Pola Sieverding Selected Press

signs and symbols 102 Forsyth Street, New York, NY | www.signsandsymbols.art https://www.monopol-magazin.de/orson-pola-sieverding-nocturnal?slide=1

Exhibition "Nocturnal" The parallel world that is missing

"Nocturnal" is the name of the exhibition that the siblings Pola Sieverding and Orson Sieverding have just opened in the Kanya & Kage project space in Berlin. And it deals in a convincing and painful way with what we are missing right now: the parallel world of the night. Orson Sieverding runs the techno label Version, is a DJ and music producer, in the Berlin club Ohm next to the Tresor he regularly invited to label evenings. Until Corona brutally slowed him down.

Now his sister Pola Sieverding, photographer, installation and media artist, has invited him to this joint homage to the club scene. It is the first time that the siblings officially appear or exhibit together. However, from childhood, together with their parents Katharina Sieverding and Klaus Mettig, they learned that artistic work can be a family project . The prints for the Berlin exhibition have now also been produced in the large photo studio of the Mettig / Sieverding family in Düsseldorf.

Ecstasy and depressing presence

The photos of the DJs, from the Berlin legend Mark Ernestus to the British artist Ikonika to the Berlin artist Clara Badu and Orson herself, have been taken by Pola Sieverding at Orson's events over the past few years. The pictures do not show the dancing crowd or heroic master of ceremonies, but portray an extremely diverse community of artists in the merging of rhythm, complexity, movement, emotion and ecstasy. Actually there is a ban on photography in clubs, explains Orson, but with his family of artists in the background, it was clear to him that these scenes and these moments also had to be captured in pictures.

Photo: Courtesy Pola Sieverding and Kanya Kage In a video in the other room he contrasts the depressing present: Pola Sieverding "Nocturnal", 2020 Here he shows the abandoned entrances to Berlin clubs , from the vault to the About: Blank to Berghain. Opposite is the photograph "Purple Haze" by Pola Sieverding, which aims once again at the heart of the night: In the reddish backlight, a being appears in a long dress, whose face we cannot see and whose gender cannot be defined - as a cipher of a freedom, theirs Worth not to forget to stay while

Text by Date photography the club doors. Elke Buhr 25.10.2020

The exhibition "Nocturnal" by the siblings Pola and Orson Sieverding leads into the brutally thwarted Berlin club culture. It shows a freedom that we must Orson Sieverding and Pola Sieverding: "Nocturnal", not forget during the corona pandemic Kanya Kage , Berlin, until November 29th every Thursday from 4pm to 7pm or by appointment It goes down a few steps into a cellar. The light sculpture in the middle of the room makes every light fluff on the jacket shine and conjures up afterimages from other times: black light. Artificial fog billows in the next room, and the lighting is currently changing from red to green. You could almost think that you are where nobody is: in a club. But what appears shadowy from the haze are not boxes, but photos. They show faces of people at mixing consoles, which shine out of the darkness of the night, in an aureole of concentration and sound. Elke Buhr http://www.literaturundkunst.net/der-kulturbetrieb-im-pandemie-schock/

