KW69 # 5 “Nach Abschluss der Reise” by Eva-Maria Wild, with works by: Romane Holderried Kæsdorf, Tamayo Misawa, Henriette Grahnert, Anna Fasshauer, Ulrike Kuschel, Eva Seufert, Haaegue Yang, Corinne Wasmuht, annette hollywood, Suse Weber, Habima Fuch

KW69 # 5 "Nach Abschluss der Reise" by Eva-Maria Wild, with works by: Romane Holderried Kæsdorf, Tamayo Misawa, Henriette Grahnert, Anna Fasshauer, Ulrike Kuschel, Eva Seufert, Haaegue Yang, Corinne Wasmuht, annette hollywood, Suse Weber, Habima Fuchs April 14 –May 15, 2011, August Straße 69 D-10117 Berlin, by craniv boyd.

 

A collage behind glass on an A4 sheet, appears the most convenient point of departure when attempting to describe a group exhibition in a smallish sun filled cramped room, curated by an Frankfurt Am Main art dealer, Eva-Maria Wild, for the annex, or project space of Kunst Werke institute for Contemporary Art. A collection of artists whom with disparate small to mid scaled works on paper, the occasional sculpture or two, point, self referentially back to the collage character of curating that is un-seamless. Strange enough that in such a small room the individual artistic propositions develop an uncanny similarity or monotony of treatment. Yet refreshing in that the authorship of the art works exhibited is exclusively female.

 

Lets begin with the collage, titled Ohne title(Reisen), 1988-98, by German painter Corinne Wasmuht, it like her more United. Stateside known co-patriot, A. Oehlen, is a painter who makes collage from magazine clippings, with Wasmuht we have press photography of natural disasters set with other things in a kind of casual binary that is so matter of fact as to err towards true banality, Oehlen has more of a bad German boy approach to the ephemera that he sets together, Wasmuht to her credit has a tough heavy handed approach that, engenders more understanding for her large format abstract paintings, (regrettably, not on view in this edition of KW69 # 5 "Nach Abschluss der Reise" ) the temporary confusion induced by the date of this simple sketch like collage work, that in many ways looks like it could be created in ten seconds rather than ten years, points or gives a clue to a possible larger process driven imagery generative method, where the collage is a portable sketch on the way.

 

Auto I, 2010, by Tamayo Misawa, Japanese born artist, overwhelms the space partially obstructing the viewing area, and in its lightweight and biomorphic smooth oblong form, it is structurally oxymoronic, big shape perched on a narrow iron pole, freestanding like a large flattened flamingo. The cement and the Styrofoam give the work with its implied floating word connotations the portable capacity to standing alone, on its own with out toppling over, the cement or is it the plaster at the bottom is matter of fact, and at the same time, sketch like, inconvenienced and un-ideal, T. Misawa, we should hope would themselves hope for a more elegant solution for presenting ærodynamic looking non representational sculpture. Or one could think that it is all perfect as the artist wanted exactly, and that the visibility of what keeps the work from falling over is a way of underscoring its incompleteness flaws or study feeling.

 

Habima Fuchs, Czech born artist, with materials though times honored in the arts of humanity appear bizarrely exotic in the realm of current art, glazed ceramic, in the work titled Entwurf der Welt nach Habima Fuchs (Fragment), 2009, speaks to that occasional megalomaniac desire that creative people at times commonly posses, like in Where the Wild things Are, 2009 Spike Jonze's film adaptation of M. Sendak's illustrated children's book, Max, enlists the wild things large imaginary forces to build a city. In the tame and æsthetic if not innocuous fragment or module on pedestal, we have a model castle a small fortress with frosting colored walls, the word as a piece of cake, this small moment of visionary creative act is not threatening because of its scale, yet like many of the works in the group exhibition, we a public of sorts cull the impression that these are sketches, proposals for artworks, rushed out of the studio in an attempt to secure more funding for larger more difficult, inaccessible, and complete works with sublime, if not threatening statements.  Seeing Habima Fuchs's fragment of a proposal for the world according to the author, I rather, am left impatiently waiting, asking my self where is that world?

