The second week in September, from (11 – 16 2012) becomes a new highlight of the European art calendar as the Berlin Art Week provides art with a new face. Berlin Art Week seeks to underscore the importance of the city as a centre for contemporary art with a platform that presents Berlin’s artists, galleries, and institutions in an innovative way. Placing a focus on the city as a place that attracts visitors from all over Germany and around the world, this combined series of events can put a spotlight on the city, as a place for making art, featuring group and solo shows and spectacular exhibitions.
Featuring privately organized fairs such as abc – Art Berlin contemporary, Preview Berlin Art Fair, Berlin’s major institutions of contemporary art (Akademie der Künste, Berlinische Galerie, C/O Berlin, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Nationalgalerie, Verein der Freunde der Nationalgalerie, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein [n.b.k.] and Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst [NGBK] e.V.), and shows at hundreds of galleries, all with the support of the Senate Chancellery for Economics and the Senate Chancellery for Cultural Affairs.
New art fairs around the world and new alliances among competing art fairs have made it urgently. Necessary to rethink the way art is presented in the city. Berlin Art Week will bring all the major September art events under one roof – the two fairs abc and Preview Berlin and the city’s art institutions can thus offer high quality events that are attractive both for Berlin residents and the international audience alike.
Hundreds of galleries will present new artistic positions in the framework of Berlin Art Week. Major events such as opening receptions, exhibitions, talks and performances, will offer the opportunity for collectors, gallerists, artists, media representatives, and an international public to meet.
For Berlin Art Week, abc has invited New York’s Artists Space to organize two “interventions” and a lecture series. Now being held for the eighth year, Preview Berlin will be expanding its dynamic profile: alongside international newcomers, established galleries have been invited to present their programmes at Hangar2 in Berlin’s former airport Tempelhof; the venue includes both generously dimensioned white cube fair booths and open spaces for expansive installations and performance.
In collaboration with Berlinische Galerie, Alte Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, and the Berlin Artists-in-Residence Programme / DAAD, NGBK will be showing the exhibition Alfredo Jaar: The Way It Is, An Aesthetic of Resistance. The programme at Berlinische Galerie will also include the group exhibition Manifesto Collage with eight prominent artists in dialogue with collages by Hannah Höch and Kurt Schwitters. Haus der Kulturen der Welt will be showing the exhibition Between Walls and Windows. Architectur und Ideologie. n.b.k. will present the first institutional exhibition of Berlin architect and urban theorist Arno Brandlhuber as well as the Berlin-based French artist Agathe Fleury. During Berlin Art Week, an urban policy panel discussion is planned with artists and urban theorists from around the world. C/O Berlin will be showing the exhibition of the Berlin-based photographer Jörg Sasse Fabrics, patterns, architectural detail. Akademie der Künste will present the exhibition ‘The alchemist. Heinz Hajek-Halke. Late Photo-Graphics’ and will award the Käthe Kollwitz Prize 2012 to the media artist Douglas Gordon.
With enormous creativity and verve, the initiative partners are now in the process of planning an exciting week for the contemporary art world, an event that will soon establish itself as a fixture on Berlin’s art calendar.
Kulturprojekte Berlin will be responsible for the overall organization and coordination of the event.