits of pollinating bees and insects in varying states of metamorphosis.
(Sex and skin care are two of the artist’s many hobbies outside of art, and his paintings have the same glow you might have after a Hydra facial combined with a three-day celery juice fast.) In his series “Runners,” which depicts a group of men who are running next to each other and have mythical horns attached to their heads, Dúbravský has continuously been referencing the same gay porn video. The paintings are alienated screenshots from an anniversary video of a gay porn company in which thirty porn actors are running on the beach. Three years ago, he had stumbled upon the film and has since chopped it up in small frames, which reappear in the form of paintings—sometimes of majestic size, “Wet sand”, for example, measures nearly three meters in height. This monumentality intertwined with the imagery of nude men, which appear more like souls who jumped out of a fairytale your grandmother read to you as a child—uncertain if they are demonic or angelic—emphasises the various forms of desire and sexual potency inherent to Dúbravský’s paintings, without surrendering to merely sex-driven, animalistic appetites. It is not about sex, and yet it is. It is the same dichotomy as between beauty and darkness and romanticism and the perverse. Dúbravský hybridizes these chasms through criticized smoke, which wafts across both utopian and dystopian gardens.
The above excerpt is from the exhibition essay The Age of Anxiety, contributed by Claire Koron Elat, 2023.
At his most painterly, his outlines bleed into his body, and the borders between expression and accident blur. Some of his compositions teeter right on the precipice of falling apart, held together ‘just so’ by only the most lightly worn technique, and an eye that knows an awful lot about the historical canon. The latter has seen enough to know that the nature of the pictorial imaginary is always in flux. In their many-coloured coolness, Dúbravský’s figures are contemporary subjects.
The above excerpt is from Andrej Dúbravský, Naturist, by KW Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin curator, Nadim Samman, 2022.
On the occasion of the exhibition, the gallery will publish a catalogue of the works with both essays from Claire Koron Elat and Nadim Samman, in German and English, available in May.
dittrich-schlechtriem.com/anxiety_of_subimago
Gallery Weekend Berlin
VIP Preview, Wed, Thur, Fri
26.–28. Apr, 11 AM–6 PM
Opening, Friday
28. Apr, 6–9 PM
Saturday, 29. Apr, 11 AM–7 PM
Sunday, 30. Apr, 11 AM–6 PM
ROBERT JANITZ – SPHINX at KÖNIG BERLIN
29 APRIL – 2 JUNE 2023
On the occasion of Gallery Weekend Berlin 2023, KÖNIG GALERIE is pleased to present SPHINX, a solo presentation of work by Robert Janitz. The German-born, Mexico City-based painter has assembled a large body of unique abstract paintings over the last two decades, and SPHINX will serve as a survey of key works from the artist’s career. Unique to the exhibition is a new reflective construction that will sit inside the Nave space at St. Agnes, creating endless possible moments of correspondence and self-reflection within and between the works and visitors.
Janitz’s unique language of abstract painting is based on a restricted vocabulary of elements: gradient backgrounds and vertical stripes that reflect a steady and methodical movement against their surfaces. The gestural traces of Janitz’s forms operate according to complementary sets of limits – the edge of each canvas and the reach of an individual body. In this way, Janitz’s practice is deeply performative, each singular painting functioning as a kind of transparent document of the actions that were used to create it. One development that becomes clear in SPHINX is the increasing complexity of each work’s composition, reflecting an ever-greater degree of acumen and choreographic competence on Janitz’s part. @robert_janitz
www.koeniggalerie.com/blogs/exhibitions/robert-janitz-sphinx
URBAN NATION – PROJECT M/19 LONELINESS AND OTHER FALSE FRIENDS
URBAN NATION presents the latest group exhibition in the Project M/ series, PROJECT M/19 LONELINESS AND OTHER FALSE FRIENDS, curated by Michelle Houston. The opening is on Thursday, the 27th at 7 PM.
The exhibition acts as a call and response to visitor’s feedback within the Urban Nation’s main exhibition: “TALKING… & OTHER BANANA SKINS” where the Museum guests have been asked to share what topics and thematic, they feel need to be discussed within society and an overwhelming majority presented the theme of mental health.
The artworks presented to deal with the processing of emotions and the strains that modern living puts on mental health. With loneliness as one of the biggest accelerators for poor mental health, in the wake of the isolation experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, more people and especially young people are presenting with issues around mental health such as anxiety, depression and self-harming which is being exacerbated by social media.
In the URBAN NATION Project Space visitors will be immersed in blue. Blue has connotations of feeling sad or isolated. Artists have throughout art history made some of their most poignant work during the blue periods. It is also the colour of the infinite, expansive horizons and evokes calm. The artworks present both the individual stance on the adverse effects of loneliness and mental health but also stand for collective and universal reading. The immersive exhibition presents paintings, installations, and sculptures across the breadth of urban and contemporary art.
POP KUDAMM – current surface
Annique Delphine, Ju Schnee, Elisa Klinkenberg, Janine Kuehn
MeetFrida Foundation x POP KUDAMM Berlin
In all the containers of the CREATIVE VILLAGE, the MeetFrida Foundation is showing “Current Surface”, a group exhibition by four women artists.
