Berlin Art Week events with InterNations 9 to 17 September

Berlin Art Week “marathon” – gallery walks with internations.org. If you want to attend any of the below events, and you are not a member already, please join InterNations in order for you to be able to sign up.

If you are planning on attending one or more of the gallery walks posted on internations.org, please read and take note of all of the following, which seems obvious but, prior experience has shown, not to everybody:

Since Internations.org does not allow posting of maps in the event descriptions, and it is vital for participants to have access to maps, please find links to them all below.

If you attend a gallery walk, please make sure you have access to the map of the route in case you arrive late or fall behind for one reason or another and want to re-join the group. The galleries will most likely be quite crowded at times, and I will be unable to keep an eye out for everyone. You should also make sure you know what to expect in terms of distances to be walked between galleries.

Please also do the maths and see how limited our time in each gallery is, and take into account the time it takes to walk from one gallery to the next. Some will want to stay longer in some of the galleries, which is another reason why it is important to have the list of galleries and the route at hand in order to catch up if you want to.

Also note that once a walk has started, I want to be able to see the exhibitions too :-), and I can therefore only be contacted by Whatsapp and only in emergencies.

And finally, routes – and plans – can change slightly, so please check your e-mails and also check in here as late as possible before an event in order to have the most updated version of the map.

More generally, as some will notice, I am avoiding the more established and well-known areas, as these tend to get very crowded during art week (for example Potsdamer Straße, and Auguststraße/Linienstraße). Those who prefer to visit those areas can of course find all necessary information on the website of the art week and put together their own gallery walks.

Below are all the venues, with links to each event:

First of all, we are staring this art marathon with these visits:

10 September: FOYOU Voluntary Art Liaison

Only two other people had signed up and they both actually had the wits to cancel their attendance – woohoo – to me simply common courtesy, but such a rare occurrence in InterNations. This allowed me to change plans slightly as I unexpectedly had more time on my hands than I originally thought. Another reason why it is important to cancel your attendance, especially at events where not many people have signed up.

Anyway, it is a great exhibition and a very cool place to visit. Highly recommended. There till 22 September.

11 September: Wilhelmhallen

About 20 no-shows. How difficult can it be to click the button that says “CANCEL”?

Perhaps, by the time this art week is over, I should stop doing this. It is so much easier to go by myself, and totally free of the usual, endless, InterNations bullshit.

I always like to visit Wilhelmhallen, but did not find this particular exhibition particularly interesting.

Followed by three gallery walks:

Wednesday, 13 September: Gallery walk #1

From Alexandrinenstraße to Leipziger Straße. Galleries to visit: König Galerie, Max Goelitz, Sweetwater, Shahin Zarinbal, and KVOST. FIND A MAP OF THE ROUTE HERE. Given a total walking time of 45 minutes, this gives us an average of 15 minutes in each gallery.

Below is an APPROX itinerary just to give us an idea of the pace we probably need to keep (but please remember: I do not have a crystal ball, so I cannot predict which exhibitions will be so interesting that we will stay longer nor which ones will be uninteresting so that we will leave more quickly):
König Galerie 19.00-19.20
Walk 20 minutes
Max Goelitz 19.40-19.50
Walk 15 minutes
Sweetwater 20.05-20.15
Walk 5 minutes
Shahin Zarinbal 20.20-20.30
Walk 10 minutes
KVOST 20.40

A pleasant walk with a handful of people. The König Gallery is always worth a visit, but I am not sure I would recommend any of the other galleries as must-sees. Most of them are relatively new, and in what is currently a new gallery area (Leipziger Straße between Charlottenstraße and Spittelmarkt). We visited two galleries not on my list – Galerie Thomas Schulte, an established gallery which I had simply forgotten to indlude, and Scherben, which I had not been aware of, so here is a revised map of the route.

14 September: Positions Berlin

The annual art fair that takes place in hangars 5 and 6 at Tempelhof Airport.

For me, the highlight of the art year, especially in good weather, since the outdoor (covered) food and drink area has a great view over the airfield.

I cannot recommend a visit some time during the weekend enough. And if you go on Saturday, you may have a great view of the giant kites as well :-).

