The Women of the Gallery Weekend Berlin 2019

I’m going to be frank: since starting She Performs, I have become addicted to counting. Here’s some numbers: 14 out of 50; 12 out of 41; 16 to 3. I wish I just made these up, but these are the actual numbers for the Gallery Weekend in Berlin two weeks ago. Out of fifty officially participating galleries, fourteen showed women (including in group exhibitions with men). Out of forty-one solo exhibitions, 29 showed works by male artists versus twelve solo presentations of female artists. And 16 to 3? That is the total number of men and women in all the group exhibitions (of which there were ten). Now, we don’t like to whine, but it’s good to count sometimes. I spoke to a lot of people - gallerists, artists and collectors - on that weekend and they all said the same thing: “I felt like it looked pretty equal this year.” I’m not saying this to expose anyone and accuse them, but it is not just now and not just in Berlin that we see a few more women than historically represented and immediately assume that it is pretty close to equal (although if you look at the chart, you’ll find that this weekend was even below the global average of female representation). The problem is we started with 100% white male. Even big steps are still too far away from equality. But that being said, we are not in the business of complaining. We give platforms and space to great female artists and we celebrate the ones we see, anticipating that this will open the stage for more great women. So for the Gallery Weekend Berlin 2019, I made it my duty to go and see every single exhibition in which a woman's work was shown (frankly and sadly that wasn’t too time consuming) and am giving space to the best exhibitions I saw.

Frieda Toranzo Jaeger Deep Adaptation
Galerie Barbara Weiss (27.4.-15.6.2019)

Frieda Toranzo Jaeger’s exhibition pushes boundaries: of what art history tells us a woman should (or even would) paint and the expectations of what mostly female domains such as embroidery can do. Her works are never just regular painted rectangular canvases (presuming there is such a thing as regular anyways). A multitude of rhombus shaped canvases put together in the form of a star - attached with hinges and able to be folded and unfolded, showing new paintings back and front and changing the way we perceive the work as a whole. At the back of the gallery there is a diptych of a car. When moving towards it directly from the front, a third canvas, mounted on a pillar, fills the gap between the two canvases - embroidered with red and orange, it is reminiscent of blood or fire in the middle of what now seems to be a car torn in two. Embroidery is found on most of her canvases, not mixed with the paint, but adding a relief to the work. The subject of the paintings as well as the embroidery is power and control - both as a history of driving and machines, as well as the art historical cannon - both historically (and presently) dominated by the male. This is a must NOT miss exhibition in Berlin this spring.

Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press Full Sea Scape
Galerie Barbara Thumm (27.4.-4.5.2019)

At first it seems as though the massive black helium-filled inflatable spheres are the root of this exhibition and that the paintings are derived as studies of these spheres. When in reality it is much more complicated. The whole exhibition investigates the limitations of language with Fiona Banner’s installation taking over the whole space of the gallery in the process. The paintings are found engravings and paintings of boats at sea on which the artist has painted and superimposed these spheres in black. Those spheres - both 2D and 3D - are full stops. Some of these painted full stops are round and some are square, taking the investigation of language further by using different fonts’ designs of full stops. These full stops sit in the space as interventions, forcing the viewer to interact with them as she has to move around them. The exhibition is a fantastic opportunity to experience an installation that takes it to the next level and challenges the audience to think about how language, space and people connect.

Asta Gröting Not feeling too cheerful: reclining figures, facades and more
Carlier Gebauer (27.4.-1.6.2019)

Entering the main room, the audience is faced with an absurd, but somewhat familiar, urban scenario: white sleeping bags, made from resin or wax, are lying on the floor between casts of walls hanging on the white gallery walls around the ‘Reclining Figures’ in the sleeping bags. There is a stark contrast between the clean white of the sleeping bags - making them seem fragile and innocent - and the rough casts on the walls. The casts are of buildings that were damaged in the Second World War and thus become reminiscent of a different time. A time that is getting more and more lost due to new building projects in cities such as Berlin. These walls have bubbles where the holes from bullets were on the original wall. Almost like faces, these irregularities and ‘flaws’ give the building a personality and justify their place in the world. The exhibition shows two more rooms of new works: an installation with a bowel made from silicone and wood wool surrounded by smiley reliefs made from glass, and a video installation in the third room. This exhibition is critical and diversified like I haven’t seen in a while. Worth the visit, but make sure you have a bit more time because each room demands to be examined and looked at as a new space in its own right.

Jana Euler Great White Fear
Galerie Neu (26.4.-30.5.2019)

Who is afraid of what,
What is afraid of whom.

I think there is nothing in these paintings you would not see or miss, if left
undescribed.

Besides, maybe that it is like the Mona Lisa,
They look at you wherever you are in the room.

Jana Euler (exhibition pamphlet)

Eight works - all the same size, all huge - hang on the walls at Galerie Neu. ‘The Great White Fear’ is the title and when you enter the space you are confronted with these large scale works, nowhere to escape to, no small work or sculpture in a corner that one could flee to for some distraction. Eight sharks - the great white fear. Or is it? The sharks look mean enough, but being a shark only seems to be a costume, a disguise to mask the actual great white fear: the male phallic symbol. The sharks forcefully erect from the water and take up the whole canvas in a phallic movement. These works are incredible! Incredibly strong in the way they address an issue, which itself likes to disguise itself as something else. The patriarchy as an evil force that claims to be nature, not nurture. Is ‘it’ more afraid of us than we are of it? Unlike sharks, the patriarchy attacks and controls because it can, not because it must. But a show of force is inherent to both. An exhibition like this comes around only every so often. Don’t miss it.

