Hot Spot Berlin Belinda Grace Gardner Artnet

Germany’s capital has become the epicenter of the international art scene.

These days, when passing through Berlin’s vibrantly exciting ‘Mitte’ district, one keeps bumping into well-known artists at every corner, who in the past years have been flocking from all over the place into the vital, refurbished center in the east of the city, literally taking up residence there in crowds. Berlin, particularly the hip vicinities around Oranienburger Straße and Auguststraße (the latter being the site of the prestigious contemporary art institution KW as well as having hosted the main venue of this year’s Berlin Biennale) or Prenzlauer Berg and adjoining Friedrichshain as favored dwelling areas, has unquestionably become a, if not the hot spot of the art world.

Formerly New York-based South African artist Candice Breitz is a good case in point: following the first wave of artists flowing into the German capital in increasing numbers since the late 1990’s, Breitz appeared on the Berlin scene a few years ago, and has settled into a flat she recently purchased, choosing the city as a steady, long-term ramp from which to launch her international projects.

One of the reasons Breitz ventured from New York to Berlin in the first place was the fact that all of her artist friends seemed to either be there already or on the brink of moving there. Other reasons why Berlin has become a haven especially for younger artists include the – compared to other metropolises such as New York or London - relatively moderate living expenses. Studio spaces are generally much cheaper than elsewhere and also easier to come by. You can get an excellent meal in one of the countless bistros and restaurants or frequent the ultra-cool bars sprouting up all over Berlin-Mitte and Prenzlauer Berg for a few euros.

And, despite the pulsating, fun, and highly charged creative atmosphere characteristic of the new Berlin, artists enjoy the particular laid-back quality they find here as well: the relaxed, cozy, cooperative mood encountered in a city that is notoriously broke (which also applies to a larger part of the population), where people are used to helping one another out, networking in imaginative ways, and coming up with unconventional and innovative ideas in the process.

Moreover, in the meantime, the city is teeming with galleries, which in the wake of the influx of artists have moved their businesses to Berlin completely, or at least have opened a branch here, while major German collectors such as Wilhelm Schürmann or Axel Haubrok have also become residents of the still vehemently up-and-coming metropolis, marking yet another clientèle drawn by Berlin’s development into a pivotal site of artistic presence and production.

The cultural boom that has seized Berlin is still in full swing, recalling the city’s golden age in the second half of the 1920’s, when tout le monde came streaming in, the Potsdamer Platz - today once again a hub of lively activity - was Europe’s busiest traffic junction, and almost 150 daily newspapers were in circulation. It is also reminiscent of the expressively gestural and vividly colorful era of the Young Wilds which culminated in the legendary Zeitgeist show at the Berlin Martin-Gropius-Bau in 1982.

Sharing an affinity to punk rock, a vigorous brush stroke, and figurative style, the Young Wilds, with painter Rainer Fetting as a prominent protagonist, initiated, among other things, the artist-organized space Galerie am Moritzplatz and basically turned the West-Berlin district of Kreuzberg situated in the shadow of the Wall into a subcultural sphere of attraction.

And yet the Young Wilds group was more limited in scope than today’s globally active artist generation in that it was generated by local artists who in their large-format neo-expressionist work concentrated on subject-matter related to the specific Berlin experience, which at that time entailed living in a divided city in a kind of isolated hothouse, where creative energies ran high, albeit with the risk of imploding or at least of revolving around themselves in a vicious circle. Also, in contrast to the present open community with its flow of artists coming from outside, the highest aim for Berlin-based artists then was to land a major success overseas in New York, which Fetting, for one, managed to do in the 1980’s, setting up a studio in Manhattan.

Indeed, the current Berlin art scene is a whole lot more complex, mobile, and more genre- and boundary-transcending than its precursor of the late ‘70’s and early ‘80’s. Just how energetically heterogeneous and vital it is can now be gleaned from the extensive exhibition ANSTOSS BERLIN – Kunst macht Welt (roughly meaning: ‘Kickoff Berlin – Art Creates World‘) staged at the Haus am Waldsee on the occasion of the renowned Berlin art institution’s 60 th anniversary. The exhibition at the Haus am Waldsee, which incidentally also featured the ground-breaking show of the New Wilds’ Heftige Malerei in early 1980, encompasses works created by 61 leading artists from 21 nations, who have all chosen Berlin as their home base.

With her abundant selection of works ranging from scupture to painting and from video pieces to installations, Katja Blomberg, since 2004 Artistic Director of the Haus am Waldsee, not only wishes to present a “snapshot” of the city’s prolific art scene and of the “global players” who are “enjoying the city as a mental research lab.” Her objective is to create an exhibition space dedicated specifically to international artists operating in Berlin, thus linking onto the exhibition site’s long-standing tradition in showing contemporary art “on the highest artistic level,” and establishing a field of discussion, interaction, and reflection of Berlin’s artist community on a wide scale.

On the one hand, ANSTOSSBERLIN may be viewed as exemplary for future activities at the Haus am Waldsee, which – with an interior exhibition area extending over 400 and a park-like exterior realm extending over 10,000 square meters - yields ample space for group and in-depth solo presentations. Apart from Candice Breitz, among the over sixty protagonists included in the anniversary exhibition we encounter artists as varied as Tacita Dean, Jonathan Monk, Olafur Eliasson, Björn Dahlem, Gerwald Rockenschaub, Mona Hatoum, Angela Bulloch, Ayse Erkmen, Manfred Pernice, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Via Lewandowsky, Takehito Koganezawa, Asta Gröting, and Katharina Grosse, to name just a few - all of these contributing to Berlin’s status as a vivacious stronghold of art, while “acting as entrepreneurs worldwide,” as Blomberg remarks. On the other hand, the show throws a spotlight on the significance of Berlin as an epicenter of international artistic action: unquestionably Europe’s most dynamic and thrilling at this particular point in time, with the promise of further expansion in this direction for quite a stretch into the future. Artnet