In Where It’s At, Phin Jennings walks you down the world’s less-trodden cultural paths, consulting with some of the most plugged-in locals to guide you through a world of beautiful, moving, delicious and enriching experiences. Eating, drinking, gallery-hopping, shopping, swimming, staring at the sky: nothing is off the table as he explores the outer reaches of our cultural world to find out where it’s really at.
Berlin is a city without a centre. Brainwashed by my years in London, I search a map of it for hard and simplistic rules – neighbourhoods for young art, neighbourhoods for old art, neighbourhoods to party in and neighbourhoods to avoid at all costs. It returns me a scattered matrix of hotspots and microcultures.
What a beautiful thing, you might think: art, music and fun unfolding across the full city with no corner falling victim to the postcode snobbery that’s endemic elsewhere. Maybe so. But, for this writer, it’s bad news. As I plot the valuable recommendations sent to me by this cohort of generous informants (and what a cohort it is: tastemaking gallerists, luminary artists and one party who has requested to remain anonymous for fear of getting grief for proffering recommendations that are too good), no natural order emerges. There is no day-by-day itinerary written across the map. If Berlin were a graph, there would be no trend: its data would be inconclusive.
At first glance, that is. Luckily for you, I have been in the lab poring over the results. I have run them and rerun them. I have created countless meticulous models. I have delved into the particulars, and I’ve come up with the following: the only guide you’ll need to one of this year’s most important art events: Gallery Weekend Berlin.
As I learned last year, Berlin has a lot of good galleries. In the coming paragraphs, I’m going to reel off some names quite quickly; quite disrespectfully, some may argue. I have neither the word count nor the inclination to explain to you what makes each one of them special, but please trust me: they are. A middling gallery in Berlin would be one of the best in any other city. So heed these words.
Thursday, 1st May
To stay, Marie-Christine Molitor, the eponymous founder of Galerie Molitor, recommends the Hotel Wilmina in Charlottenburg. A former women’s prison, I can’t guarantee that it isn’t haunted by dangerous and persecuted ghosts. But I can guarantee a new in-house bakery. Overall? Worth it.
Today’s a public holiday in Germany, and it’s not Gallery Weekend yet, so take this as an opportunity to acclimatise to the non-hierarchical geography of the city and try to get a sense of what’s where, something I have failed to do in Berlin so many times.
If you find yourself at a loose end, Kreuzberg is the spot to head for. Here, the streets are closed and various street parties pop up for May Day. Molitor recommends stopping by the opening party of Ari’s for some Peruvian flavours. Around the corner, Rory Kirk-Duncan – another local gallerist – has tipped me off that Mitte’s new favourite bar Pinci will be hosting a low-key pop-up in their forthcoming second location. Paul-Lincke-Ufer 42, you didn’t hear it from me!
In the evening, interdisciplinary artist Nazanin Noori recommends a trip to her number one meditation spot, Berliner Philharmonie. “I always appreciate a moment of collective thinking and a room that therefore becomes a performance in its own right,” she says. The bad news is that tonight is long sold out and I’m not sure whether ticket touting is as prevalent in Germany as it is where I’m from.
Try your luck, and if all else fails you can head back towards Kreuzberg to drink in one of many Cool Bars. Gallerist Guido Baudach recommends Les Climats, a wine bar just around the corner from his gallery. Artist and chef Caique Tizzi recommends Studio1111 and Möbel Olfe, both of which also serve as art spaces. Almost everyone I spoke to recommends Schmetterling, a fabled artists’ hangout that reopens this weekend.
Friday, 2nd May
How many people from LA did you meet last night? Whenever I go to Berlin I end up surrounded by them, and their good looks and social prowess leave me feeling small. A morning at Einstein Mommseneck, a favourite haunt of Molitor, will put you back in the company of your people: she speaks of “a late breakfast or early lunch among artists, journalists and curators.” Hopefully, none of them Californian.