LITERATURE LYRIC ART PHOTO / FILM ARCHITECTURE CARTE BLANCHE FRONT PAGE "The culture industry in No. 86 pandemic shock" 09/2020 By Julieta Schildknecht Literature + art Editorial Three art exponents talk about the effects of the imprint coronavirus pandemic on the cultural scene in Authors Germany. Johann König on new trends that he archive implements in his galleries around the world. Pola Contact Sieverding talks about her photo projects and Left exhibitions as well as the role models women are support confronted with. Christian Kerepeszki on the visible Facebook consequences for television and theater production Suchen and for his children. art Ueli Sigg. Hong Kong Museum. Johann König, Pola Interview with Pola Sieverding, Photo-Ton-Video Kunst Sieverding, Christian Kerepeszki. Japanese woodblock JS: Do you work a lot with the computer? prints Fantastic women. PS: My studio practice is different than perhaps that of painters Annemarie von Matt. Olaf Eliasson or sculptors, in that I do my research and post-production here in Leonor Antunes, Zurich Art Prize 2019. Roman the studio and otherwise go to places or sets where I take photos Clemens. Camille Graeser. or film. David Lynch. Stanley Kubrick, Louise Bourgeois & Pablo Picasso. Niko Pirosmani. Helen Dahm. Hugo Weber JS: Do you still work with your brother Orson Sieverding?PS: / Giacometti. John Updike. yes. My brother is a musician and runs the Version label, Bauhaus Weimar. Bruegel in Vienna. produces records, organizes club nights at the OHM, a club in a Koki Tanaka. Pipilotti Rist. Oskar Metsavaht. disused power plant in Berlin. He often makes the sound for my Per Kirkeby Bruce Nauman, videos and I, in turn, have been documenting the development of Schaulager. Harald Szeemann. his label, the nights and artists he invites for over 10 years. At the Blind passengers same time he also works photographically and filmically. We are Jeanne Mammen. Georg Baselitz. currently preparing a joint exhibition which will open on October Louvre Abu Dhabi. Rubens and the New 22nd at KanyaKage in Berlin and which will bring together our World in Vienna. Expressionism Aargauer interests in the relationship between sound, architecture as a Kunsthaus. Action! Kunsthaus Zurich. social space and bodies in one exhibition for the first time. So far Ian Anüll House for Art, it has only existed in the form of, let's say performative moments, Uri. Niklaus von Flüe. Prado he put on music and I projected visuals for it. Basel. Pavel Pepperstein. Swiss Pop Art. Monet. Kirchner. Collection of the Kunstmuseum Basel. JS: Then there is a dialogue between you two. And your mother, Blue rider Art Museum Chur Katharina Sieverding, or your father, Klaus Mettig, also work Sonja Sekula. Art Museum Basel with you, don't they? New vision. Photography. DADA different. PS: In certain situations we are a production family in the best Jean Dubuffet. Camille Graeser. sense of the word ... but it is not the case now that there are Michael Buthe. Otto collaborations or joint work. We are four artists in one family. Morach. Ben Vautier. Tomi Ungerer. Andreas Gursky Cy Twombly JS: How is your mother doing, does she also do work? PS: Yes, of course. She is currently preparing a large exhibition in Hamburg in the Deichtorhallen, which will open in November. She is fine, she works a lot and, as always, is in a good mood.

JS: When did you start exhibiting as a professional artist? PS: I graduated from the UdK in Berlin in 2007, after that I traveled a lot and started doing exhibitions.

JS: Are you part of a generation of post-clubbers or how would you define yourself? PS: I don't think I would define myself that way, but I've been in Berlin since 2000 and this whole club scene plays an important role. I have already noticed them very actively and have been out a lot. It's a social milieu that has always been important for my work. That interested me and was important for my entire socialization. And of course for Berlin too, it has decisively defined this place. There was this room for that to play that role more than it does now. Everywhere there are clubs and such, but here it has already very much defined what happens, and also had a meaning regardless of the fact that you want to have fun on the weekend, but taken on a meaning as a social space in which it is possible to design different roles, life plans, attitudes, and in which music as language, as expression, has a meaning. You can still feel that, even if it is more institutionalized by now. At the moment everything is lying idle anyway and you have to see where this is developing ... of course that also applies to Orson, because the space has completely collapsed. With the live moments, what is an integral part of what he actually does is gone: creating a sonic space and moment in which you can experience something together.

JS: Have you seen how America is doing with this contest between DJs and singers, the webinars, through Verzuz, or Benji B in England. Was that also the case in Germany? People like D-Nice, for example, started to bring the music scene live-indoors, inside-out during the lockdown because there was no longer any exit. PS: Yes, it is the same in many areas, in art too, that there are virtual tours or viewing rooms or something like that everywhere. Orson does this in part with its Internet radio show, albeit independently of the lockdown.

