ON A WEDNESDAY NIGHT, during Berlin Gallery Weekend’s mostly digitized preview days, Hannes Schmidt of Schiefe Zähne and I were about thirtieth in the queue for chili cheese fries, which we were to bring back to the gallery where Richard Sides was putting finishing touches on “The Matrix,” an exhibition he made about being immersed in a technological world of uncertain boundaries. The show includes a crude cardboard homage to Spot, a robot dog offered by Boston Dynamics to the tune of $75,000. Killing time during the long wait for provisions facing a 10 p.m. curfew, most of the nearby restaurants
There is an otherworldly quality to the art of Tarik Kiswanson.
The artist, who was born and raised in Halmstad, a port town in Sweden where his parents immigrated from Palestine, makes paintings and sculptures that oscillate between ghostlike figuration and ephemeral abstraction. As a first-generation immigrant, Kiswanson often reflects on belonging, loss of identity, and placelessness in his work. His material of choice is handwoven steel, which fragments the viewer’s own reflection when passing by.
For his solo show “Surging,” on view at carlier | gebauer for Berlin Gallery Weekend
, Kiswanson has rebuilt the gallery space into a cell-like waiting room populated by floating alien ovals and paintings of wispy evanescent forms that evoke a fading memory.
Despite the global pandemic, Gallery Weekend began in Berlin on Saturday.
It usually attracts international art lovers, collectors and curators from around the world but with international travel restrictions it is certainly less cosmopolitan this year.
Until 2 May, almost 50 participating galleries across Berlin open their doors to visitors who have an appointment and a negative COVID-19 test result that is less than 24 hours old.
Most galleries will keep their exhibitions for up to six weeks, to allow more potential art buyers to book an individual time slot.
Owner of Dittrich & Schlechtriem gallery, André Schlechtriem, said: With all these measures, like daily tests, it is possible even though the number of visitors is reduced. A gallery is a social place where people meet. And the Berlin Gallery Weekend is about that.
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January 29, 2021
Christian Rosa, left. Raymond Pettibon, right. SAMUEL KUBANI/AFP via Getty Images // Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images for Art Los Angeles Contemporary.
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