Preview Berlin

It´s Art Forum time in Berlin until October 3 and i am doing my best to cram as many exhibitions as possible in just 2 days. Yesterday i managed to visit only two of them, starting with Preview Berlin, "The Emerging Art Fair" with an aim to present art, still in its early stage, on the international art scene.

Inside Hangar 2

It had to be first on my list because it is located in a former hangar at Tempelhof Airport. In his third year now, Preview Berlin works as a non-profit organisation and defines itselfs as "an art fair organised by galleries for galleries."

Just a few discoveries:

The Galerie Adler once again hit me in all the right places with its choice of dedicating its booth to a few paintings and one installation of Swiss artist Leopold Rabus

Schnee und Fuchs, 2007

Its neighbour the Galerie Baer had some lovely drawings by Jan Brokof

I spent what looks like an insane amount of time admiring Jonathan Delachaux´s eerie paintings at Haas & Fischer gallery. For more than ten years the painter has been working with three fictitious characters; he gave them names, a history (they used to be austistic but are now cured, thank you), took them on his trips around the world and made them accompany other artists. Delachaux forced them to be musicians and as their producer he recorded several CDs.

The gallery had also a selection of Chitra Ganesh´quirky works. At first sight they look like comics staring characters from the Hindu mythology but you read the dialogues you realize that they are meant to puzzle and comment on gender and social issues.

Tales of Amnesia (Detail view, The Spell)

The Galerie Maisterravalbuena had a spectacular painting by Huanchaco, a very pop portraits that glues references to the cultural influences of the US, Europe and China on a very Mexican-looking painting.

Plenty of art pieces to like at the V1 Gallery. Especially Troels Carlsen´s primates. Carlsen examines the grey area between animal kingdom and realm of man, by portraying monkeys as senatorial candidates a century ago.

Campaign

In other situations the concrete physiological borders are blurred. Wellknown anatomics are revised in a way that doesn’t quite correspond with knowledge aquired in primary school’s biology-classes. Troels Carlsen manipulates with genes resulting in a fusion between chimpansees and gibbons on one side and the human body on the other. This genetic hybrid makes it difficult to distinguish man from animal and animal from man.

The Man

In some of his most poignant installations, Troels in emergency care

Kunstagenten Contemporary Gallery had a remarkable installation to show off Thorsten Brinkmann´s self-portraits.

At the ArtMbassy booth, i loved Stefano Giuriati and Aldo Giannotti's photographic take on the Carabinieri – Stazione Mobile – the result of a performance made in Munich. Wearing Italian policemen' uniform, they just tried to blend into very German settings in a way that makes us question the concepts of our own homeland and also the concepts of the national borderline inside the European Union (via).

More images from Preview Berlin.