The second edition of Art Berlin brings together more than 120 galleries from across the globe, showcasing modern and contemporary work within two colossal hangars at the reclaimed Tempelhof Airport, which until recently lay derelict and briefly functioned as a refugee camp. It is just one of the events that fill an intense calendar during Berlin Art Week, where commercial galleries, project spaces and institutions jostle for attention.
With that in mind, Art Berlin follows in an established trend of new art fair thinking, which eschews the preconception of a homogenous trade event for more critical, curated responses to the world around us. As such, Art Berlin has introduced Verlörung, a 100 square-metre “collective booth” that brings together over fifty works from forty galleries in a traditional salon hang, curated by Tenzing Barshee.
“Art Berlin brings together more than 120 galleries from across the globe within two colossal hangars at the reclaimed Tempelhof Airport”
Meanwhile, an exhaustive special projects section promises to “form a continuous ribbon” throughout the venue, by bringing in-depth solo presentations from a slew of local and international artists. These practitioners engage with topics as broad as progressive internet art (in the case of Olia Lialina) and the lost cultural identity felt by former citizens of the German Democratic Republic (Wilhelm Klotzek) as well as the socio-political consequences of architecture and space (Marjetica Potrč).
For more expansive thoughts on global happenings, be sure to check out the talks programme, which includes cryptic subjects such as “How to create valuable relationships in the arts and in ventures while chasing unicorns.”