JS: What's her name? PS: Version radio show at callshop radio and is once a month. That was always an internet radio and a live stream. It's interesting, but not the same as a live moment. I've looked at a lot of exhibitions online, but somehow it doesn't affect me that much and I also find it difficult to access. It's something different when you're physically in front of a picture or piece of culture, or whether you're in a club with other people or in the theater, all of that falls away. JS: Yes, I have seen with some collectors that many who never had the opportunity to go to a trade fair because of the distance, millennial buyers, they enjoyed themselves and bought a lot. But for many galleries it was very difficult. Most have reacted in this way too, finding that you cannot see a work of art properly if you are not physically there. PS: yes. It is a generation that grew up with and uses virtual space as a matter of course, and for whom access is probably more natural.

JS: That's interesting because you work a lot digitally. Is digital photography your medium? PS: My medium, if you will, is mainly photography and moving images. But I originally come from analog photography, and it always turns out to be analog. It's always about material, not only in terms of content, but also about how it ultimately materializes: how do I print my work, on which paper, in which size ratio, with which colors etc. and in this respect there has always been a moment when it becomes haptic, like an object, even if the source material is digitally photographed.

JS: And the textures are important to you ... PS: Yes. What I photograph is always about skin, surfaces, materials.

JS: the dimensionality ... PS: Yes. The sizes, the proportions when you stand in front of them are important. Are they based on my height, for example, or lager than life, or are these small Polaroids that create an intimacy in viewing, provoke an approach.

JS: What's that behind you? It looks pretty theatrical ... PS: This is a draft for an outdoor work. That should have been realized in September. Now it has been postponed until the coming year.

JS: That means arena right? PS: Exactly. It is an installation made up of three formal elements, a platform, light that illuminates this platform, and a camera aimed at this scenario. The platform, which consists of a six by six meter square and thus relates to the dimensions of a boxing ring, creates an environment, a setting in addition to the existing public space. During the day, the platform serves as a basis for various performances. In the time from sunset to sunrise, the spotlights turn on and transform the platform into a stage for all sorts of nighttime activities and protagonists and projections that you can have on an illuminated, unplayed stage. JS: The club scene is also very theatrical ... PS: ... and performative. Clubs are magical places at best.

JS: What are your topics? Gender? PS: Above all, there is a lot about the body, about body staging, about the body as a carrier of desire, of fantasies, but also of social conditioning, social conditions, about narratives that are inscribed in our bodies and how we speak to them or them read.

JS: Tension, right? A lot of tensions ... PS: Yes, also a balance of power. And then again and again it is about architecture as a space that is related to bodies. The way I photograph architecture, I actually see it as a body.

JS: When do you photograph architecture? I see a few photos there. PS: It's such a mood, it's still part of ...

JS: Arena? PS: yes. In 2006 I took photos of architecture or architectural structures in New York and such, but those were attempts. In 2011 I was invited to Lisbon for a residency and to design an exhibition in a special place, the Espaço Lumiar Cité. I wasn't there for long and realized that my previous way of working with people did not work in the short time. The place was one of the largest urban renewal projects in Europe, Alta de Lisboa, right at the airport. They wanted a mix of social groups and tried to bring together social housing and condominiums in one building complex. That didn't really work in real life and yet again separated into blocks, that's why there is now one block that is middle class owned property and the other is social housing. It was severely separated in this narrow space. And then I made a portrait and a video about it. In the video I only scanned the facades. Aesthetically it has references to considerations and the like. A. Minimal Art, the colors, the surfaces and how concrete and glass alternate. You don't see a single person and yet it's about them, about the space they live in, that speaks of the attempts to organize them.

JS: Did you take these photos of boxers at the same time as the wrestlers? PS: No, they came afterwards. And with the sculptures, I'm back to the origin, so to speak.

JS: Did you take these photos of boxers at the same time as the wrestlers? PS: No, they came afterwards. And with the sculptures, I'm back to the origin, so to speak. JS: That is very nice, this transparent effect ... PS: That which interested me there. was this body ideal, what we see and learn and what such a collective agreement is, derived from Greek sculpture, among other things. And at the same time, many of the sculptures we know are actually injured bodies. But we think and “see” them completely and ideally. Whereas it is still the case that a lot of things that deviate from an ideal body ﬁnd little visibility in living bodies. And then I was looking for a material that, on the one hand, had a lightness compared to the stone-making of the sculptures and, on the other hand, also referred to the projections that exist on bodies, and I managed to make prints on polyester ﬁlm.