 

Romane Holderried Kæsdorf, (1922-2007) with drawings that are examples from a long term activity as an artist, evinced by the dates of the drawings, 1969-2002, are all naïve, touch upon the outsider art, however are thoroughly expressionistic, perhaps a kind of cultivated edginess, her drawings are collected, one out of the six works is in a museum the remainder are in a Private collection. Her work has a sealed off quality, completeness and one wonders if there is not a student teacher bond between Kæsdorf, and the artists who are in the other brighter room. The title "after the termination of the giant" is in homage to a late woman German artist, who some hold, bears connexion to more internationally celebrated and represented G. Grosz, or later generation G. Baselitz. One sees oddly enough even with sketchy drawings the difference between the seriousness deliberation and maturity of an artistic hand. by craniv boyd.

Nairy Baghramian, “Formage de tête”, 29. April- 25. June 2011. Gallerie Daniel Buchholz, Fasanen Straße 30- 10719 Berlin, DE by craniv boyd.

Nairy Baghramian, "Formage de tête", 29. April- 25. June 2011. Gallerie Daniel Buchholz, Fasanen Straße 30- 10719 Berlin, DE by craniv boyd.

 

A micro essay respite with footnotes accompanies in printed words the physical and present sculpture of Iranian born and in Berlin active artist, Nairy Baghramian, on view in the spacious fist floor Gallerie Daniel Buchholz, mid scaled three dimensional works in metal and rubber, that populate the exhibition space that with its worn and creaky Parquet floor contributes an endearing and accessible impression, further contradictions between the abstract process driven theoretical sculpture, and the cautious linguistic theoretical laden press release.

 

Nairy Baghramian, is able to create sculpture that looks curious, and for all its material attributes and rubber brushed metal, is graphic and flat, monochrome dyed rubber in colors that look at home on a prophylactic nude or beige, mauve or off white yellow side of the spectrum.

 

The metal objects are hard to identify, willfully or playfully mysterious, sealed off and hung up hanging on two and a half meters tall poles from a large S shaped hook, in their hanging the metal convex shaped "covers" "industrial sized cooking Lids" we can read what ever we like into them, appear like meet carcasses hanging in a butchers freezer depot, cold from the looks of the material, and dead too in a way from the painful hook that holds the metal object on the free standing pool.

 

Other works are table like, rectangular, framed in metal, with four metal legs and a slab of cast rubber laying on top, angular recessed forms push and pull in the frozen rubber surface, a relieve that at just above waist level, is a palimpsest of half forgotten objects. To set a real item atop the rubber surface draped over the metal legs and frame would run the risk of collapsing the work, that despite its stature as mid sided free standing sculpture, is oddly delicate coy in its play with presence and absence, via the processes of its creation, cast from something, available to see, yet fragmentary in its appearance. Sheet of rubber to what end, G. Deleuze, F. Guattari, H. Michaux, or D. Hubermans, might know, in addition to Neiry Baghramian himself, for all are cited in the end notes section of the press release.

 

Does it serve the work of Nairy Baghramian, and his art work well to have an essay with the project of binding the current instance of his oeuvre to French post structuralist thinking? Or is it an order of excessive intellectual fashionableness to draw a line between 60's vintage European postmodern critique and post millennial installation art that is driving back home over the speed limit to autonomous substantial three-dimensional art? Somehow there is a kind of hermetic abstraction transpire ring when encountering Baghramian's work for the first time in the real, I hoped for more of a transparent explanatory, and thereby conventional press text, but in the slightly opaque, text where you have to hunt down the materials and process that created the work and the artists name is mentioned, once, at the top, together with the title of his exhibition, you are in a way provided with a round about impersonal place from which to view his work. By craniv boyd. 

