During the Gallery Weekend, OPEN WALLS Gallery invites everyone to a get together in STATTBAD, which supersedes any pretentiousness and exclusiveness, integrating the public into its work and play. Bursting out of the official opening hours, we strive to break up the rigid framework and open our doors to friends, and friends of friends, in the Time OFF to celebrate, protest, and discover.
The ongoing economic crisis and the rise of all kinds of populism in Europe demonstrate a dangerous backlash in 21st century history; meanwhile extreme industrialization, mass production & over consumption has led global warming to break all records. Quarrels over diminishing but vital natural resources and shrinking living space may well be the cause of future conflicts. However fucked up the situation our world is facing right now, there is still hope. To keep faith, we need to remember people’s abilities to protest and to resist. Protest is when I say this does not please me. Resistance is when I ensure what does not please me occurs no more. From the Arab Spring to the Occupy movement, the eastern and western worlds have both lately shown the capability to fight against establishment. Protest always starts in the streets, and so often does art. The street is a mixture of languages and a hotchpotch of voices, where the pictograms of road signs and the surreal messages written by street artists live side by side, and where the simple commercial communication runs up against the political. To the careful observer the street makes visible the underlying noise of our society.
By acknowledging the social and political unrest of our time, OPEN WALLS Gallery cordially invites you as we debut DISSIDENTS, a group show. A dissident, broadly defined, is a person who actively challenges an established doctrine, policy, or institution. Using the urban landscape as a playground, seeking truth and raising awareness, the artists that we have chosen for this show strive for non-conformity and create work representative of both political and social opposition, making them pioneers of dissident activity.
Join us on Friday April 12th in Stattbad Berlin as we contribute to the social strife of 2013 with works by:
BR1 - By ripping off advertisements from billboards or giving a new face to Muslim women BR1 is fighting the hegemonic policing of sense imposed by late capitalism . The point is to fight hegemonic ideas and to give back the public space to the public. His aim is to give social and cultural functions to billboards which, while lacking those, are imposed to society. Portraying veiled woman in their daily life, BR1 challenges the ideological isolation of the veil.
JUST – Just’s photographic work is a journey. He studied photography in Scotland where he also worked as a picture framer while taking photos of the punk- and squatter scenes that he was part of. One scene led to another, and Just then went on to focus on the graffiti and street art cultures. American photojournalist, Martha Cooper has it: “Just’s breathtaking photos are dramatic documents of daring graffiti artists in action. Through them you can vicariously experience the danger and thrills of rooftop writing.”
ALIAS - Rather than directly dealing with war or politics, Alias is focusing on how individuals are personally affected by their environment. It is like zooming on individuals and seeing things on their scale; zooming in on children in particular and observing how they experience that world and context they live in. There is a lot of compassion in Alias’ work as he delicately infiltrates the urban environment to reveal the existence of loneliness and personal crisis behind a larger catastrophe.
EMESS - Confronting the viewer with issues that would rather be swept under the rug, Emess’ work is most often motivated by political questions, for which there are perhaps no clear answers or solutions but that need to be addressed. The use of humor and his sense of aesthetics catch the viewer off guard for a moment allowing attention to be drawn to the subject. Emess sees no difference between the street or the gallery space, his work is designed to reach an audience and adapts itself to the situation.
VERMIBUS – Berlin based artist Vermibus regularly collects advertising posters from the streets, using them in his studio as the base material for his work. There, a process of transformation begins. Using solvent, he brushes away the faces and flesh of the models appearing in the posters as well as brand logos. Once the transformation is complete, he then reintroduces the adverts back into their original context, hijacking the publicity, and its purpose.
GIACOMO SPAZIO - Pioneer of the Italian Street Art movement, Spazio’s iconography is borrowed from fanzines of the 1970s and 1980s, from punk graphics and the album covers of those years, from documents of the underground scene and artistic-musical performances, from photos taken from publications, magazines, and daily newspapers. The mind immediately races to the silk screens of Andy Warhol and Pop Art, but it is only a superficial evocation because Spazio goes well beyond, making his own the practice of incursion and theft typical of the punk who uses information and images from the media and propose them with an ironic and desecrating, cynical and subversive intention.
NEGATIVE VIBES – Self made, street taught, Negative Vibes delivers a great deal of gravity through his existentialist and symbolic imagery.
Exhibition on display: Saturday April 13th - Saturday May 11th
Opening hours: Thursdays to Saturdays, from 15:00 to 20:00
Press & Private View: by invitation only, Friday April 12th
Vernissage: Friday April 12th from 20:00 onwards
Admission: €5 Free for Gallery members & clients
Clemens Behr and Nural Moser’s new show, Rauminstallation mit Pumpe (und andere Sachen), is curated by Open Walls Gallery and will open at Stattbad Berlin, on on April 12th, from 20:00 onwards.
The artists will present a large-scale sculptural piece inside one of Stattbad’s large empty swimming pools. The two artists’ collaboration is a moving four-dimensional installation combining Behr’s trademark improvised abstract work and Moser’s sound piece. The sculpture is set in motion through the water being pumped from the pool triggering small mechanisms articulating and animating the whole piece.