JS: What else I wanted to ask about the pandemic ... PS: (laughs) The pandemic, yes.

JS: How was it with you? Did you keep working then? You actually had an exhibition, but it was postponed, has it become more intense or how did you feel about the other artists? Was it sad? PS: I was part of a team that designed and planned the festival düsseldorf photo + in Düsseldorf with almost 60 exhibitions and related events, etc. for many months and curated the exhibition Bodies That Matter at the NRW Forum in Düsseldorf. The opening was on March 13th, and everything was closed on March 14th. Of course, that was a shame for the work and the other artists I invited. But so it was for everyone. It's frustrating. But what the pandemic means socially, how it is possibly used to make politics, to re-establish power relations, to structure society, is, I think, more decisive.

JS: Or to restructure? PS: yes.

JS: I was at the techno bunker, the Boros Collection, this Sunday. That was very impressive. You can see this room, this huge building and who is living there now and who this person was and what kind of art is there. I wasn't that happy. And do you see that with the pandemic too? Compared to the art scene or the art market, and the artists who live from it. Suddenly everything is destroyed. PS: Of course, it is a great challenge for the entire cultural sector to see how it will continue. I believe that culture actually has to be experienced. So we're back to the webinar or whatever, streaming and online viewing and I don't know what. I believe that culture takes place primarily in experience, also in physical perception. And that's gone. Of course it does. JS: And your role as a woman in relation to the pandemic? PS: (laughs) Well, I would say my role as a person or a citizen, as part of society.

JS: Are there many women of your age or generation who produce art? PS: Yes, in my social environment, many women are so-called culture producers.

JS: What do you mean by your social environment? PS: My friends, colleagues, my contemporaries.

JS: How many have gone abroad like you? PS: Quite a few, but there are also many who come from abroad and live and work here.

JS: Which galleries do you work with? PS: In Munich with Knust Kunz gallery editions and here in Berlin with OFFICE IMPART.

JS: Any final message? For readers who are not so familiar with your work. Everything is new, changing. The situation of the art market, the whole market has been destroyed. Or how do youposition yourself, your entire generation, how badly have you been affected? PS: That could turn out to be another whole conversation and would certainly have to be sorted ... As far as my work is concerned, a lot of exciting new things and collaborations are emerging: I am working with my voice for the first time, I speak in a radio play by Susanne Sachsse, Marc Siegel and Xiu Xiu for the Styrian Autumn and shoot a short film with Marc Comes, which premieres in October and in which I play the main role. As far as the connection between the global and personal situation is concerned, I think it is time to sharpen the senses. https://www.monopol-magazin.de/im-boxring-findet-pola-sieverding-epische-koerper

During her studies at the UdK in Berlin, Pola Sieverding turned roles and body images upside down with her camera. One of her first films was the four-channel installation "Girls with Guns", for which she equipped four fellow students and friends with firearms had her pose with it without further instruction. How does your interest in architecture connect with that? She is currently contributing to an exhibition on the architect Gustav Peichl in Vienna with artistic architectural images. In two earlier videos, "Close to Concrete I + II", she filmed the facades of apartment blocks in Lisbon and Berlin, suggestively highlighted with electronic loops. Pola Sieverding is about organizing bodies - be it in their homes or literally on the street: For a next project, she will be working on the Düsseldorf red light district this summer. One shop there, she says, was initially a grocery store, then a corner bar, sex shop and milieu meeting point with a boxing ring. "For me," says the artist, "what it means to use the body to make ends meet."

"Pola Sieverding: The Epic", Hatje Cantz , 96 pages, 25 euros Illustrated book Epic bodies

Text by Date Books Silke Hohmann 03/15/2018

A new book brings together Pola Sieverding's photographs from a Berlin wrestling club

While there is a lot of talk about gender, ambivalences, bodies and representation, strangely, hardly anyone talks about wrestling. This show martial arts is laughed at as a curious end of the line, the last step in the career, the jungle camp for professional athletes.