How does art make us look beyond the surface and discover the worlds behind a two-dimensional surface? To what extent does the concept of superficiality shape art – or can and must it distance itself from this concept?
In a time characterised by fast-paced life and social media, many things initially seem to be geared towards a superficial “first glance”. The exhibition’s current surface leads the viewer into a surface that is more complex than it appears and creates an unheard-of depth at a second glance.
current surface brings together four artists who have dedicated themselves to the theme in four small, specially conceived solo exhibitions. Ju Schnee, Elisa Klinkenberg, Annique Delphine and Janine Kuehn invite the visitors in the four containers in the entrance area of POP KUDAMM into their visual worlds and present their current surface in their very own way:
Annique Delphine examines society’s rigid view of femininity under the motto “Reclaim the Feminine”, Ju Schnee plays with the discrepancy between haptic surfaces and virtual worlds, Elisa Klinkenberg transforms the place into her own centre court and Janine Kuehn deals with the translation and retranslation of natural surfaces into digital colour surfaces in digital and manual image manipulation.
The surface in current surface is therefore not a rigid construct, but a constantly changing invitation to dive into a depth of art and one’s own unconscious.
Participating artists
Annique Delphine (picture header), Ju Schnee, Elisa Klinkenberg, Janine Kuehn
About MeetFrida:
The MeetFrida Foundation was initiated in 2020 as a novel initiative to support artists and occupy spaces with art in new ways. In the meantime, the foundation implements various exhibitions and artistic interventions at different locations, urban vacancies and public spaces, and also includes the online gallery and platform www.meetfrida.art. Thus MeetFrida established itself as Germany’s leading outdoor and online institution. MeetFrida also sees itself as a platform that connects artists, collectors and art lovers under the motto “Art beyond Gallery”. Currently, around 70 international artists are part of the portfolio.
popkudamm.berlin/en/program/meetfrida
LIQUID EDGES by KOYWE KOLLAGE & TONII REED
Two artists – one space:
KOYWE KOLLAGE and TONNII REED present their first duo exhibition „LIQUID EDGES” during Gallery Weekend Berlin
Under the title „Liquid Edges”, the analogue collage artists KOYWE KOLLAGE and TONII REED will feature a great art selection in their first duo exhibition. Their works will be presented during „Gallery Weekend Berlin” from April 28 to 30 at Brunnenstraße 22.
Two different styles of analogue collagists converge in one space. Tonii Reed explores the area of tension between humans, machines, and nature. A central motif is the digital revolution and its influence on society. In his works, he refers to the deconstruction of humans due to technological influences. His style is described as constructive, geometric, and graphic. Koywe Kollage, on the other hand, searches for the balance between movement, energy, the human body and colour reflected on paper. His style is organic, colourful, and saturated yet detailed.
The fascinating contrast between the two styles of the collagists creates an exciting experience for the viewer. Both artists met in 2021 when Koywe founded „Berlin Collage Platform“, a project that highlights and promotes analogue collages made in Germany. Tonii Reed is the current curator and presents contemporary analogue collage artists based in Germany on the Instagram profile of the Berlin Collage Platform (@berlincollageplatform).
The first duo exhibition will take place during „Gallery Weekend Berlin“ at Brunnenstr. 22, 10119 Berlin from the 28th until the 30th of April. The vernissage will be on Friday 28th of April starting at 18:00. The „Liquid Edges” exhibition features creative artwork on paper, a celebration of contemporary collage art not to be missed. Make sure to check out their work on Instagram at @koywekollage & @tonii.reed.
LIQUID EDGES by KOYWE KOLLAGE & TONII REED
28. – 30. April 2023 Brunnenstr. 22, 10119 Berlin
▪ Vernissage: 28.04. at 18:00
▪ Saturday 29th | 12:00 – 19:00 ▪ Sunday 30th | 12:00 – 19:00
PERES PROJECTS, BERLIN PRESENTS: DYLAN SOLOMON KRAUS – EXHYPNOSIS
28TH APRIL – 16TH JUNE
Opening Reception: Friday, April 28, 6–8 PM
Peres Projects is pleased to present ExHypnosis by Dylan Solomon Kraus (b. 1987 in Ohio, US), the artist’s third solo exhibition with the gallery and the first in Berlin.
If hypnosis leads to an automatic, unthinking way of relating to others and the world, ExHypnosis is the shock of wakefulness which corresponds to a renewed sense of personal agency. The relics, fauna, and celestial phenomena that populate the paintings of Dylan Solomon Kraus reach through the viewer’s gaze as though pulling back a curtain. What was formerly only a symbol becomes a living language—an expressive menagerie as articulate as the zodiac.
Kraus’ paintings insinuate a different way of seeing, which in turn implies a different way of relating to our environment. However otherworldly his canvases might at first appear, to spend time with them is to understand how they refer to the world we daily inhabit. Boats, sun, the moon, horses, intimations of the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii—all of these are freed from the somnolence of myth, and made to trace out the dimensions of a world that mimics our own. Once the cobwebbed shadows of habitual perception are pulled away, a sort of semaphore seems to emanate from all things, spelling out hidden narratives which we’re always already a part of, but was previously unable to translate.
peresprojects.com/exhibitions/8-exhypnosis-dylan-solomon-kraus
