Press Release Berlin, 23.9.21 , © Privatsammlung © , 1910 Ferdinand Hodler , Der Frühling, ca. Ferdinand Hodler and Modernist Berlin 10.9.21 – 17.1.22 Ferdinand Hodler’s evocative figure paintings, moun- tain landscapes and portraits are Modernist icons. The Swiss artist (1853–1918), an influential force in symbolism, drew great international acclaim even in his own lifetime. Contemporaries valued Hodler above all as a master of human characterisation: as the artist Paul Klee noted in 1911, he could “create the soul by painting the body”. Few people realise today that Hodler’s path to fame lay through Berlin. At the dawn of the 20th century, the capital of the German Berlinische Galerie, © Foto: Noshe Reich had become a leading hub of European art alongside Paris, Vienna and Munich. These cities Exhibitions offered Hodler a chance to publicise his work outside Switzerland. The exhibition “Ferdinand Hodler and Modernist Berlin” traces his success on the banks of 2 021/22 the Spree. From 1898 until the outbreak of the First World War, the artist exhibited here almost annually: first at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition, then at the Berlin Secession and in a number of galleries. The presentation at the Berlinische Galerie will bring together about 50 paintings by Hodler from German and Swiss collections, including 30 from the Kunst- museum Bern, our partner in this collaboration. It will also feature works by artists who exhibited with Hodler in Berlin, including Lovis Corinth, Walter Leistikow, Hans Thoma and Julie Wolfthorn. The exhibition is a cooperation between the Berlinische Galerie and the Kunstmuseum Bern. It is under the patronage of His Excellency Dr. Paul R. Seger, Ambassador of Switzerland to the Federal Republic of Germany. It takes place in the context of Berlin Art Week and is funded by the Capital Cultural Fund 2021, the Kulturstiftung der Länder and the Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung. 1 , , Berlin/ London/ Seoul/ 1948 . 10 . 15 , GALERIE 2020 KÖNIG Decentraland, Foto: © Roman März Courtesy of the artist; Alicja Kwade, Principium, Gerda Schimpf, Louise Stomps, © Gerda Schimpf Fotoarchiv, Foto: Anja Elisabeth Witte Alicja Kwade Louise Stomps In Abwesenheit (in Absence) Natural Figures Sculptures 1928–1988 18.9.21 – 4.4.22 The work of Alicja Kwade (*1979) is inspired by scien- 15.10.21 – 17.1.22 tific, philosophical and social questions. By exploring Press conference: Thu 14.10.21, 11 am models and constructs that form our perception of Opening: Thu 14.10.21, 7 pm time, space and matter, her large-scale installations DAS VERBORGENE MUSEUM question the possibilities of objective and subjective is a guest at the Berlinische Galerie knowledge. For this show at the Berlinische Galerie, Human suffering, sensual fragility and defenceless the artist begins by focusing on herself. “In Abwesen- creatures are pivotal themes in the work of the heit“ (In Absence) centres on recent works by Alicja Berlin-born sculptor and printmaker Louise Stomps Kwade that might in a broad sense be read as self- (1900–1988). After training at the Prussian Acad- portraits. Kwade seeks ways to describe a person emy of Fine Arts in Berlin and attending a sculpture and their physical presence in space: with a heart- class given by Milly Steger at the Berlin Association DNA beat, an individual code or a combination of of Women Artists, she had her own studio from 1930. chemical elements. Hardly any of the work she produced in the 1930s has With Kwade’s installation designed spe- survived, as her studio was bombed during the cifically for the first big exhibition hall, the Berlinische Second World War. In the autumn of 1945, Louise Galerie has added another work to its successful for- Stomps showed her works – among other places – mat of in-situ projects by contemporary artists work- at the first Sculpture Exhibition organised by Galerie ing in Berlin. Kwade studied at Berlin’s University of Rosen in Berlin. In 1960 the artist moved into an old the Arts from1999 to 2005 and is now one of the most mill in Bavaria. She was inspired by the varieties of sought-after artists in the international arena. She wood growing in the area, including beech, pine and has recently exhibited in, among other places, Tours, local oak. Wood became a key protagonist in her late Helsinki, Copenhagen, Zurich, Barcelona, Shanghai, œuvre, and natural materials are the most important Reykjavik, Venice, New York and London. components in her work. Stomp’s view of nature as the primal source of all life encouraged her formal Exhibition in the context of Berlin Art Week. turn to organic abstraction. In the 1970s she created sculptures three to four metres high, such as “Eos”, “Pilgrim”, “Ascetic” and “Gilgamesh”. The exhibition and catalogue will honour this extraordinary sculp- tor for the first time, exploring her work in depth and placing it in an international context. The exhibition and catalogue have been generously supported by the Capital Cultural Fund (HKF). 