BerlinTendenzen

The initial euphoria after the fall of the wall and the subsequent disappearance of the GDR resulted in widespread disappointment at the end of the 1990s when the expectations of change that the "Eastern mentality" aspired to (with the intention of " socialist paternal state) were frustrated by the logic of neoliberal capitalism. This socio-cultural uprooting, this spatio-temporal negation caused by a change of country (and world) without moving from home, is the nucleus of the ideological and aesthetic phenomenon known as "Ostalgie." The rapid sociocultural transformations conditioned by this contradictory reunification originate a creative breeding ground that makes the Berlin scene one of the most intense and original in the panorama of current international art. The powerful creative scene, fueled by the presence of artists from all over the world, causes traditional margins within the field of cultural production to constantly redefine their profiles through a systematic critique of their respective artistic sense and function / cultural within the social space.

Berlin Tendenzen is a collective exhibition featuring sixteen artists (Martin Dammann, Jovan Balov, Kerstin Drechsel, JM Pozo, Charif Benhelima, Alexei Kostroma, Stu Mead, MK Kähne, Peter Kees, Shin il Kim, Sofia Hultén, Assaf " Safy "Etiel, Elke Marhöfer, Tere Recarens, Stephen Wilks and Shahram Entekhabi) from eleven different nationalities (Germany, Spain, Russia, Israel, Sweden, United Kingdom, South Korea, Cuba, Macedonia, Iran and Belgium). The participants have developed their most recent works in Berlin, and have made the city its permanent place of residence. The body of works contemplated, made essentially in the last four years, includes artistic forms such as painting, photography, video art, installations and sculpted objects. Conforms a speech that tries to be a kind of flash on this dizzying artistic scene, which disables the cliché of German art made by Germans, whose tradition has traditionally been associated with the vision from the outside of art in Germany. BerlinTendenzen is then postulating as an attempt to approach a scenario of continuous creation that opens the door to artistic expression, matched by multiple aesthetic and conceptual brushstrokes, whose spirit is implicitly controversial propitiated by the same city. This exhibition takes these features as references and attempts to recompose an artistic wake that the city protects. Conscious of the fact that without Berlin present, in the words of Wolger Pölmann, Berlin Tendenzen can only aspire to approach the tail of this arch of St. Martin.

Curated by: Dennys Matos and Lorena Pérez