About the Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien – Gallery and Programme 2010
Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien is an exhibition space for contemporary art with a focus on current social and cultural issues. Central to the projects here are the meaningful contextualisation of themes and consideration for diversity, internationality, and local relevance.
At 450 sqm. and with over 200 running metres wall surface, the space is well suited to mid-size exhibitions. Around six exhibition projects take place in a year, some of which are realised as a collaborative effort with other institutions, curators or artist groups. Additional programs such as tours, films, discussions, and artist talks function as reinforcement to the exhibitions. Given our own limited budget, we rely heavily on third-party funding and partnerships for our projects. Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien is an organisation of the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg District Council.
Built in 1847 by the order of Frederick William IV, Bethanien is a former hospital designed by Theodor Stein and continued to serve as one until 1970. The fight for Bethanien's survival began immediately thereafter; plans to demolish and replace the building with social housing were countered through occupation, citizens' intiatives and conservationists. Since then, the building has offered space for cultural and artistic institutions. Aside from Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, there are the BBK Berlin printing studio, art residency program and media arts lab Künstlerhaus Bethanien GmbH, and the Friedrichshain Kreuzberg district music school.
Stéphane Bauer has been the director of Kunstraum
Kreuzberg/Bethanien since 2002 and is responsible for its program and organisation.
He read sociology and worked for the Federal Association of Student Cultural
Work (Bundesverband Studentischer Kulturarbeit) in Bonn. He later received
an assistantship at the Berlin University of the Arts (Hochschule der Künste)
and since 1990, he has been the managing director of the Kunstamt Kreuzberg
(District Department of Culture). Stéphane Bauer has been curating
exhibitions in Berlin at the Kunstraum Kreuzberg and the Neue Gesellschaft
für Bildende Künste since 1997.
You can read a curatorial statement and the biography of Stéphane Bauer at www.goethe.de
P r o g r a m m e 2 0 1 0
to 17 January 2010
Anonyme Zeichner N°10
ANONYME ZEICHNER is an action curated by Berlin artist Anke Becker in the
context of the nomadic art project blütenweiss. Anonyme Zeichner N°10:
700 drawings chosen from 1690 submissions from Australia, Austria, Belgium,
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Colombia, Croatia,
Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estland, France, Germany, Great Britain,
Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway,
Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland,
Turkey, Ukraine, USA
30 January to 7 March 2010
Opening: Friday, 29 January, from 7 pm
Derridas Katze... que donc je suis (à suivre)
A Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien exhibition curated by Alice Goudsmit in
cooperation with Barbara Buchmaier.
The exhibition Derridas Katze (Derrida´s Cat) examines the relationship
between humans and animals, taking as its starting point the assumption
that humans and animals are interdependent. From the perspective of the
humans the relationship cannot be defined as being solely utilitarian, nor
one which can be understood through language or scientific models alone.The
24 artistic positions and projects presented in the exhibition Derridas
Katze take a critical look at the established narcissism of humankind and
at its conceptual roots.
Artists: Carla Åhlander, China Åhlander, Gehrd Grothusen, Ethan
Hayes-Chute, Sylvia Henrich, Herorats, Ingvild Hovland Kaldal, Ane Lan,
Lotte Konow Lund, Tea Mäkipää, Ulrike Mohr, Susanne Nissen,
Yuka Oyama & Becky Yee, Juan Pancorbo, Lucy Powell, Petri Raappana,
Peter Nansen Scherfig, Louise Schrader, Nino Sekhniashvili, Starship (Ariane
Müller & Martin Ebner), Lisa Strömbeck, Eve K. Tremblay, Gernot
Wieland
20 March to 9 May 2010
Opening: Friday, 19 March, from 7 pm
ICH WEISS WAS DU NICHT SIEHST (I KNOW WHAT YOU CAN'T SEE)
A Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien exhibition curated by CAPRI Berlin and Thore
Krietemeyer
An artistic statement is always both an offer and a refusal at the same
time; something is revealed and much is concealed. Recognition and understanding
are only part of the reception of an artwork, and it is perhaps precisely
the elements which cannot be readily grasped that a viewer is looking for.
Similarly, the production of a work takes place as a contradictory process
of artistic self-positioning as an act of identification which is always
accompanied by misunderstandings. The exhibition's title refers to the moments
of absurdity and the dialogic character of any search for identity. ICH
WEISS WAS DU NICHT SIEHST presents positions that address role models, stereotypes
as well as their own perspective.