2 cm, 21 x 31 x 33 , 1911 , 2020 Jacob Hilsdorf, Anna Muthesius, Muthesius, Anna Hilsdorf, Jacob Nina Canell, Craver, Courtesy the artist and Barbara Wien Gallery, Foto: Nick Ash © Urheberrechte am Werk erloschen Fossilisierter Kalkstein, Gummiballblase, Schalttafel, Schalttafel, Gummiballblase, Kalkstein, Fossilisierter Images in Fashion – Nina Canell Clothing in Art Photography, Fine Arts, April 2022 – August 2022 and Fashion since 1900 Nina Canell is fascinated by the often hidden and easily overlooked things that quietly rule our everyday lives. Her artistic practice does not revolve around a 11.2. – 30.5.22 finished piece. It is the provisional, surprising, unpre- Press conference: Wed 9.2.22, 11 am dictable processes that distinguish Canell’s work. Opening: Thu 10.2.22, 7 pm Canell draws on a broad spectrum of dif- Even more clearly than art, fashion is a mirror of ferent materials to create her own sculptural system: social changes and individual needs. In the collec- from shoelaces to wavelengths. She also uses com- tion of the Berlinische Galerie, fashion is a surpris- modities like rubber, water and electricity as well ingly common theme and is treated in diverse ways. as found objects such as ring pulls and cables. The In addition to a large number of fashion photographs combination sets up a relational weave that dissolves spanning the twentieth century, just as many paint- hierarchies, distilling our world by assembling and ings and drawings testify to the role of fashion as a entangling. mode of expression and status symbol for an era: For the Berlinische Galerie, the artist will from dress reform around 1900 by way of the Dada conceive a site-specific installation and an artist’s dandies of the 1920s to avant-garde clothing designs book. in today’s art. On that broad basis, and with loans of selected items of clothing, the exhibition will shed Nina Canell was born in Växjö, Sweden, in 1979 and light on artists’ relationships to fashion. What role now lives and works in Berlin. She studied at Dún has fashion played in the painting, drawing, and pho- Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology tography of the past century? With what rules were in Dublin, Ireland. Canell’s work has been shown in clothing and costumes employed in fine art? How solo exhibitions at prestigious institutions, includ- did artists dress and present themselves then and ing S.M.A.K, Ghent; Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden- now? How is fashion used as a medium in contempo- Baden; Museo Tamayo, Mexico City; Moderna rary art? This exhibition offers a new look at works in Museet, Stockholm; Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin and the collection of the Berlinische Galerie and presents Fridericianum, Kassel, and also at biennials in Venice, current positions in contemporary art. Sydney, Lyon, Gwangiu and Liverpool. The exhibition has been generously supported by the Artists (Selection): Karl Arnold, Martin Assig, Elvira Bach, Capital Cultural Fund (HKF). Sibylle Bergemann, Rolf von Bergmann, BLESS, Tabea Blumenschein, Marc Brandenburg, Hans Peter Feldmann, Rainer Fetting, Lieselotte Friedländer, Ulrike Grossarth, George Grosz, FC Gundlach, Gerd Hartung, Raoul Hausmann, Hannah Höch, Alexandra Hopf, Käthe Kruse, Alyssia de Lucca, Jeanne Mammen, Anna Muthesius, Helmut Newton, Ulrike Ottinger, Lilla von Puttkamer, Rafael Rheinsberg, Frieda Riess, Ursula Sax, Rudolf Schlichter, Wiebke Siem, Franz Skarbina, Claudia Skoda, Eugen Spiro, Herbert Tobias, Yva 3 , 1984 , OSTKREUZ 1922 © Sibylle Bergemann, Sibylle Bergemann, Birgit, Berlin, Berlin, Birgit, Bergemann, Sibylle Lajos Tihanyi, Großes Interieur mit Selbstbildnis – Mann am Fenster, Sibylle Bergemann Hungarian Modernists Photographs 1966–2010 in Berlin 1910–1933 24.6. – 10.10.22 3.11.22 – 6.2.23 Press conference: Wed 22.6.22, 11 am Opening: Thu 23.6.22, 7 pm This exhibition breaks new ground by devoting exten- sive attention to the Hungarian contribution to mod- Sibylle Bergemann (1941–2010) was one of the best- ern art in the German capital. Berlin plays a special known East German photographers of the late 20th role in the history of Hungarian art and culture. Even century. People, especially women, are the central before the First World War, Hungarian artists used theme of her expressive, sensitive pictures. Based in the growing metropolis as an exhibition stage to Berlin, photography was her great passion for more reach an international audience. When reactionary than fifty years. And a love of travel inspired her to forces put an end to Hungary’s political transforma- pursue her creativity all over the world: Berlin, Dakar, tion in 1919, progressive artists in exile found refuge Moscow, New York, Paris. Fashion and portrait pho- in the cosmopolitan Berlin of the Weimar Repub- tography combine distinctively in her work with liter- lic. They found the space for creative freedom on the ary reportage and artistic serial documentaries.