Beaches, Fairytales, And A Painted Crime Scene: 3 Must-See Art Shows In Berlin This October
Berlin Art Week was a whirlwind of galleries and museums. Back home, I sorted through my stacks of press releases and exhibition leaflets to handpick my favorite shows you can still enjoy this season.
Phoebe Boswell: Liminal Beach
Pastel chalk drawings of seductive turquoise blue beaches are arranged on blurry silver wallpaper, hazily reflecting the colors of the artworks and the visitors. Actual sand is swept into some corners of the gallery. Phoebe (Millenial, Zanzibari) paints the shores of East Africa. A lost Garden Eden for some, a Purgatory for others. The contrast is most obvious in the panoramic drawing The Present Juncture of Entanglement (2023) where the only people relaxing at the beach are white tourists.
Most faces are featureless, the only clues to the mood of these works are body language and the landscape. The woman in the red dress in Liminal Deity (2023) is frozen in a joyful jump you’d typically see in a photo album documenting your last summer vacation. The people of In Search of the Common Place (2023) stand frozen in their gestures. It looks like Phoebe took inspiration from photojournalism. There’s trouble in Paradise: Thick dark smoke fills the horizon.
The works are visually beautiful but cynical in their content. The bright warm sunset and the curved bodies of the people in the water in Bless the Boats (2023) remind me of La danse (1909) by Henri Matisse (1869-1954, French) and Ludwig von Hofmann’s (1861-1945, German) spring nymphs frolicking in the wild. But the people in Phoebe’s drawing are not carelessly joyful. They farewell those who leave the idyllic coast in search of a better life thousands of miles away.
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Wentrup Gallery, until October 21, 2023, Knesebeckstraße 95, 10623 Berlin
Ania Hobson: Deep-Rooted
I was awestruck by the very first painting I saw: Against a golden, saintly backdrop stands a nude sexless human being. Their face is feminine, yet their breasts are not fully defined. The earthy skin turns black in the hands which gently hold a white dove. Is it the transformation of a monster? Furrowed brows frame the downward gaze. Another dove descends and gently brushes away a tear rolling down the left cheek. They say that art is supposed to make you feel something. You Bring Me Peace (2023) did just that. And I can’t remember a time that I felt so deeply connected to a work of art. I recognized a saint in them, a martyr whose struggles I can’t know. I like to think it’s a soul that has left earthly life and mourns its death soothed by hope.
Ania’s (Millenial, British), paintings hold so much mystery. Every thick stroke of paint looks like she softly grazes the skin of her subjects. There are only women, they are set against dense forests and standing on lush hills. I love the unusual vertical scale of We're the Last Trees Standing, i'll always choose you (2023): The tall body fills the whole canvas as she is holding a tree branch gun to her temple. Her relieved expression longs to pull the imaginary trigger. The bulky hands remind me of those by Otto Dix (1891-1961, German).
Golden light and sky are recurring elements. They remind me of saintly icons and Gustav Klimt’s (1862-1918, Austrian) dreamy Golden Phase. The show’s title Deep-Rooted suggests subconsciousness, buried desires, and thoughts hidden away, a theme that wasn’t that present in Ania’s earlier works. Bed of Worries (2023) reminds me of Ferdinand Hodler (153-1918, Swiss): His folkloric portraits with defined outlines set in natural landscapes are full of the peaceful mystery that I recognize in Ania’s work. Her sleeping figure lies neatly tucked into night blue bedsheets and her grey pillow rests in a stream, carrying away all thoughts and consciousness.
SETAREH, until October 21, 2023, Schöneberger Ufer 71, Berlin
Alexander Basil: Tidings from the Orbit
Have you heard of that viral crime novel that comes with the pages out of order and you have to figure out the right storyline? This is what this exhibition feels like. All paintings are connected to each other through constantly repeating images: Spilled red wine, notebook files, pregnancy ultrasounds, the artist’s face. The space is limited to the rooms of an apartment. They appear even more cramped as they are squeezed into the small canvases.
Alexander (Gen Z, German) takes on new forms and shapes in these scenes. In one of the paintings, his skin melts like a candle next to cigarette stubs, in another, he sheds his skin next to another version of himself observing his image in the mirror. Not only do the objects and the artist reappear: But whole paintings are inserted into each other. The color palette is dim. There is not much going on except for neutrals and some red. The surfaces are flat and cartoonish. Why does it make me think of Southpark?
Alexander exposes a double life: hard work in the home office clashes with the suicidal proximity of electric outlets to the bathtub. White heel boots next to black angel wings are the only indicators of fun. The set-up is heavily COVID-lockdown coded, although he has worked with the shrunk interior space even before 2020. Seeing the spilled coffee on a keyboard and a hot iron burning a white button down, it makes sense why Alexander would rather drown in his bedsheets and crawl under a table.
The aggression of Google Mail’s red notification button on Alexander’s notebook screen and the judgemental looks of his own face smashed onto notepads and USB sticks are deafening. Isolation, fatigue, and the pressure of peak performance might just be the friction of a match that will finally cause an explosion.
Galerie Judin, until October 28, 2023, Potsdamer Str. 83 (courtyard), 10785 Berlin
Who needs a treadmill when you can wait until the last exhibition day and run to the gallery? I saw the reviewed shows during Berlin Art Week 2023. For more info visit the website of Berlin Art Week.
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See you soon!!!
Jennifer
The Gen Z Art Critic