Top 5 Openings for Your Berlin Art Weekend

04.12 - 06.12.2014 

Top 5 Openings for Your Berlin Art Weekend

Our favorite Berlin art openings (4th-6th Dec 2014): KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Luis Campaña, Bastian, KOW & 401contemporary

Performance / Sam Smith at KW Institute for Contemporary Art

Thursday 4th  December – 7pm 

At the latest installment in KW’s enchanting ongoing performance series “The Performative Minute,” Sam Smith will debut a live video essay incorporating satellite imagery, text overlays, archived materials and the complicity of a willing audience. As a 2013/14 participant in the prestigious International Studio Program at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Sam Smith currently splits his time between London and Berlin, so local audiences should jump at the chance to steal a few minutes of time from this up-and-coming performer working at the nexus of art and technology.

KW Institute for Contemporary Art // Auguststraße 69, 10117 Berlin 

Vernissage / Stefan Kern at Luis Campaña Berlin

Friday 5th December – 6pm until 9pm 

For an engaging new take on high modernism, Stefan Kern’s exhibition at Luis Campaña offers a little something old and a breath of fresh air, all at the same time. With humor and wit, Kern’s work elevates formal concerns about the physical experience of sculpture and fundamentally alters the question of communication between viewer and object. The colors pop, the shapes stand for themselves, and the concepts fly wild and free at this charmingly minimal exhibition. 

Louis Campaña Berlin // Axel-Springer Straße 43, 10969 Berlin 

Vernissage / Joseph Beuys at  Bastian 

Friday 5th December – 6pm until 8pm 

If you’re not familiar with the groundbreaking sculptural objects of Joseph Beuys you’re missing out on work that has shaped the very concept of contemporary art as we know it —  if you’re not familiar with the openings at Bastian, you’re missing out on one fine party. With the champagne flowing as smoothly as the small talk, the upcoming opening at Bastian offers an exceptional opportunity to get close to some of the most important sculptural objects from Beuys’ influential early days, works not seen outside of private collections for the last twenty years.

Bastian // Am Kupfergraben 10, 10117 Berlin 

Vernissage / Tobias Zielony at KOW

Friday 5th December — 6pm 

At KOW, German photographer Tobias Zielony brings a critical approach to the act of documentary videography, capturing powerfully emotional scenes from the darker corners of life on and off the streets. Sleek, well-polished video work  butts up against grittier, sex-tinged themes, mixing the deprived and the depraved to arrive at a body of work that feels particularly well-suited to exhibition in Berlin.

KOW // Brunnenstraße 9, 10118 Berlin 

Vernissage / Chicks on Speed at 401contemporary

Saturday 6th December — 6pm – 9pm

Chicks on Speed are a “nonconformist, feminist, participatory…multimodal, multi-national collective founded by Melissa Logan (USA) and Alex Murray-Leslie (AUS) in Munich.” Over the years this radical, avant-garde group has pushed boundaries from the Venice Biennale to the Centre Pompidou, from MOMA to PS1; and now, with the opening of Datastravaganza at 401contemporary in Berlin, Chicks on Speed are bringing their unique high-tech/no-tech aesthetic to Berlin to explore all things data through performance, sound and visual art.

401 Contemporary // Potsdamer Straße 81 b, 10785 Berlin



Top Image Credit: Chicks on Speed at 401contemporary