Museums, Galleries and Exhibitions in Berlin

Not only did we see some amazing street art in Berlin but we managed to hit up some museums, galleries and artists exhibitions while we were there.  The Berlinische Galerie was phenomenal.  Not only the art inside, but the building itself was gorgeous.

Berlinische Galerie,  Alte Jakobstraße 124-128 10969 Berlin, Germany

Most notable was Alfredo Jaar's The Way It Is. An Aesthetics of Resistance.  His piece "The Sound Of Silence" addressing the life and work of photo journalist Kevin Carter was challenging.  If you have an opportunity to see his work I highly recommend seeking it out.  It's something to experience.

Upon entering the museum the first work presented was Michael Sailstorfer's Forst.  A large scale (kinetic) sculpture that occupied the entire exhibition space.  Five various trees hung inverted rotating, each leaving fragments haloed on the floor beneath.  What I found most appealing was the sounds. There was a hushed drag on the floor occasionally disrupted by loud creaks as a tree rubbed into the wall with every complete rotation and the clatter of branches that randomly would mingle. Very beautiful, intriguing and poetic.

Michael Sailstorfer

Emilio Vedova's work also stood out for me. I was drawn to this work as it reminded me of one my favorite artists Willem de Kooning.  Emilio Vedova's beautiful, three-dimensional, expressionistic paintings were incredible to walk through and view from all angles.

Another exhibition at the Berlinische Galerie worth mention was Manifesto Collage, presented by About Change.  I've long been a fan of collage and was excited to view the incredible work in this show. Most notable in this exhibition were the works of Tobias Rehberger, Ellen Gallagher, Hannah Höch and Haris Epaminonda.

In addition to the day we spent at the Berlinische Galerie, we spent a day on rented bicycles looking for galleries and other artists exhibitions.  We certainly would have loved to see more. Here's one of the of the highlights of what we did see.

We saw a poster pasted up on a utility box while walking the city one day. Noticed that the dates coincided with our time in Berlin and decided to seek it out.  The group of international artists filled an amazing house with their equally wonderful art.  If you'd like to view more of their work please check out their website: coup-de-des.com

coup de dés

Manifest

"The moment before the dice fall, the moment of the undecided, to keep and preserve this moment in a form of solid state, like in aspic. To imbue potential itself with a kind of substance as if it were a material; which way things fall is not the point.

It’s a matter of finding a situation, a setup, which upholds this notion, this constant (solid) state of always becoming but never getting there; it never arrives: a constant in between.

Trying to find setups for this state. The work included here in   „ coup de dés“ will be in the form of variants rather than bearing the precise repetitive aspect of an edition, so each piece within a series is like another shade or coloring of the previous ones. Making variants is a manner of holding things in suspension. Their variants could find their forms in all conceivable mediums, but how these mediums are treated within each series is something, which will give this whole body of work an overriding unity."

We were also able to peek in the windows of a handful of galleries and got to stroll around a couple too.

We were finally starting to get our barrings on the cities meandering streets just as it was time to hop a plane back home.