Berlin-Weekly.com, week 27, April 30 – May 7, Linienstraße 160,berlin DE by craniv boyd.

Berlin-Weekly.com, week 27, April 30 – May 7, Linienstraße 160,berlin DE by craniv boyd.

 

Occasionally when viewing current art you can have the distinctive impression that you have come to the party late missed the best band that played, missed the inaugural speech or funny antic, for week 27 of Berlin-Weekly.com, a storefront for web-based art project by Stefanie Seidl, that has a real location on Linien street in central Berlin, the raision d-étre if you will of virtual existence, the case is such, when happening upon the trashed out diorama, with prominent names of two German Women artists on a locked glass door framed in brushed aluminum or steel.

 

The virtual existence of the on off line gallery, can serve to remedy our understanding of what looks like another wild contemporary weekend in the Hauptstaat. There are minimalist generalist promotional fliers giving written explanation and web directions, hanging for one to take from the real wall. Understanding of the project can happen once you use the World Wide Web to find more minimal explanations in the form of a digital postcard archive, so to speak.

 

  "On the occasion of the gallery-weekend berlin-weekly hosts the Berlin art magazine TEXTE ZUR KUNST April 30 – May 7, Texte zur Kunst is showing their exclusive artists editions and also for the first time originals: new works by Jutta Koether and Rosemarie Trockel."

 

There in a way we have it, this project, berlin-weekly, which draws on the late Wrong Gallery of New York Chelsea district a kind of hip commentary by Anarchic cynic the Italian M. Cattalan, hosts a heavy-weight local based journal for art, that has the Parkett model down pat, complete with current artist editions to augment subscription sales. In all likely hood R. Trockel, and J. Koether, participated in some kind of an intervention in the deliberately fake tromp l'oeil gallery that was a door front rather than store front, a chick looking glass door that if opened would lead into a brick wall. The strategic "hosting" of a current art journal on a succession of evenings where there would be high foot traffic of art worlders, makes odd logic in light of the previous and subsequent weeks, the younger generation of Berlin based artists, with there modest, singular and installed proposals and gestures, bracket the gallery weekend week, week 27, with more known names, two Women and a magazine, where the magazine name is decisively absent from the glass storefront panel, the online edition of the weekly update calls to mind for those minds familiar with social networking web addresses, and the virtual gallery of the paparazzi photos of ones own friends staged, and or casual, that you find on them.  

 

Berlin-weekly.com is a gallery that needs three things to foster some kind of comprehensive understanding of its venture, primarily the physical location mysterious outpost in rapidly changing center city Berlin, secondly the card, printed to reiterate the virtual address and explanation, the card itself is halfway there to an explanation providing a triad of addresses one urban and two virtual, and ultimately but not least of all the web site, which solves the riddle, for week 27 we have an archive of party photos, something absent from the other weekly editions, you can see that perhaps, from the mess left behind that on Linien Street 61, in all likely hood you missed a good time. By craniv boyd. 

Stella & Calatrava The Michael Kohlhaas Curtain, Neue Nationalgalerie Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, DE by craniv boyd.

Stella & Calatrava The Michael Kohlhaas Curtain, Neue Nationalgalerie Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, DE by craniv boyd.

 

Working together, the Spanish architect and sculptor Santiago Calatrava, and the Amercian Painter, Sculptor who grips towards architecture, Frank Stella, have installed and presented in the glass chamber of the Mies van der Rohe, austerely designed New National gallery in the culture forum area, an urbanely planned remedy to allied sector's apparent loss of the "museum island" in the pre unification days of Germany. The cultural implant of H. Sharoun's Philharmonic, Library, a M.v.d. Rohe's museum statement, could possibly be interpreted as architecture as prophetic statement, or catalyst of hope, in that the whole complex, was built near the wastelands of Postdammer Platz, close to where the wall of Berlin bisected the capital city, turned metropolitan fragment.

