Mia Florentine Weiss in her booth
Mia Florentine Weiss // CONTEXT Art Miami 2016
No, not in Berlin. Shock, horror! This time round we have decided to include a Berlin-based artist, whose work is being introduced to the US American audience at CONTEXT Art Miami this weekend. Mia Florentine Weiss is a german performance and conceptual artist, staging spectacular and socio-critical events and documenting them in equally spectacular photographs. So even if you are, like us, not in the US at the moment, you can check out her work here and here. Because if there is a time for staying in bed while enjoying art then its december, am I right?
So this year the west berlin gallery Friedman-Hahn showcases Weiss‘ work around her latest conceptual sculpture „Love“. It is inspired by the iconic Pop Art sculpture of the same name in central park New York, whose author, Robert Indiana called it a „sculpture poem“ or „one-word-poem“. Yet Weiss‘ sculpture, though based on the same letters L-O-V-E, also spells the complete opposite when turned around: H-A-T-E. The work reveals truths about the human condition – there can be no hate without love, an equally strong emotion, they coexist – just as life and death. A valuable artistic position considering the hate fuelled rage we have witnessed this past year.
Olafur Eliasson
The presence of absence, 2016 © Olafur Eliasson, courtesy neugerriemschneider, Berlin
Neugeriemschneider // Olafur Eliasson: The presence of Absence
December 10th, 2016 – January 14th, 2017, opening: December 9th, 6pm – 9pm
Last year in November the breakthrough UN climate conference was held in Paris and ratified by most influential industrial nations. Upon stepping out of the conference centre a gigantic installation made out of melting ice blocks would have greeted the discussion-tired politicians and scientists. 12 steles, drilled out of Greenland glaciers and transported to the middle of Paris, had been arranged as a clock by the artist Olafur Eliasson. Over the course of the conference the sculpture melted away – a monumental warning about the consequences of global warming: a time-bomb.
For his next solo-exhibition with Neugeriemschneider Eliasson has again worked with this politically charged frosty material. This time the ice blocks were covered with concrete and left to melt, transforming the concrete and leaving behind an art work sculpted by an absent sculptor. Organic forms have been carved into the sterile and industrial concrete cubes. Accompanying these name-giving works are further works springing from Eliassons interest in mirrors, reflections, lights and shadows.
Neugeriemschneider, Linienstraße 155, 10115 Berlin
Works by Raul Walch in the exhibition of Berlin Art prize © Anastasia Muna, Berlin Art Prize 2016
Berlin Art Prize 2016 // prize ceremony
current – December 10th 2016, ceremony and party (!): 7pm – 7am
Before the exhibition of the nine shortlisted artists nominated for the Berlin Art Prize ends on 10th December with the announcement of this years winner, take a look and judge for yourself! Spanning media such as sculpture, installation, photography, performance and conceptual art, the Art Prize has also hosted a number of workshops, events and presentations by the participating artists. Highlights were the performative workshops by Stine Marie Jacobsen and the presentation of flying kite sculptures by Raul Walch, who has recently been awarded the prestigious IBB Prize for Photography.
Going out with a bang, the Berlin Art Prize after party promises a „superstar line-up“ and celebrating through night. Not to be missed!
Kühlhaus Berlin, Luckenwalder Straße 3, 10963 Berlin
Abdourahman Waberi photo credit: Gilles Vidal
SAVVY Contemporary // Abdourahman Waberi meets Bonaventure Ndikung: WHAT IF…
6th December 2016, 7pm – 11pm
What if…
Africa would be the rising continent – its wealth and quietness only threatened by the flow of refugees coming from the impoverished regions of Europe and America? Or – a cat would tell the fictitious biography of Gil Scott Heron or a man would return to his homeland Djibouti haunted by the ghosts of his family?
Opening up speculative scenarios the artist Abdourahman Waberi invites us to question perceived certainties. The current guest professor Waberi will read passages of his most recent works and discuss them with with Bonaventure Ndikung, founder and curator of SAVVY Contemporary.
Plantagenstraße 31, 13347 Wedding, Berlin
Candida Höfer © Sophie von Stockhausen 2014
Neuer Berliner Kunstverein // Candida Höfer: Nach Berlin
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