The show will also introduce the viewer to different types of works by Clemens Behr; paintings, silkprints, objects, as well as some of Nural Moser’s architectural printed collages.
Behr refers to his pieces as “three dimensional collages in space”. The artist states that he is influenced by the animated television series“Transformers”, as well as being inspired by artists such as Kurt Schwitters, Gordon Matta Clark, Marcel Duchamp and Michel Gondry. Behr creates from nothing; he uses the cheap materials he finds close to where he creates his site-specific pieces and then improvises. He deconstructs to reconstruct. Mirroring the environment, he praises geometrical shapes, colours and lines by re-arranging them. Moser’s minimalist three dimensional and two dimensional works echo Behr’s installations. She also improvises and takes into account the colours, shapes and materials of the surroundings. Both artists’ practices are in ways reminiscent of the constructivist approach; if the shapes and colours found in Behr’s art evoke cubist paintings, Moser’s reconstructions and object manipulations are conceptual arrangements. This four-handed re-composition of the swimming pool is capturing the essence of its structure, and celebrating the presence of water in an architectural environment.
Exhibition on display: Saturday April 13th - Saturday May 11th
Opening hours: Thursdays to Saturdays, from 14:00 to 19:00
Press & Private View: by invitation only, Friday April 12th
Vernissage: Friday April 12th from 20:00 onwards
Admission: €5
Early celluloid startlets dripping with liquid opulence meet classical greek heroines draped in clinging peplos with these quietly elegant wheat-pasted pieces by French Street Artist YZ in Berlin. Bringing her vintage view of high culture to sometimes very decayed and mottled walls of neglect, the contrast creates a vibrational effect for the passerby, who might wonder how they got there. The black ink on silk paper creations are hers, but the images are archetypes from the popular imagination about women and their perceived role in society as decorative objects.
Words: Brooklyn Street Art
“The images are meant to be of alternately fatal, dreamy or provocative women that challenge our stereotypes,” says YZ, “Women are beautiful, strong, and confident. They are capable of changing the world, as they proved during the last century.”
YZ (photo © Thomas von Wittich for OPEN WALLS Gallery)
YZ (photo © Thomas von Wittich for OPEN WALLS Gallery)
YZ (photo © Thomas von Wittich for OPEN WALLS Gallery)
Alias by Thomas von Wittich © Thomas von Wittich, 2012
Pasting pieces of intimacy in the public space
Alias’ work represents mainly children, some teenagers, some adults; individuals that are alone, and dealing with situations. It is a quiet introspection, which the artist captures in black and white graphically stylised figures, to which he sometimes adds some dense red colour.
In one image, we can see a kid wounded by gunshots looking at us, as if he was telling us, “you are my witness that I have been shot”. A child is sitting on a bomb, another one is hiding his face coming back from school, or on his way to school, a girl is praying, her eyes looking at the sky, a kid is sitting on a swing with his back turned. Rather than directly dealing with war or politics, Alias is focusing on how individuals are personally affected by their environment. It is like zooming on individuals and seeing things on their scale; zooming in on children in particular and observing how they experience that world and context they live in.
There is a lot of compassion in Alias’ work as he delicately infiltrates the urban environment to reveal the existence of loneliness and personal crisis behind a larger catastrophe.
Discreetly suggesting compassion
Alias has been carefully choosing specific spots and objects in various cities for the past twelve years, where he applies his stencils where his images are going to take place. On building walls or untransformed recycled materials, Alias captures emotions that are not only his subject but also his material as much as paint or street walls may be. While a lot of street art pieces are big and highly noticeable, Alias’ stencil paintings are discreet. Both the chosen spots in the streets, and the material he finds, are an integral part of his work. He has a way of finding special spots that are going to contribute to the expression alongside the image itself. Conveying a very personal feeling he is dealing with. Those spots are as unique as what he is depicting.
By isolating people from the social background or situation they are in, Alias is triggering a direct emotional impact. All his subjects appear as little universes, neutral lands that all seem to want peace. It is the type of compassion you can find in the work of great artists like Bill Viola. It is art that makes us feel human suffering we can all relate to and that instills in us both condolence and reverence.
(words: Florence Reidenbach for Open Walls Gallery)
OPEN WALLS Gallery is currently looking for interns to support our team in Berlin.
At the moment, these are unpaid positions, part time possible (minimum 3 full days per week). Workload varies tremendously, depending on deadlines, 20-25 hours a week is the expected average.
ABOUT THE COMPANY
OPEN WALLS specializes in street & contemporary art. Promoted and represented artists include YZ, BR1, SP38, Alias, Marok, Vermibus, Yumanizumu, Chow Martin & Giacomo Spazio. OPEN WALLS organizes art shows all over the world and participates in the international contemporary art fairs from London to Miami and passing through Paris to Milan. Nevertheless, Berlin remains the heart of the street & contemporary art center, a genuine inspirational source for the artists since the fall of the wall in 1989. That is why OPEN WALLS has decided to set up its headquarters here.