 

I happen to be of the opinion that the stoic super large glass pavilion, with green granite floors and large black slab as roofing, that serves as a kind of pre institutional critique, in that the city viewed from within the transparent structure becomes the object for consideration, clear cube versus white cube or black box, looks better empty or rather as close as to empty as possible. This seems to be that tactic employed by Stella & Calatrava, and curators J. Jäger & M. Felix, one work one floor could be the less is more adage implemented. Calatrava, has developed a ring, a novel support system to display 360° of double sided painting, a banner byzantine or baroque in the personal geometric iconography that mature F. Stella has developed since his departure from shaped canvasses that were further meditations on the super flat in the 1970's, this is the work that is further along the lines of that which the New York based Artist has created since, the 1980's, large format polychromatic Stainless steel relieves, mid scale to large scale sculptures from intuitively arc-welded scrap metal, or collage in the form of print making.

 

When descending to the lower level of the museum where the permanent collection is hung, the public can see prints, a portfolio from the Kupferstichkabinett Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, authored by Frank Stella of 1980's vintage, that corresponds to series of El Lissitzky's "Had Gadya", Lissitzy who to many is known primarily for his Utopian architectonic non representational work, is represented here in a cycle of 20, M. Chagall like multi color etched illustrations for a Jewish folk tale with the moral that there is always somebody bigger out there.  Stella's interpretation of Had Gadya larger and defiantly more squarish than Lissitzky's surround the work, in a way they work served to reinforce the understanding of the The Michael Kohlhaas Curtain installed above in that it gives another example F. Stella's abstract iconography in the service of literary illustration.

 

Stella is an artist who has taken or revisited the writings of the German romantic author Hienrich von Kleist (1777-1811), this banner thirty meters long, is more of an extensive portrayal of the narrative of one of Kliest's longer works, Michael Kohlhaas, Stella in previous works would approach Kleist, in a more fragmentary way by making process driven sculpted work like ach! Reif Toni…, a steel object that draws on a fraction of one of Kliest's notoriously lengthy sentences taken from a short story, a treatment of a slave revolt in the west indies. The Michael Kohlhaas Curtain, pretends towards embodying the flowery and flourishing prose of, arguably one of the acme of the Romantic era, Stella and Calatrava lay their claim with respectively, fluorescent paint applied in several ways cut out and affixed in a deep collision of dense forms, and wispy brown hula hoped playful structure in the round that spans the mural taught. To have one entire fiction synthesized into a visual moment, requires both renowned painter, star architect, and iconic metropolis situated institution. By craniv boyd. 

Nina Beier, AFRIKA, 29.04.2011- 11.06.2011, Croy Nielsen, Weyding Straße 10, D-10178, by craniv boyd.

Nina Beier, AFRIKA, 29.04.2011- 11.06.2011, Croy Nielsen, Weyding Straße 10, D-10178, by craniv boyd.

 

Distilled and concentrated hipster posturing on recycling and green movements are what could be culled from Nina Beier exhibition titled AFRIKA, for the reason behind the titling of the exhibition thus look to the solitary unattributed footnote triplet of paragraphs at the foot of the press handout Croy Nielsen, of Weyding Straße, has prepared as component to the public understanding of this moment of Beiers oeuvre. "The first symbols of abstract thinking in humans can be traced to fossils dating between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago in Africa. However, language itself, whether spoken or written of, involves abstract thinking," This footnote or text fragment rather brackets the simple information of the dimensions, title and materials of the work, at the top of the necessary information pertaining to this rather portable and there by bourgeoisie friendly framed behind glass or acrylic, found materials work, the top bracket is a short recount of a post modern how random can random be anecdote, describing the  "set life" of the production of Stephen Spielberg's film "Close encounters of the  third kind" (1977), the anecdote ends with an observation about the casual wardrobe attire of the union Hollywood professional an unnamed stunt coordinator, whom allegedly wore a tee shirt one day that read "Zay bee-long ere Mozambique."  Frustrated isolated information that is distributed cryptically over the exhibition title, a Nation's name in the context of popular fashion item, and foot note, add to an atmosphere of unclaimed irony and a short of tentative and shy cynics. 