Wrestling is an occupation in which many current questions flow together in a very small space. The artist Pola Sieverding went back to the events of the Berlin Wrestling Club for weeks. In a circus tent, the spectators sit close to the ring, the arena and stage are for a staged duel between good and evil. A carefully rehearsed battle unfolds over several episodes. "I'm interested in the classic body ideal and how it is broken," says Pola Sieverding. "It's the image of the strong straight man, at the same time there are these harlekinesque costumes made of spandex." In front of Pola Sieverding's camera, muscles become sculptures and the choreographies become pictures like old master paintings.

Her photographs are particularly charged when it is no longer clear whether it is a martial fighting spirit or a tender embrace, skin on skin. In search of this intensity, Pola Sieverding looked for two boxers whom she had to compete against each other for a video. She drove around the two of them with the camera car and filmed them at 200 frames per second - material for a dense, almost physically overwhelming film in epic slow motion. How the two are in a clinch, briefly turning from opponents to partners, sharing the exhaustion and then starting over again, is more than martial arts. "The Epic" was the title of her show at the Aachener Kunstverein, for which Hatje Cantz has now published the catalog. Silke Hohmann https://www.profifoto.de/szene/notizen/2018/02/20/pola-sieverding-the-epic-2/

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Helmut Newton One Hundred Hatje Cantz September 11, 2020 Pola Sieverding: The Epic BABY SUMO

20th February 2018 October 28, 2020 Iconography of the ﬁght - two men in the boxing ring, muscular torsos collide, seem to remain almost static, epic, heroic. The recordings by the artist Pola Sieverding are the dramatic and modern staging of archaic test of strength and body cult, of boxing and wrestling, presented in the volume "The Epic" published by Hatte Cantz.

With the book “The Epic”, Pola Sieverding questions the relationship between documentation and staging. It is not the ﬁght itself, but its imagery that makes the drama of winning or being defeated tangible in an instant, «writes Kirsten Maar in The Epic. Sieverding, b. 1981, who graduated as a master class student at the University of the Arts in Berlin, repeatedly deals with the relationship between man and body in her work. The Epic Ed. Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, texts by Ben Kaufmann, Michael Kohtes, Kirsten Maar, Maurice Funken Ger

Price 25 euros https://artefuse.com/2016/04/10/pola-sieverdings-the-epic-at-nak-neuer-aachener-kunstverein-in-germany/

BERLIN Pola Sieverding’s THE EPIC at NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein in Germany

04/10/2016 by TINA SAUERLAENDER

Installation view, solo exhibition “The Epic“ by Pola Sieverding, NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Germany, © Pola Sieverding, VG Bild-Kunst / © Photo: Klaus Mettig, VG Bild-Kunst

The NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein presents “The Epic”, Berlin-based photo and video artist Pola Sieverding’s rst institutional solo exhibition.

The exhibition “The Epic” presents a selection from her “Arena” series, in which Pola Sieverding questions the correlation between documentation and staging. The title “The Epic” already hints at the comprehensive visual-narrative storyline nature of her works, which seem to be subject to certain regulations, comparable to the structuring of a text by verse metre.

In pose, costume and choreography the artist emphasizes the iconography of The Epi ,c Pola Sieverding, NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein wrestling, at the same time scrutinising the validity of narration as well as of 03.04.-05.06.201 ,6 © Pola Sieverding, VG Bild-Kunst © Photo:Klaus Mettig, VG Bild-Kunst pictures in general and photography in particular. Furthermore for the exposition at the NAK the lm “The Epic” came into being. It pays special attention to the cinematographic vocabulary of precise camera work to high-contrast montage. In doing so the formalistic

aesthetics of the boxers’ naked upper parts of the bodies are accentuated in front of a dark background and the usage of slow-motion- techniques simultaneously integrates the spectator positively into the event.

