New faces and areas take centre stage at Gallery Weekend Berlin’s twentieth version

Gallery Weekend Berlin (GWB), town’s largest and longest-running industrial artwork occasion, opens its twentieth version at the moment (till 28 April). And whereas Germany’s swiftly gentrifying capital is not as low cost or free-wheeling because it was when the weekend was established in 2005, the anniversary occasion, which counts 55 members, welcomes a bunch of latest areas and faces. 

Outstanding amongst them is GWB’s freshly appointed director, Antonia Ruder. That is her first version since taking on in Could 2023 from Maike Cruse, who left to guide Artwork Basel’s Swiss present. “As Berlin not has an artwork honest, its Gallery Weekend is much more necessary,” Ruder says. “Yearly it proves that it’s price travelling to town.”

Certainly, quite a lot of worldwide collectors are anticipated to come back to city this weekend, making it a key market second. In a transfer not formally affiliated with GWB, however actually making the most of the thrill, mega gallery Tempo will open a Berlin pop-up till 26 June, throughout which period it should stage the primary European present of the Los Angeles-based painter Maysha Mohamedi. That is the newest and surest signal of Tempo making a house within the metropolis, after it established a non-public workplace there final yr. The pop-up is situated within the Schönenberg neighbourhood, inside a gallery cluster additionally that includes Esther Schipper, Judin and Max Hetzler. In a present of neighborhood, Tempo will stage its opening celebration throughout GWB in collaboration with these galleries.

“We couldn’t simply are available as an enormous gallery and open a giant everlasting area; that wouldn’t work in Berlin,” says Laura Attanasio, a senior director at Tempo. She joined in June 2023 to go up its newly established Berlin workplace after working as a companion at König, throughout which period she liaised intently with the Tempo artists Elmgreen & Dragset and Alicja Kwade. All of those artists left König’s roster within the wake of a number of accusations of sexual misconduct made in opposition to its founder, Johann König, in an article revealed by the newspaper Die Zeit in 2022. He denies all accusations. König gallery ceased collaborating in GWB previous to Die Zeit’s article.

So, is Tempo contemplating opening a everlasting Berlin area down the road? “It’s actually a chance,” Attanasio says. “We need to take issues slowly and work on a project-based scale for now.” The mega gallery’s encroachment into the as soon as market-averse Berlin comes as town’s cultural panorama continues to shift on account of quickly rising rents. “Berlin’s artwork scene has been by means of some rocky occasions currently,” Attanasio says. “Cash got here into town and so many artists left, however not sufficient cash has flowed into Berlin for it to succeed in a crucial mass of massive industrial galleries like we’re seeing in Paris.”

That shifting stability is being felt over within the Kreuzberg district, the place two neighbouring mid-sized galleries, Klemm’s and Soy Capitán, are leaving their present places after being evicted. Their landlord is promoting the constructing to non-public actual property builders.

Klemm’s, which has been in its Prinzessinnenstrasse area for a decade, will now shift to bigger location in Leipzigerstrasse, south Mitte, subsequent to a different GWB participant, Sweetwater. Its inaugural exhibition within the new area is a solo present of sculptures by the German artist Jonas Rossmeisl.

“Discovering nice areas for subsequent to nothing in Berlin isn’t the norm anymore,” says Sebastian Klemm. For that reason, he’s specific excited at transferring into the gallery’s new website, a “voluminous” first-floor area in a GDR-era excessive rise with a combined demographic of inhabitants. Reflecting on GWB and its enduring success, Klemm’s enterprise companion, Silvia Bonsiepe, says “State initiatives don’t work in Berlin; it’s at all times non-public actors that get issues carried out right here.”

In the meantime, Soy Capitán gallery, which was established in 2011, shifts to a different location in Kreuzberg, in Lindenstrasse, close to one other GWB participant, KOW. It’s exhibiting early work and drawings by the Berlin artist Reinhard Voigt—made between 1969 and 2001. The gallery’s founder, Heike Tosun, says that though she may be very hooked up to the outdated location, Soy Capitán’s “extra distinguished new area will hopefully enhance the visibility of the gallery and attain a bigger viewers”.

Molitor gallery, which was established in 2022, is collaborating in GWB for the primary time this yr, exhibiting massive summary work by the Berlin-based artist Lisa Jo. And for a lot of out-of-towners, this GWB would be the first alternative to see Ebensperger gallery’s new Kreuzberg area, launched in October 2023, which is situated in a former Nineteenth-century gasometer, later used as an air raid shelter in the course of the Second World Conflict. For this weekend solely it’s staging reveals of Gundula Schulze and Franz West sculptures from the Diethardt Assortment in Graz, Austria.

It’s not simply new names mixing issues up at GWB—Berlin stalwarts, resembling Sprüth Magers, are, too. The gallery is internet hosting a bunch present of 5 East Asian girls artists, none of whom are represented by the gallery. They embody the rising star Mire Lee, from South Korea, who would be the newest artist to take over Tate Trendy’s Turbine Corridor this autumn as a part of the museum’s Hyundai Fee.

Esther Schipper, in the meantime, presents a present of works by the newly signed artist Julius von Bismarck, themed round wolves and mythology, and impressed by a bronze sculpture of a she-wolf within the Capitoline Museums in Rome. Von Bismarck can also be represented by one other Berlin gallery, Alexander Levy, which is staging a concurrent and extra intensive present of his in its Moabit location.