 

One item in the exhibition is the edition of ten of the exhibition poster, (rotated daily calling to mind a parable about stepping in rivers) that collide found materials with the favored artistic method of A. Warhola, the screen print, so surrealism and pop artistry meet yet again, this time not in 70's vintage tabloid photographs of S. Dali hanging out with A. Warhola and cultivated du mode entourage at the hypothetical Saint Regis Hotel Lobby, but in the melding of found materials, posters in Beier's case, and ink squeegee through chemically augmented silk. 

 

The framed works are careful color studies of secondhand lightly worn vintage clothing that, are pressed behind a clear panel to make a cultivated controlled moment or theater of chaos. The clothing in its jumbled and flattened state is not arraigned or over arraigned per se, it the items that add up to the abstract image, emphasis an order of selection, the abstract thinking required to construct this "function" as art idea and object generator: this blue cotton tee shirt and these blue nylon swim trunks together as opposed to two other givens, or is it takens in this context?  We have ostentatiously low cost clothing items (this fact we are told in the materials description) transformed through the Mind much more than the hand of Nina Beier, and of course by virtue of the gallery condition in which we the public choose to encounter it, (close, in proximity to the Volkbuehne building,) the work, a logical further development of pop and surrealist positions of the 20^th century, is valuated further by more abstract thinking that a financial advisor or curating guru would possibly be capable of speaking to.

 

Framed clothing interchangeable exhibition poster and a video eleven minutes and thirty seconds in length of an interview with a French Unidentified Flying Object expert subtitled with dialogue from Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind and the outtakes from said movie, all this can go under the title of AFRIKA, extra terrestrial and a source of human life abstract thinking and civilization it produces as byproduct. By craniv boyd.

 

Johannes Rochhausen “5000 Kelvin”, 30. April – 18. Juni 2011, SchlechtriemBrothers Rosa-Luxemboburg-Strasse 27, 10178 Berlin, DE by craniv boyd.

Johannes Rochhausen "5000 Kelvin", 30. April – 18. Juni 2011, SchlechtriemBrothers Rosa-Luxemboburg-Strasse 27, 10178 Berlin, DE by craniv boyd.

 

4 726,8°c pretty hot out would you say not? Truly cold inside the up and running painting exhibition of Johannes Rochhausen, a gifted exacting technician, whom excels in his focused and determined current painted and drawn emptiness of the site of artistic production, the studio. For those seeking to discover yet one more Young German Painter as if any one person could lay obscene claim towards the efforts and dedication of an artist, look no further than talent, evinced and developed by Johannes Rochhausen, in Leipzig that fabled city of Neo Rauch. 

 

Kelvin is a scientific and absolute unit of measure developed by a British Lord, useful in the discipline of thermodynamics. The title of the exhibition is stifling to conceive of, human bodies do not bear that kind of heat well, I draw the comparison due to the work Johannes Rochhausen, made and displayed for his show exclusively in meticulous and sensitive drab colors, as a realist, and present portrayal if ever there was one of the hermetic loneliness, at times self imposed, at times self necessary, in the pursuit of achieving great painting. For the consideration of the exhibition and collecting public that happens to chance on the casual and just happen to be here in former Soviet sector Berlin, storefront local of SchlechtriemBrothers, spelt together with a type identity oddly reminiscent of PriceWaterHouseCoopers, are not celestial bodies but unpopulated interiors.

