Shortly before Gallery Weekend, contemporary art is making its way to Berlin’s Friedrichstraße. On April 28th, the new art exhibition series of Contemporary Show Room (CSR – supported by ART@Berlin) opens on 400 sq m in Quartier 205 near Gendarmenmarkt and Galeries Lafayette. The opening exhibition is entitled ÜBERSCHAU #01. It presents 35 contemporary artists who will be on show in Berlin galleries during Gallery Weekend.
Image above: CSR Contemporary Show Room by DEEDS LAB 2022 – courtesy CSR, photo Alejandro Alvarez
CSR initiator and operator is the non-profit DEEDS.LAB based in Berlin. Its aim is to make contemporary art and the work of its producers visible and supportive, to get more people excited about art, to reduce threshold fears, to test new concepts and formats that make people curious about art and make art education more attractive, to create a space for discourse and promote social interaction. To this end, DEEDS.LAB has planned various events in the CSR over the next few months.
courtesy CSR, photo Alejandro Alvarez
For the first exhibition, ÜBERSCHAU #01 (28 April -14 May 2022), CSR has assembled international art by 35 contemporary artists from 13 countries like a magnifying glass: Australia, China, Germany, England, France, Japan, Norway, Mongolia, Poland, Russia, the Czech Republic, Turkey and the USA. These are represented by 15 established, medium-sized Berlin galleries and shown there during Gallery Weekend in solo and group exhibitions. They are young, experimental and established positions from the genres of painting, sculpture, photography, mixed media and NFT. Like an extract, ÜBERSCHAU offers an overview of what is currently being presented in these Berlin galleries.
Until September 30th 2022, CSR will present a spectrum of contemporary art from painting, photography, drawing, sculpture, NFT and conceptual art by German and international artists in various exhibition formats. Away from the classic gallery quarters of Berlin, but right in the heart of the city – and targeted at a mixed audience of long-time art enthusiasts and people not yet infected by the passion for art.
Participating Artists ÜBERSCHAU #01
Gökçen Dilek Acay, Konstantin Bayer, Wolfram Beck, Anna Bittersohl, Nicole Bianchet, Kenneth Blom, Peter Böhnisch, Adrian Buba, Grigori Dor, Frederik Foert, Shingo Francis, Enrico Freitag, Rao Fu, GAMA, Norman Gebauer, Johannes Gervé, Roman Gilz + Gott Gordan, Jens Hausmann, Sue Hayward, Christian Henkel, Gregor Hiltner, Rhys Himsworth, Filip Kalkowski, Bodo Korsig, Hinrich Kröger, Renata Kudlacek, Markus Lüpertz, Adam Noack, Dirk Rathke, Nina Röder, Stefan Schiek, Howard Sherman, Anna Tunikova, Lars Wild.
Participating Galleries ÜBERSCHAU #01
BBA Gallery (Mitte), EIGENHEIM Weimar/Berlin (Charlottenburg), Galerie Michael Haas (Charlottenburg), Galerie Kremers (Kreuzberg), Luisa Catucci Gallery (Neukölln), Galerie Martin Mertens (Mitte), Galerie mutare (Charlottenburg), nüüd.berlin gallery (Mitte), galerie probst (Charlottenburg), Salongalerie Die Möwe (Mitte), Galerie Schindler (Potsdam), Galerie Schmalfuss Berlin (Charlottenburg), Galerie Sievi (Kreuzberg), Semjon Contemporary (Mitte), Galerie Z22 (Wilmersdorf)
Spotlights on the exhibition
Among others, the archetypal figures of the Norwegian-based painter Kenneth Blom (Luisa Catucci Gallery, Neukölln) are on display. In his geometrically constructed paintings and sculptures, they embody the theatre of reality in psychological states like actors.
Large-format paintings by Anna Tunikova (nüüd.berlin gallery, Mitte) take up everyday objects in archetypal patterns. The Russian artist also created an oil painting in the darkened Ukrainian colours of yellow and blue, 100% of the proceeds of which will go to Ukrainian refugees (on view at nüüd).