From here, it’s a trip across town to Mitte, where your gallery drift begins. Must-visits are DITTRICH & SCHLECHTRIEM, Super Super Markt, which Kirk-Duncan runs alongside Julius Jacobi, and Kunst Raum Mitte, where local artist Constantin Hartenstein is included in group exhibition in sight. Nearby is Sprüth Magers’ museum-scale space, a vast, many-roomed monument to Germany’s incredible tolerance for brainy conceptualism. London could never.
Afterwards, Hartenstein recommends a posh lunch at FREA: “zero waste and you leave with zero money because you spent it”. If you’re on a budget but still want to dine somewhere with a vaguely nonsensical four-letter name, Kirk-Duncan has a couple of spots for you: Sofi and ACID are two nearby bakeries.
I’m fascinated by Phantom Bar, another of Molitor’s recommendations. It has no images on Google Maps and just 22 reviews, the first of which reads like the blurb of the next hot autofiction debut. If you’re happy to lock in at another bar for the afternoon, please make it this one. Otherwise, I recommend spending the remainder of the day languishing on the grass of Monbijoupark, happily sandwiched between Sprüth and the Spree.
Saturday, 3rd May
Charlottenburg is a strange part of Berlin to me. In my mind’s eye, I see it as a tangle of traffic intersections with railway lines overhead. At ground level, chain restaurants and garish billboards predominate. I remember it feeling like a cross between Piccadilly Circus and Gatwick Airport. Why, then, is it home to some of the chicest spots in the city? This might be Berlin’s centreless nature in action. It might also be me misremembering it.
In any case, we begin our day with a robust gallery hop, featuring some canonical solo exhibitions. We’re talking Anne Imhof at Galerie Buchholz, Marianna Simnett at Société, Horst Antes at Meyer Riegger and our man in North London, Frank Auerbach at Galerie Michael Werner. Finally, as if that wasn’t enough, Mehdi Chouakri and Esther Schipper are collaborating to recreate a 1990s two-person show featuring Sylvie Fleury and Angela Bulloch. This is all very good. Almost too good – I did warn you.
There’s time to stop for hotpot at ShooLoongKan, which Noori says is the best in Berlin, before an afternoon at CCA Berlin, another of her favourite places (not least, I’m sure, because of her excellent solo exhibition there last year). It’s worth visiting just for the incredible space, located in the brutalist foyer of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. Luckily, there’s also a good group show happening.
Today’s been one for the books, and the only way to end it, I’m told by Chouakri himself, is with Berlin’s best dry martini. You’ll find it at Bar Zentral, where you can sit outside under a viaduct and watch the motorway go by. That’s the Charlottenburg I know.
If you have more drinking in you (and, as ever, I won’t judge if you don’t), a Berlin artist who prefers to stay anonymous – lest he incur the wrath of the city’s true insiders for blowing up the spot – recommends hitting a kneipe. These are smoky, dive-like bars where you absolutely shouldn’t ask for a dry martini. Take out some cash and head for Kuckucksei or Alcatraz. Alternatively, DITTRICH & SCHLECHTRIEM are hosting a party at Kantine am Berghain, that club’s more inviting cousin, with DJ sets from the friendly-sounding CEM, DJ Killing and RIOTBUTT.
Sunday, 4th May
This is normally the day when I’d encourage rest, recovery and perhaps an out-of-town adventure. Today, though, the galleries continue to come thick and fast. There’s all of Potsdamer Straße and much of Kreuzberg left to visit. The must-visits are Schiefe Zähne, Molitor (of course), Heidi, carlier | gebauer, Sweetwater, Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi and Kow. Tackle this list however you think best, just make sure you slurp down a bowl of noodles from LIU Nudelhaus at some point in the middle.
When I asked local artist Angus McCrum for his Berlin recommendations, having met him more than once at Die kleine Philharmonie, a charming bar with an arty crowd, I expected the world of him. Instead, he suggested an ice cream at Faldon Eismanufaktur. I was a little disappointed then but now, after an art weekend with more art than I would consider healthy, it might just be the perfect thing.
If, running on fumes, you still have an appetite for art, the most interesting thing to happen all weekend might just be tonight. Artist and filmmaker Daniel Hopp will be showing a film in a very secret and special setting. I can’t tell you any more here but if you send him a DM and say that I sent you, he will reveal all.