Pola Sieverding arranges her photographic works into spatial casts equal to the nature of an artist’s workshop. By positioning

photography like sculptural work in front of a wall, the spatial limitation of the walls is entirely occupied via the medium of th e photographic mural, so that three-dimensionality and narration can be anticipated like in a relief frieze. Moreover, in the architect ural design of the tribune, which is placed in the upper levels of the exposition, a concrete reference to the setting of athletic compet itionsand their historical connotation is given.

Pola Sieverding, ARENA #10, 2014, Pigment print on paper, 117,8 x 174,4 cm © Pola Sieverding, VG Bild-Kunst; Courtesy Anna Jill Lüpertz Gallery, Berlin

In the exhibition “The Epic” Pola Sieverding translates the staging of the mythological ght into a contemporary discourse about questions and strategies of a medial-aesthetic perception of body, sex and nally identity.

Pola Sieverding is a visual artist working with Photography, Film and Video. Her works are circling around questions of representation and image production within cultural formations that are motivated by various concepts of desire and identication processes. The idea of portraiture in terms of an interpretive reading of the inscriptions of culture in the human body is a recurring moment in her work. Her most recent work concentrates on the Arena as a theatrical space in which bodies become images, phantasies become reality and the relationship between performer and audience is imminent of its architecture. She studied at Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, Surikov Institute Moscow and attained her MFA at the University of the Arts Berlin in 2007. She has been invited as an Artist in Residence to Ramallah, Prague and Lisbon and as a visiting lecturer at the International Academy of Art Palestine. She has exhibited internationally at Aram Art Gallery, Seoul; Art in General, New York; Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; Lumiar Cité, Lisbon; Neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst, Pola Sieverding, ARENA #12, 2014, Pigment print on paper, 174,4 x 117,8 cm © Pola Sieverding, VG Bild-Kunst; Courtesy Anna Jill Lüpertz Gallery, Berlin Berlin; Anat Ebgi Gallery, Los Angeles; Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin;

Dubai Photo Exhibition, Dubai; et al. Pola Sieverding lives and works in Berlin and is represented by the Anna Jill Lüpertz Gallery.

Source: press release

The Epic Pola Sieverding NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein 04.03.- 06.05.2016

More info at: www.neueraachenerkunstverein.de www.polasieverding.com

Pola Sieverding, The Epic, 2016 (Videostills), HD Video, Sound, 24’ © Pola Sieverding, VG Bild-Kunst; Courtesy Anna Jill Lüpertz Gallery, Berlin

Installation view, solo exhibition “The Epic“ by Pola Sieverding, NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, Germany, © Pola Sieverding, VG Bild-Kunst / © Photo: Klaus Metti ,g VG Bild-Kunst Pola Sieverding, ARENA Mural, 2016, Latex print on eece, 339 x 1040 cm © Pola Sieverding, VG Bild-Kunst; Courtesy Anna Jill Lüpertz Gallery, Berlin

The Epic, Pola Sieverding, NAK Neuer Aachener Kunstverein, 03.04.-05.06.2016, © Pola Sieverding, VG Bild- Kunst, © Photo: Klaus Mettig, VG Bild-Kunst

TINA SAUERLAENDER

TINA SAUERLÄNDER IS AN ART HISTORIAN, CURATOR AND WRITER BASED IN BERLIN. WITH HER LABEL PEER TO SPACE SHE HAS BEEN ORGANIZING AND CURATING EXHIBITIONS IN DIFFERENT FIELDS OF CONTEMPORARY ART FOR SEVERAL INSTITUTIONS AND GALLERIES SINCE 2010, E.G. PORN TO PIZZA—DOMESTIC CLICHÉS (2015), DARK SIDES OF… (2015), ACROSS THE LINES (2014), VISUAL NOISE (2014), MONEY WORKS PART 2 (2014) OR ENTERING SPACE (2013). SHE IS THE AUTHOR OF MANY TEXTS ON CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS FOR CATALOGS, MAGAZINES OR JOURNALS, E.G. TARYN SIMON, ALICJA KWADE, CARSTEN NICOLAI OR ANSELM REYLE FOR THE KRITISCHES LEXIKON DER GEGENWARTSKUNST. HER WEBSITE IS WWW.PEERTOSPACE.EU.