An older work – and at the same time a credo for the new exhibition format – is the painting Vision by the painter Markus Lüpertz from 1990 (Galerie Michael Haas, Charlottenburg).
signed and titled on the reverse
Galerie Michael Haas also presents two young positions in the CSR: The artist Nicole Bianchet with the work Up Is The New Down and a work Untitled by Peter Böhnisch from 2021.
A unity between people and nature is what the gentle paintings by Australian Susan Hayward yearn for (Galerie Schindler, Potsdam). The artist creates them with a specially developed “painting butter” made of beeswax, resin and pigments.
Conceptual artist and painter Rhys Himsworth (BBA Gallery, Mitte) has been collecting and shredding e-waste for over a decade, using a homemade UV inkjet printer to create tranquil landscapes that reference the origins of the raw materials used to make the devices.
Digital UV ink, acrylic and crushed LCD screens on aluminium,122 cm x 155cm,
The NFT art by Mongolian artist GAMA (galerie probst, Charlottenburg) draws attention to the decline in biodiversity with a selection of 999 digitally hand-drawn mushroom motifs.
The monochrome paintings by Shingo Francis bear witness to his experiences with Buddhism and Zen, while the abstract works by Bodo Korsig are influenced by neuroscience and brain research (both Galerie Schmalfuß, Charlottenburg).
The pictorial worlds of the Chinese painter Rao Fu (Eigenheim Weimar/Berlin, Charlottenburg) bring together classical Chinese philosophy and culture, such as traditional ink painting, with knowledge of European painting and art history, such as Romanticism.
The sculptor Wolfram Beck (Salongalerie Die Möwe, Mitte), who died in 2004, is the creator of the Golden Camera sculpture for Germany’s oldest television award. His paintings presented in the CSR transfer the three-dimensionality of his sculptures into the two-dimensional. A severe stroke of fate in 1981 raised existential questions – Beck’s thoughts on transcendence brought him to the Tor motif.
The constructed architectural realities of painter Jens Hausmann (Galerie Martin Mertens, Mitte) capture on canvas the significance of the moment when nothing happens – when action freezes just before something happens.
CSR opens from Monday to Saturday from 10 am to 8 pm, at events until the late evening hours. The exhibition series is flanked by openings, midissages and finissages, artist talks, lectures, panels and panel discussions. Discourse and exchange are possible in the reading and lounge area. Guided tours through the exhibitions are planned in various languages. On site, visitors can talk to artists or deepen what they have seen with art books, art magazines and catalogues.
About DEEDS.LAB
“To love art, you have to understand art”. DEEDS.LAB wants to lend weight to this statement. The non-profit organisation from Berlin is working on formats for a more attractive way of communicating art that will make future generations curious about art. In its exhibitions and events, DEEDS.LAB facilitates, promotes and challenges discourse about art and its meaningfulness. It sees an urgent need for formats with a new culture of invitation and mediation in order to lower threshold fears and get more people excited about contemporary art. Because art enthusiasts and young collectors have to be found and built up – they don’t grow on trees. DEEDS.LAB also wants to promote artists and make contemporary art visible in the city centre. After all, along with New York and London, Berlin is one of the largest art production locations in the world.
CSR Contemporary Show Room is made possible and supported by ART@Berlin, provider of various platforms for contemporary art (exhibition portal artatberlin.com, art newspaper deeds.news, art marketplace artcompass.berlin).
WHEN?
Thursday, 28. April to Friday, 30. September 2022
Mon – Sat 10:00 am – 8:00 pm (longer for events)
Dates for ÜBERSCHAU #01
Preview: Wednesday, 27. April 2022, from 6 pm (invitation only)
Public Opening: Thursday, 28. April 2022, 6 – 10 pm
Exhibition dates: Thursday, 28. April – Saturday, 21. May 2022
WHERE?
CSR Contemporary Show Room
Friedrichstraße 69
10117 Berlin-Mitte
www.csr.art
Instagram @contemporaryshowroom
#csr #csrart #contemporaryshowroom
