Berlin is all about creativity — and it boasts some of the finest museums and galleries in the world. Stay in the loop with our favourite openings and the newest exhibitions. This week we’re all about photography and video.
This Place at the Jewish Museum Berlin
In 200 photos, the Jewish Museum documents the complex identities of Israel and the West Bank beyond familiar TV pictures.
Desert landscapes, road blocks, village scenes and high-tech labs. Israeli and Palestinian lives are as diverse as the entire country. A country that’s in a permanent state of emergency. But this diversity also means lived normality for many of its inhabitants.
It was the wish of curator and photographer Frédéric Brenner to find new perspectives on the region for the special exhibition This Place. Photographers such as Wendy Ewald, Fazal Sheikh, Thomas Struth and Jeff Wall answered his call, travelling to the region again and again over several years. The pictures they brought along from their travels are now on display at the Jewish Museum at one of its newest exhibitions.
Address: Lindenstraße 9, Kreuzberg | June 7th – January 1st, daily 10am-8pm, 6€/2€ concession
Directions: U-Bahn station Hallesches Tor
Food for the Eyes at C/O Berlin
With the exhibition Food for the Eyes. The Story of Food in Photography, C/O Berlin tackles a topic with a rich tradition in art, and which serves as an indicator for societal developments.
“Food touches upon the most diverse aspects”, curator Ann-Christin Bertrand says of the newest exhibition at photography gallery C/O Berlin. You can’t get around food – which explains the many artists who are exhibited. From Nan Goldin to Cindy Sherman or Wolfgang Tillmans, everyone has worked with or on the topic of food. But the ways artists have dealt with it are incredibly diverse: Irving Penn arranged frozen peas as a still life, Martin Parr’s Untitled (Hot Dog Stand) uses food as a means for a sociocultural study of Great Britain.
Address: C/O Berlin Foundation, Amerika Haus, Hardenbergstraße 22-24, Charlottenburg | June 8th – September 9th, daily 11am-6pm, 10€/concession 6€
Bani Abidi: They Died Laughing at Gropius Bau
Irony and humour as strategies against incapacitation: Gropius Bau shows the work of Bani Abidi.
Bani Abidi’s works always appear as if they were totally simple, but full of many possible meanings. One of her best known videos is 1999’s Mangoes, where two women, one from India and one from Pakistan, eat mangoes. Remembering the tastes of their childhood, they end up fighting about which country has the best mangoes. The punchline: both characters were played by Bani Abidi.
Under the title They Died Laughing, Gropius Bau presents a comprehensive overview on her work during the past few decades. Apart from video art, there will also be her prints and paintings. Taking over almost the entirety of Gropius Bau’s second floor, the exhibition focuses on her newest installation, especially conceptualised for Berlin. Named The Last Procession, it deals with the Hasara, an ethnic minority from Beluchistan. With her art, Bani Abidi builds bridges between here and there, the known and the unknown.
Address: Niederkirchnerstraße 7, Kreuzberg | June 6th-September 22nd, Wed-Mon 10am-7pm, 15€/concession 10€
Directions: S- and U-Bahn station Potsdamer Platz
www.berlinerfestspiele.de/de/gropiusbau/start.html
Translated by Aida Baghernejad
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