Seite 2 - Galerien in Berlin: Wann überhaupt ist jetzt? - Kunst... https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/kunstmarkt/galerien-in-b...

19.09.2014 - Aktualisiert: 20.09.2014, 13:47 Uhr https://www.faz.net/-gyz-7u4k0

Galerien in Berlin Wann überhaupt ist jetzt?

Parallel zur Verkaufsschau ABC präsentieren die Galerien und neuen Kunstorte in Berlin außergewöhnliche Schauen, in denen vorgeführt wird, wohin die zeitgenössische Kunst steuert.

Von NIKLAS MAAK

Der Tag vor der Eröffnung der Art Berlin Contemporary am Berliner Gleisdreieck ist der Tag der Galerieeröffnungen. Abends sah es zwischen Linien- und Auguststraße aus wie in der Tokioter Untergrundbahn zur Rushhour, Tausende drängelten sich durchs dörfliche Einbahnstraßengeflecht von Mitte zu den Galerien und in die „Kunst-Werke“, vor denen sich ein Haufen Kritiker lauthals über die dort zu sehende Ausstellung von Ryan Trecartin stritt; man wurde sich nicht einig, ob Trecartin ein „Kunstgenie des Facebook- und Youtube- Zeitalters“ sei oder ob er doch nur allerödeste Kunst-die-auf-Kunst-verweist-Kunst nach dem „Ich mache eine Reise und nehme mit“- Prinzip macht: „Ich mache ein Kunstwerk und nehme mit - einen Kippenberger, einen Franz West, einen Schlingensief und drei Löffel Facebook.“

Wem Trecartin egal war, der musste nur schauen, an welchen Stellen die Straßen von Menschenmassen blockiert wurden und wohin sich diese Schwärme dann bewegten: Bei Sprüth Magers werden Thomas Scheibitz und Thomas Demand gezeigt, bei Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler ist die Chinesin Guan Xiao zu sehen, die sich unter anderem mit der für sie befremdlichen westlichen Obsession befasst, Kunstwerke wie Michelangelos David als Nippesfiguren massenhaft zu verbreiten. Ansonsten stellt sie in einer Art außer Kontrolle geratendem Video-Mnemosyneatlas BilderMalströme aus Youtube-Clips zusammen, eine Art virtuelles Gedächtnis all dessen, was Menschen für filmenswert halten. Bei der Galerie Neu warteten Hunderte, um endlich in den Raum vorgelassen zu werden, in dem Marc Camille Chaimowicz ein paar Dutzend lebendige Vögel umherflattern lässt.

Das Interessante am verlängerten Kunstwochenende sind neben der Hauptschau vor allem aber immer wieder die zahllosen Räume und Ausstellungen, die man jenseits der offiziellen Galerienroute, der ABC und der stark beworbenen Positions-Messe im ehemaligen Kaufhaus Jandorf (www.positions.berlin), fast übersieht. In der Galerie von Nolan Judin in der Potsdamer Straße zum Beispiel ist unter dem Titel „How Soon is Now“ eine Schau zu sehen, die mit einer üblichen Galerieausstellung nichts zu tun hat. 1956 hatten sich unter dem Titel „This is Tomorrow“ Künstler, Architekten, Musiker und Grafiker in der Whitechapel Art Gallery versammelt, um jenseits von Spartengrenzen in zwölf Teams über Arbeitsformen und das Wohnen der Zukunft nachzudenken; die Ausstellung gilt als Geburtsstunde der Pop-Art, ein Beitrag war Hamiltons Collage „Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?“.