 

With out people the activity of the creative act of painting becomes the evidence in these still-life static dramas that contribute in their C. Corot pallet and general vibration, the fact that in the depictions of the artists studio, the apparent embrace and celebration of the tools of that trade the Rochhausen is able to give back quietly and effectively, to people who may or may not have visited the Atelier of a currently working painter. In Johannes Rochhausen's work so far as I can tell from my all too brief encounter with it, we have at play not a direct presentation of the painter him or her self, but of that rare and often times besieged sanctuary which the artist seeks to establish and recreate and reaffirm through out their practice, the work space. Rochhausen with his gifts and emotion is able to create a quotidian and confrontational empty space, a deft elegy to not only where art, and his art in particular are made, but to the task of art making in general. The blank and open nature of the paintings that are in dominant hues of grey may strike one as academic and passé, not so, there is a palpable urgency felt in his canvasses, in their insistence of repetition of what happens in the work space when the work has left, gone for an exhibition, or collector or when a series is completed, is an insistence on painting and its continued relevance for current art and its muted celebration. By craniv boyd. 

Alon Levin, End to the Grand Gesture, 29.04. - 18.06.2011 Klemm’s, Brunnenstraße 7, 10119 Berlin, DE by craniv boyd.

Alon Levin, End to the Grand Gesture, 29.04. - 18.06.2011 Klemm's, Brunnenstraße 7, 10119 Berlin, DE by craniv boyd.

 

Modernism as protest, Robert Ryman and his white on white paintings go to a protest and picket with protest sings that are painted white, of course, In the now running exhibition of Israeli born, yet Den Haague and Berlin, based, artist Alon Levin we have a misc en scene of scatter art, modernist art, platonic forms stacked, and other large heavy geometric objects that are meant we are to believe by the exhibition title, that begins with the word "end", and the press release in the form of a triad structured interview between the artist and those who currently seek to further his endeavor, chiefly his gallerists handlers, that this exhibition is a now one more nail in  the coffin of the already dead horse of a modernist Utopian dream or nightmare depending which side of the bed you woke up from. 

 

Alon Levin, to his credit has made a grand tour of exhibition spaces dedicated to conceptualist and Biennials track artist, and judging from the information provided by effective gallery staff in the past few years dating from during his time of study, Levin has done a circuit of group exhibitions at Nýlistasafn in Reykjavík, Contemporary Art Center Vilnius, and recently the David Roberts Foundation, in London, and notably CCS Bard in picturesque Hudson valley New York state, some art fairs in Miami and some project type spaces in Zürich, the fount from which this extensive CV stems perhaps a quality group exhibition from way back in 2004, with a catalogue, of course, at a world renowned European museum, the Stedelijk.

 

This is anti retinal art at its best position, in the installation there is a proliferation of highly crafted objects made from heavy particle board and low cost wood, an overwhelming abundance of clearly purposeless objects that are all painted white, yet when you look again and are attentive to the sawed off edges of the works Alon Levin installs at Klemm's, the individual blank white picket sings individuate them selves further, they are in rainbow hues of industrial processed house paints and lacquers. One with this ironical and deliberate homage to MODERNISM, a viewer could almost half expect to trip over Rietveld's chair dripping in bone white globular paint.

 

Stimuleringssubsidie, it is great that the low country stimulates the growth of its artists categorically, I am positive that an art stimulation package from national monies for early developing artists can only be a fantastic thing, Levin can develop his exhibition with a strong yet ambivalent perspective on modernism, if nobody collects the difficult and ambitious installation work it can posit no problem his recent receipt of the Dutch Stimuleringssubsidie can generously sponsor his art object book that he blatantly cross promotes over the course of the interview, the book has a common enthrallment with utopia, or it seeming failure. It, Levin's track on the way up to national representation of Israel at international settings for current art, commences with a book, and an award for well crafted book given the same year as the Stedelijk Museum exhibition, viewed in this light the bland although involved installation hearkens back and almost begs to be documented visually, it seems intentionally constructed for that explicit purpose, applicable as elegant photograph in a well design artist made portable book. By craniv boyd.