Artists: Gert Bendel, Ina Bierstedt, Bettina Carl, Daniela Comani, Ben Cottrell,
Meike Dölp, Rabea Eipperle, Philipp Fürhofer, Rabi Georges, Anna
Gollwitzer, Geka Heinke, Irène Hug, Sofia Hultén, Iris Kettner,
Andreas Koch, Nikolaus List, Alena Meier, Thomas Ravens, Angie Reed, Corinna
Schnitt, Asli Sungu
Auf dem Mariannenplatz:
2 May to 16 May 2010
setup 02 May, public work phase 03 May – 16 May
Weekend presentation: Saturday / Sunday 15 + 16 May
The Knot – Linking the existing with the imaginary
A project by Markus Bader (raumlabor), Oliver Baurhenn (General Public),
Kuba Szreder and Raluca Voinea (e-cart.ro) in cooperation with Kunstraum
Kreuzberg/Bethanien. Supported by Hauptstadtkulturfonds Berlin and the EU
Culture Programme 2007-2013.
The KNOT project is seeking artistic new visions of the future possibilities
presented by public space. THE KNOT is a platform for a team of curators,
who together with invited artists and theorists, examine questions of public
space, public art and the city as well as new ways of working in a globalized
world, by means of artistic interventions, research, discussions and lectures.
The actions centre on a specially designed mobile unit which is used as
a production and event location. After stopping at Mariannenplatz, KNOT
will travel on to Tempelhof, Warsaw and Bucharest.
22 May to 11 July 2010
Opening: Friday, 21 May, from 7 pm
LOCATE ME
A Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien exhibition curated by Florina Limberg, Eva
Alexandra Stueben und Daniela Walz
"Locate Me" is a functional command, and one which is always preceded
by a question: namely that of ones own location and standpoint. Driven by
use of mobile media - by GPS and the associated Web 2.0 offerings - the
positioning of the ego in urban space is the subject of renewed attention.
Internet queries and interactions can allow a virtual surface of the city
to evolve, provoking new strategies of spatial development. The exhibition
"Locate Me" examines the impact of new communication technologies
on traditional concepts of space. It is a report on the way young contemporary
artists experience the digital city.
Shown in parallel at Bethanien and Ballhaus Naunynstraße:
12 June to 15 August 2010
Opening: Friday, 11 June, from 7 pm
DE-REGULATION – With the Work of Kutlug Ataman
An Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien and Ballhaus Naunynstraße exhibition
curated by Irit Rogoff (Goldsmith College London, department of visual culture)
supported and funded by Kulturstiftung des Bundes
The proposed exhibition will deal with the de-regulation of history and
its narratives, using the work of Turkish film and video artist Kutlug Ataman,
as its initial impetus. In a new cycle of works completed in 2009 and working
under the title of “Mesopotamian Dramaturgies”, Ataman has opened
up several streams of investigation:
1. of historical regional identities and the processes of modernization
that rename and relocate them.
2. of the forces of modernity that arrive as forms of ‘Westernisation’
of societies that had undergone very different trajectories and of how this
modernity become a form of identification.
3. of an Ottoman geography that had defined a part of the world across South
East
Europe, the Balkans, Central Europe and the Middle East and whose colonial
mode of community pluralism was radically different from that of Western
colonial models. This body of work references many shifts within our thinking
in recent years as the EU and Turkey grapple with questions of inclusion
and exclusion and as the Middle East begins to unearth histories that predate
European colonialism and offer other, alternative models of modernity. Between
9000 B.C. and the beginning of the Christian era, western civilization came
into being in Egypt and in what historians call Ancient Western Asia: modern-day
Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, Turkey, south-western Russia, Iraq
and Iran. While the works in this exhibition do not rehearse long complex
regional histories as such, they do make a gesture towards another set of
historical locations and affiliations. As Berlin has joined cities such
as London, Paris, Marseilles, Athens etc., that are sites of global migrations
and spaces of ongoing cultural negotiations, a project such as ‘De-Regulation’
can serve as a forum for rehearsing such questions of co-joined histories
and heritages, in an inventive, imaginative and very contemporary form.
Of particular interest is the possibility of this project taking place in
Berlin at the same time as the debates around the planned “Humboldt
Forum”, which equally are trying to think through what to do with
the objects that have arrived in Europe through the territorial but also
the knowledge regimes, of the colonial era. The methods and protocols set
up in this body of contemporary art works, offer a dialogue opportunity
to questions dealing with the legacies of colonialism ‘as knowledge’
within contemporary European society.
The exhibition is comprised of the following:
- Site 1 – Bethanien: the 8 work cycle of “Mesopotamian Dramaturgies”
in the upstairs gallery of the Künstlerhaus + a cycle of 5 commissioned
“Subjective Timelines” conceptualized and executed by such major
intellectuals and writers as Ali Akay (‘On Radicality’), Orhan
Pamuk (‘On Nostalgia’), Selim Tamari (‘On Marginality’)
Jalal Toufic etc.
- Site 2 – Ballhaus Naunynstraße: 2 large installations “Women
Who Wear Wigs” and “Twelve” and 1 small work “Testimony”.
- Regional film programme curated by Kutlug Ataman that will be shown continuously
in Bethanien.