In addition to our gallery program, OPEN WALLS curates shows and cultural events in the unconventional STATTBAD Wedding, a former public bath & swimming pool transformed into the largest creative project space to date, in Berlin.
OPEN POSITIONS
under the direct supervision of the Associate Directors
Press / PR Assistant (Fluent German AND English needed)
- get in contact with Berlin based and international media
- present OPEN WALLS Gallery in the creative scene,networking,
- help out with writing press releases in english and german, follow up with critics and journalists
- help promote OPEN WALLS Gallery events and activities, send press releases to TV, radio, blogs and media about OPEN WALLS Gallery
- collect press clips about OPEN WALLS Gallery, keep our Press Page updated
- help to keep our distribution list updated
Fundraising & Grant Writing (Fluent English AND high level of German needed)
We are looking for a grant writer to help with fundraising & crowd-funding our upcoming projects.
She/He should have good writing & controlling skills, be interested in the arts, know English at a very high level + a high level of German would be greatly appreciated.
Cultural Mediation & Sales (Fluent English, German is a plus)
- provide support for ongoing exhibitions, art fair related projects, and the sale of art
- communicate interpretive objectives, themes, storylines, and subjects using a wide variety of artifacts, graphic reproductions and original art
- assist with the production of multi-media presentations, as well as all printed and digital material required for the interpretation and promotion of gallery exhibits, art fairs, and events, including catalogs, banners, posters, signs, brochures, flyers, and press kits.
Curator Assistant (Fluent English, German is a plus)*
- conceptualize and develop two- and three-dimensional case, gallery, outdoor, traveling, and virtual exhibits
- prepare exhibit design proposals, from conceptual layouts and treatments to finished working drawings, floor plans, elevations, models, design notebooks, and bid documents
- design effective ways to communicate interpretive objectives, themes, storylines, and subjects using a wide variety of artifacts, graphic reproductions and original art
- research and develop effective spatial arrangements & visual presentations, taking into consideration budget, physical space, anticipated audiences, duration of exhibits, and safety
- prepare, produce, and install all graphic elements elements for gallery exhibits, art fairs, and events
- prepare original documents and artifacts for display, including framing and mounting
- organize and curate all physical and electronic files documenting the planning and implementation of exhibit projects.
- prepare time estimates, budgets, and schedules for all assigned work
- facilitate productive working relationships with and oversee the work of vendors and service providers. Serve as lead worker for volunteers, interns, students, and limited-term employees.
* Special Notes: Must possess a valid driver’s license upon appointment for travel around and between sites. Ability to create original artwork by means of traditional illustrative media and computer imaging. Applied proficiency with Photoshop, Illustrator, and other applicable CAD software. Knowledge of professional standards for exhibit design, fabrication, and installation.
Knowledge of publication design, layout, and production. Demonstrated organizational skills and ability to multi-task. Good communication skills and demonstrated ability to work as part of a team. Ability to lift and carry equipment, to handle fragile artifacts without damaging them, and physically assist with the installation of exhibits.
APPLY NOW!
If you would like to work in a creative and fast growing environment OPEN WALLS Gallery is the place for you! Excellent presentation, Organization skills, administration skills and interest in street & contemporary art are required. If you’re up for a view behind the art world’s scenery, please send us your CV together with a few sentences about yourself and we’ll take it from there. Our email is openwalls at me.com
A background check will be conducted prior to hiring.
After a year on the road, doing shows in Munich, Paris, Berlin, and London, OPEN WALLS Gallery is pleased to announce that we have established a home base in Berlin! Effective November 29, 2012, OPEN WALLS Gallery will be physically located in the unconventional STATTBAD Wedding. Our concept, however, will not change! We will continue to be the itinerant gallery that organizes shows around the world that you have come to know and recognize.
Our 200 sqm showroom will now allow us to receive you in the best conditions; you will be able to discover our artists and see their works.
Additionally, Open Walls founder Guillaume Trotin has been nominated Curator for Stattbad with the long term goal to create a new institution in Berlin dedicated to Urban Arts & Emerging Artists.
Located in the North of Berlin, close to the charming Humboldthain Park, the former swimming pool from Berlin-Wedding has come alive again a few years ago as an atypical art centre. After hosting bathers for over a century, the building got rid of the chlorinated water in order to be fill with art, to become a unique spot; a real artistic space of exploration, with cultural vitality and a conviviality which mixes genres, cultures and audiences.
« Stattbad is quality art in an urban surrounding, mostly street art and urban art, but as well interdisciplinary installations created specially for the particular architectural situation in Stattbad. Our interest is also into multimedia art: combining new interactive art forms with contemporary electronic music to create outstanding events» says Jochen Küpper, Stattbad Founder & CEO
Opening Times:
We wish to welcome you in the best conditions; therefore the gallery is open by appointment only, with the exception of the Art Market from December 1st to the16th, where we will be pleased to receive you nonstop from noon to four, Thursday through Sunday.
Saturday, December 1st & Sunday, December 2nd: 12pm-4pm
Thursday, December 6th to Sunday, December 9th: 12pm-4pm.
Thursday, December 13th to Sunday, December 16th: 12pm-4pm