Signe Pierce REFLEXXIONS
Eigen+Art Lab (24.4.-15.6.2019)

Walking into REFLEXXIONS one finds oneself in a seemingly hyper-digital space. Canvases with projections of images that merge the aesthetic Playboy imagery of yesteryear and psychedelic color schemes, moving slightly on the canvas. The works appear to be just surface. But the movement of the image on the canvas forces a further examination of them. The image is a projection of the artist’s hyper-real body, which becomes a tool in the discussion about femininity and sexuality. The play with surface and depth is a reoccurring theme in the works in this exhibition, with works often revealing a multi-layered structure. A third of the space is taken up by an installation, which at first glance seems pretty straightforward: colored light, a projection onto the middle wall, and metal banners hanging down on both sides of the room. The structure urges the audience to step into it and suddenly one finds oneself as a performer in the artwork. A camera on top of the projector (and linked to it) records the audience as they step into the scope of the camera and are moving within the space in real time. The digital projection is manipulated and the analog parts - the light and the metal banners - add to the distortion that we ultimately see on the main wall, merging the digital and the analog to a point where it becomes harder to tell one from the other and they form a new entity in its own right and urgency. This is the debut solo exhibition of US-artist Signe Pierce and you should go and see it right now and get onto the hype train right at the beginning.

Honorary Mention: Galerie Kornfeld and 68projects

Apart from the Gallery Weekend happening, another reason I went to Berlin was to attend the opening of the exhibition at Galerie Kornfeld, which is Susanne Roewer's gallery. If you don't remember Susanne, look up our inaugural exhibition and her fantastic sculpture.

Galerie Kornfeld and their project space, 68projects, are worth an honorary mention: their numbers look as follows: 2 to 1. That is 66.66% women to 33.33% men, if you were wondering. Of course these numbers are too small to be comparative, but it is important to celebrate the small successes and as I said in the beginning: let’s celebrate what's here, not nag about what's missing. So here we go once more...

Cristina BanBan ​I've Got Nothing To Lose
68projects (25.4. - 2.6.2019)

The first solo exhibition of Cristina BanBan in Germany shows works that were produced during her residency at 68projects last October. Cristina works from her own experience of everyday life, and the nonchalance of the relaxed, the familiar, but also the new are inherent to her paintings. But Cristina’s recognizable style adds something uniquely hers to the scenes. The figures are voluptuous, taking over the canvas without leaving much space for anything but themselves - declaring their right to be. This presence gives the figures the power to intrigue. But the figures are not simply blown up, there are always different parts that are accentuated, emphasising the individuality of these figures: they are all memories and they are experiences. It’s not a comment on body size or the fashion industry in any way (you might think ‘Duh’, but believe me, this is important to be noted). The voluptuousness of the bodies are a bodily thing. It’s about experience and if you take a minute in front of one of her paintings and fully give yourself to the experience and emotion I can promise you that a) you will remember a scene like this in your life and b) you will remember a bodily sensation you had during it. And that is exactly what Cristina’s works do: they are reminiscent of a memory and much more than that - of a feeling. The feeling of your legs feeling heavy because you are lying in bed with that someone who makes you never want to move again and their arms feeling big enough to never let you go again. This is an outstanding exhibition documenting the life and experiences of the artist during her time in Berlin, becoming a personal diary and at the same time a document of its time. Don’t miss!

Susanne Roewer (and Nick Dawes)
Galerie Kornfeld (25.4. - 22-6-2019)

This exhibition was special and dear to me for a reason we could not have imagined a year ago: Susanne Roewer was one of the artists who worked with us from the very beginning, and met performance artist Rosamund Yip at our inaugural exhibition in London last June. Rosamund had written a series of poems for the exhibition and our catalogue and one of them turned out to be the inspiration for Susanne’s new series of sculptures. We love love love when things develop from one thing into something that is so full of inspiration and empowerment as this. But enough about us. This exhibition places Susanne’s new glass and metal sculptures among paintings by British painter Nick Dawes. I’m afraid you will have to read some other review - or even better, go see the exhibition yourself - to learn more about Nick’s works. For now, this has to be enough: his colorful, abstract paintings are curated beautifully with Susanne’s works. In a smaller room, we find the indication of a metal torso holding a glass sphere on its shoulders. Her new works are golden, folded and seemingly inflated metal structures standing on a glass sphere. But this sounds too simplistic to even begin to describe the works and how elaborate they are: nothing is there by accident. Susanne has both of these materials fully controlled and every part fits perfectly into the other exactly as she intended them to. The physicality of these works is amazingly complex. The heavy metal appears to be as light as a balloon, carefully floating in the room and the glass sphere is the heavy base that grounds it. This body of work is a beautiful reminder of what sculpture can do and if you have a read of the poem that started it all, the works will give you the same feeling. A must see exhibition for everyone who’s been in love with Susanne’s works since the beginning when we showed her ‘Arena’ last June.