Unter dem Titel „How Soon is Now“ will jetzt eine Gruppe von Architekten, Künstlern und Aktivisten das überwinden, worum es im gleichnamigen Song der Smiths geht, nämlich eine

1 von 2 29.11.20, 11:25 Seite 2 - Galerien in Berlin: Wann überhaupt ist jetzt? - Kunst... https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/kunstmarkt/galerien-in-b... seltsame Schüchternheit und Unentschlossenheit - in diesem Falle der heutigen Entwerfer beim Erfinden von grundsätzlich neuen Wohn- und Lebensformen und Orten für eine sich rapide wandelnde Gesellschaft, die neue soziale Rituale und Lebensweisen entwickelt. Das lose Kollektiv, das hier auftritt, will einen neuen Ton setzen dafür, wie Gegenwart aussehen, sich anfühlen könnte: Something Fantastic und Friedemann Heckel entwerfen eine mobile Arbeitsstation hinter einem riesigen Vorhang; Konstantin Grcic bringt ein dreieckiges Gebilde in einer Ecke an, das man als Skulptur, als Hängematte oder als eine Art vom Boden abgehobene Minimalbehausung im Geist von Toyo Itos legendärem Wohnzelt „Pao for the Tokyo Nomad Girl“ lesen kann. Überhaupt Dreiecke: Johanna Meyer-Grohbrügge und Sam Chermayeff stellen ein prekär-orgiastisches dreieckiges Riesenbett mit drei Kissen und dreieckiger Decke auf, das wie ein Sprengkeil gegen das klassische Einfamilienhaus- Doppelbett-Leben aussieht. Arno Brandlhuber spannt das Volumen einer kaum sechzig Quadratmeter großen Low-Budget-Wohneinheit durch den Raum, Sauerbruch Hutton erfinden eine Art begehbares abstraktes Gemälde, einen von vieleckigen Dazzle-Paintings überzogenen Raum, Barkow Leibinger ein poetisches Dickicht aus zahllosen Metallstäben, ein Labyrinth aus einer Art technoidem Schilf, das in der Lage wäre, ein Dach zu tragen, in dem man sitzen, schlafen, essen kann und in dem sich die Kategorien Wand, Pfeiler und Raum auflösen. Etwas weiter hinten lädt Jürgen Meyer H. dazu ein, sich mit der Farbe Beige zu beschäftigten, was angesichts der rapide alternden Gesellschaft und der damit einhergehenden Verbeigeung der Welt vielleicht wirklich unumgänglich ist.

Und immer wieder entstehen neue Kunstorte in Berlin. Einer der schönsten ist der „Box Freiraum“ in den 1893 von Wilhelm Magnus entworfenen Stallungen des legendären Fuhrunternehmers Otto Pohl, eines Exzentrikers, der seine Pferde in relativ luxuriösen, über eine Rampe zu erreichenden Ställen im ersten Stock unterbrachte, während im Erdgeschoss ein Teil seiner manisch zusammengetragenen Kutschensammlung parkte; Pohl besaß unter anderem den gesamten Fuhrpark des Prinzen Leopold. In diesem Stall in der Boxhagener Straße nun hat die Architektin Carolina Mojto nun einen Kunstraum eingerichtet, in dem es ebenfalls um Modelle eines neuen Lebens geht. Bis zum 11. Oktober ist hier eine von Mojtos Mitstreiterin Lena Maculan kuratierte Ausstellung mit Foto- und Filmarbeiten von Pola Sieverding zu sehen: Wie ein Echolot gleitet deren Kamera über die Baustellen von Alta de Lisboa, einem der größten Stadtentwicklungsprojekte Europas. Man sieht eine Welt, die den Zustand des Entwurfs gerade erst verlassen hat und auf Bespielung wartet - alles ist erst dabei, Realität zu werden.

Auf der anderen Seite Bilder einer verlebten Utopie: Man erkennt, als habe man sie gerade aus schlammigem Brackwasser geborgen, die Fassaden der Sozialbauungetüme des Märkischen Viertels, und die große Qualität dieser Bilder liegt darin, dass sie keine stumpfe Anklage sind, sondern wie in einem Vexierbild die geometrischen Raster und Strukturen der Fassaden mal wie eine soziale Dystopie, mal als abstrakt-ästhetisches Minimal-Art-Werk erscheinen lassen. Noch im heruntergekommensten experimentellen Bauwerk scheint die Utopie seines Entwurfs durch. Wie man sie retten und aktivieren könnte, wird an vielen Orten dieser Kunsttage gefragt.

Quelle: F.A.Z.

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