Friday 15 September: Gallery walk #2

Four galleries along an iconic boulevard. FIND THE ROUTE HERE.

Also note: Before starting the gallery walk, I will be visiting t his mini art fair, in Kühlhaus (only open during art week) – probably around 16.00 hrs, and after that visit, I will go directly to Galerie im Turm by public transport for the gallery walk. If anyone wants to join me in Kühlhaus, let me know, either by Whatsapp on the number given in the event description or by e-mail here.

Note that on the gallery walk, we will have a total walking time between galleries of just a good half hour, which will leave an average of 20 to 25 minutes in each gallery, which should be plenty of time and perhaps even leave time for a quick pitstop along the way (but please remember that I do not have a crystal ball, so I cannot predict which exhibitions will be so interesting that we will stay longer nor which ones will be so uninteresting that we will leave more quickly). Also, there may be one or two galleries open on this evening which I am not yet aware of.

An approximate itinerary is here, just to give us an idea of the kind of pace we need to keep:

18.00-18.20: Galerie im Turm

Walk 15 minutes

18.35-18.55: Peres Projects

Walk 15 minutes

19.10-19.35: Galeria Plan B

Walk just a couple of minutes

19.40-?: Capitain Petzel.

A very pleasant mini gallery walk with about seven or eight (?) people, to four very different exhibition openings, and ending with drinks in PlaceOne – Panorama Bar Berlin.

But first, the mini art fair in Kühlhaus. I live within walking distance – not sure it would have been worth a major detour:

Saturday 16 September: Gallery walk #3

From Neue Grünstraße to a private collection at Engelbecken. Galleries to visit (still to come). FIND THE ROUTE HERE.

Here is an approximate itinerary, just to give us an idea of the pace we need to keep (but please remember that I do not have a crystal ball so I cannot predict which exhibits will be interesting enough to stay longer, and which will uninteresting so that we will leave earlier – perhaps leaving time for a quick pitstop along the way):

14.00-14.25: Konrad Fischer

Walk 15 minutes

14.40-14.50: Galerie Russi Klenner

Walk a couple of minutes

14.55-15.10: DAAD Galerie

Walk 5 minutes

15.15-15.30: Klemm’s

Walk 10 minutes

15.40-15.50: Kreuzberg Pavillion

Walk 15 minutes, AND – there might be a queue to get into the last stop:

16.05? to ?: Sammlung Ivo Wessel, Private Collection, Bruno Taut Haus, Michaelkirchplatz.

Followed by a well-earned stop at Café am Engelbecken for those interested.

No-shows? Only about 18, I think. Never mind, it was a pleasant walk, again with about a handful of people, in gorgeous weather.

We visited an exhibition space, Art Kreuzberg, which was not in my original list. I don’t know how I could have missed it when I did the research. I know it is there, and have been there before to other exhibitions, I just did not consider the fact that it was right smack on today’s route. A testimony to my non-existent orientation skills. And the fact that the gallery Soy Capitàn is right next to Klemm’s had somehow also eluded me this time around.

The revised APPROXIMATE route is here.

Sunday 17 September

Auguststraße/Linienstraße, FIND THE APPROXIMATE ROUTE HERE.

This is a very busy area with lots of galleries, shops, cafés and restaurants, so it may be difficult to stay together, but let’s try to have a leisurely amble anyway. The galleries that I know for sure I want to visit are marked in the map, and we will start in Sprüth Magers and finish in Dittrich and Schlechtriem, and make as many pitstops along the way as we need (I know I will have reached a certain satiation point when it comes to contemporary art by then :-)).

Six out of six no-shows, which was actually a welcome reason to cancel the walk after the visit of the first gallery – Sprüth Magers. Having walked there in 28C, I felt completely “overheated” and wondering what on earth had possessed me to plan a gallery walk in such a notoriously crowded and built-up (i.e. no air) area.

I consequently declared the 2023 Berlin Art Week for over, as far as I was concerned and treated myself to a big, fat amarena ice becher (first and last ice cream of the season – definitely not part of my by now 80% vegan, gluten- and sugar-free, ayurvedic and everything else anti-cancer nutrition plan :-)).