Hasta La Ideas

Berlin’s former power plant hosts the world’s brightest contemporary artists

by Shawn Thomson

Known for its unfiltered take on contemporary art in recent years, Germany’s capital city has increasingly become an international stomping ground for artists, dealers, collectors and enthusiasts alike, all there to relish in an atmosphere without the financial constraints of art hubs like New York and London. One show really capturing Berlin’s artistically autonomous spirit is Berliner Liste, a three-day fair located in a former power plant that showcases over 100 galleries from Germany and beyond.

The broad spectrum of both established and emerging artists sets the stage for an international exchange across disciplines, spanning sculpture, painting, photography and video and performance art. On par with most major art fairs, the impressive display is nearly overwhelming—but a few stand out from the pack.

Vincent Bousserez showed his satirical take on scale with beautiful executions of tilt-shift-style photographs at The Artistery. On view at Artcuraor.ru, Ilya Kukushkin describes his bold paintings as “Neo analytical constructivism.” Controversial contemporary vet Morten Viskum made a statement with the striking new work, “I’m crazy about Liza. We get on the phone and just gossip, gossip, gossip” and the life-sized self-portrait “The Perfect Sculpture,” at Son Espace Gallery. The result of a year spent traveling around the world with an imaginary superhero called SleepingBagMan, Marcus Veith’s documented his fiction with photography .

Berliner Liste closes 11 September 2011, at the extraordinary Trafo building, with the award ceremony for The Peter-Christian-Schluschen Foundation‘s young photography contest on 11 September 2011 at 7pm.

A new book finds a common thread in 5,000 years of Japanese art

A concise book comparing contemporary Japanese art to renowned classics, “See/Saw: Connections Between Japanese Art Then and Now” guides readers through 5,000 years of art by showing how it shares one common trait—”the new is old, or the old is new.”

Authors Ivan Vartanian and Kyoko Wada acknowledge that at first their pairings “may be jarring,” but maintain that despite the West’s moderate influence, typically across all mediums Japanese artists tend to rework concepts, colors, titles or styles from previous works and therefore they “all belong on the same axis.”

The book accomplishes this in a mere 176 pages, and is categorized by themes instead of time. Found among the comparisons are intuitive assessments on artists and aesthetics including Superflat (Murakami’s postmodern movement), manga, the role of nature, satire and so much more.

A densely informative book, “See/Saw” is a fluid read for the amateur and novice alike and is packed with intriguing insights and compelling artwork. The paperback edition will be sold from March 2011 and is currently available for pre-oreder from Amazon and Chronicle Books.

A grassroots art campaign takes an exhibit of hidden America on the road

In an effort to highlight artists from five U.S. cities not typically considered artistic hotbeds, the People’s Biennial features the work of 36 artists from Portland, OR; Rapid City, SD; Winston-Salem, NC; Scottsdale, AZ and Haverford, PA. Presented by non-profit organization Independent Curators International and curated by Harrell Fletcher (of Learning to Love You More fame) and Jens Hoffmann, the traveling exhibition unites overlooked and undiscovered artists alike for a realistic portrait of creativity in America.

The grassroots art campaign features an array of works spanning photographic documentation of military life in the heartland, video installations of biological activity in urban ecosystems to complex marble-like statues created out of soap bars. Artists were selected through the democratic process of open-calls and events during the past year, where the curators hand-selected the body of work currently on display.

The exhibit will travel through each of the five communities, stopping first in Portland, OR where it will reside at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art until 17 Oct 2010. From there, the exhibit will continue to travel around the U.S. through 2 March 2012.

For more information including the exhibition schedule, visit the People’s Biennial website.

viae-flux

All images by Gerard Smulevich

On the heels of Via, the latest project to hit Los Angeles’ public spaces is How Many Billboards?, an earnest strategy by MAK Center for Art and Architecture at the Schindler House bringing art into the everyday discourse. Until the end of March 2010, L.A. will see 21 artworks on billboards spread across areas in and around Hollywood, West Hollywood, Culver City, Westwood and Silverlake.

In the works since 2006, for the project to happen MAK Center relied on prominent billboard companies to donate space and then commissioned artists like Michael Asher, Kenneth Anger and Renee Green to create thought-provoking images.

In a city where conflicts between the local government, residents and billboard companies are ongoing, “How Many Billboards?” co-curator and MAK Center Director Kimberli Meyer points out that the difference between public art such as murals and image heavy advertisements is not clearly defined. L.A. has gone through temporary bans keeping new billboards from going up, and outdoor artwork gets lumped in.

The show will be accompanied by guided bus tours, film and video screenings, as well as panel discussions and lectures. Check the website for more details, including a map of where each of the billboards is located and the artists’ statements about their work.