- Additionally the open-air cinema at Bethanien will be used for screenings
of particularly popular but rarely seen classics from the region.
- Summer School in Relational Geography – taught by scholars, artists,
critics and will result in a final collaborative project of an emergent
new imaginative Atlas.28 August to 10 October 2009
Opening: Friday, 27 August, from 7 pm
Transient Spaces – The Tourist Syndrome
A project by uqbar, Berlin, initiated by Marina Sorbello and Antje Weitzel,
in cooperation with Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst e.V. and Kunstraum
Kreuzberg/Bethanien, Berlin; E-M Arts, Naples; ICCA/CIAC, Bucharest; Meno
Parkas, Kaunas. Funded with the support of the European Commission, Cultural
Programme, and Stiftung Deutsche Klassenlotterie Berlin. Partner in Berlin:
Italian Cultural Institute Berlin.
Not least as a result of the EU expansions of recent years EU citizens are
moving across the continent in increasing numbers, some as migrants, some
as tourists and some as both. The project is aimed at discovering how the
various migratory movements are linked and how they affect one another.
The project includes workshops, seminars, lectures and art exhibitions in
Italy, Lithuania, Romania and Germany. The artistic work shown at the Berlin
exhibition, presented in parallel at NGBK (Oranienstr. 25, 10999 Berlin)
and Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien, marks the culmination of the two-year
project and provides very varied insights into its topics.
23 October to 28 November 2010
Opening: Friday, 22 October, from 7 pm
POSITIONEN – GEDOK Berlin 1960-2010
A GEDOK Berlin exhibition funded by the Berlin Senate Chancellery department
for cultural affairs, curated by Birgit Möckel
1960 marks the 50th anniversary of the refounding of GEDOK Berlin. The history
of the association of German and Austrian women artists and patrons (Gemeinschaft
Deutscher und Österreichischer Artists und Kunstförderer e.V.)
dates back to 1926 when the Jewish patron of the arts, Ida Dehmel, launched
Europe's only interdisciplinary association of women artists. Selected positions
from the fields of fine and applied arts, music, literature and dance present
a portrait of 50 years of art by women in Berlin spanning all genres and
generations.
11 December 2010 to 13 February 2011
Opening: Friday, 10 December, from 7 pm
iD – indonesian Contemporary Art
A project by Nya Luong and J.C. Lanca, supported by Hauptstadtkulturfonds
ID - Indonesian Contemporary Art is an exhibition with 11 international
locations. The underlying current is provided by the two letters ID, with
its various potential levels of interpretation. The thematic focus is on:
national, individual and collective identities and the blurring of their
boundaries. A number of discourses are to be found in the field of tension
between these topoi and give expression to the changes taking place in our
world and the way it works. ID stands as a symbol for identity and for Indonesia.
When pronounced in German it cannot be distinguished from the term Idee
(idea). Each work of art is based on an idea, each reflects the identity(or
identities) of the artist.
Artists: Sally Moira Busse, Setu Legi, Yudi Noor, Sara Nuytemans & Arya
Pandjalu, Rebecca Raue, Nadin Reschke, Prilla Tania, Rizki Resa Utama, Jorinde
Voigt, Forum Lenteng [woman artists' collective], Ruang MES 56 [artists'
collective].
Preview of 2011:
February - April 2011
Mothering, Domestic and Private
An exhibition project by Felicita Reuschling, funded by Hauptstadtkulturfonds
The exhibition project "Mothering" deals with the contemporary
view of motherhood and the associated image of caring taken by neo-liberals
as the focus for much debate on the upheavals currently underway in demography
and social reproduction. The exhibition sees itself as part of a feminist
discussion process, whose themes bear in mind both the dilemmas of working
mothers and the rise of waged care work as a modern form of female labour
migration.
Projects over several years:
Projektraum 1 / Project space 1:
In parallel 2010 will see a continuation of the programme of exhibitions
and projects taking place in the so-called Projektraum 1 in cooperation
with Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien such as: „Backjumps, Volume4, #2
und #3“, „Mart-Stam-Förderpreis“ and many others.
Information about current projects can be found at www.kunstraumkreuzberg.de
Offensive Kulturelle Bildung
Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien will continue to actively support the two
schools its sponsors - Fichtelgebirge Grundschule and Kurt-Löwenstein-Hauptschule
– both in accompaniment to the exhibitions at Kunstraum and by going
into the schools themselves to develop, implement and present cultural education
activities. Both sponsorships are supported and promoted in parallel by
a special project of the PWC-Stiftung and the Berlin state programme for
sponsorships between art and educational institutions (Offensive Kulturelle
Bildung/Kulturprojekte in Berlin).
In particular, the so-called sponsorship room (Raum der Patenschaften) next
to the Kunstraum exhibition space in Bethanien will continue to be used
for exhibitions and projects of the partner schools and for cultural education
events.