Art Week Berlin: Highlights from POSITIONS Art Fair 2022

Last week POSITIONS Berlin Art Fair kicked off Berlin’s art season 2022 with its ninth edition. 88 international galleries from 20 countries presented their most important positions from emerging, contemporary and modern art. The POSITIONS Berlin Art Fair took place at the Hangars of the former Tempelhof Airport.

Adriana Preda, Untitled at IVAN Gallery

The spacious hangars of Berlin-Tempelhof Airport, which in addition to the high ceilings and light-flooded halls with the open space in front and the airfield, provided a unique and airy platform for the art presentation.

For the first time I attended the fair during Berlin Art Week, with great curiosity and the intention to spot some of the emerging and (maybe) the greatest artists of tomorrow.

Here are some of my highlights:

Daniel Butcher at Anahita Contemporary

The young Berlin based gallery owner Anahita Sadighi, who has Iranian roots, uniquely brings together Asian and contemporary art. One of her most favorite representations, is the Candadian abstract and sculptural painter Canadian artist Daniel Butcher. He reveals his fascination with hidden layers and the range of human expression within the materiality. His collages are characterized by a distinctive narrative. Dream-like images from distant places and cultures create a mysterious tale in Butcher’s paintings as they seem to contain secret messages. These images reveal a tangible connection to contemporary societies and can possibly be understood as sketches alluding to current global political and climatic changes.

In Daniel Butcher’s current painting appear cities and landscapes, writings, symbols and fantasy figures. Taken as a whole, these motifs, complex forms, and pictorial collages create an unmistakable mood that is both dystopian and cathartic. Dream-like images and anonymous figures form an impressive storytelling that transports us to a distant place meticulously designed by the artist.

The individual motifs appear raw and reduced in form, reminiscent of early civilizations’ attempts to articulate and manifest thoughts and wisdom. At the same time, the images reveal a tangible connection to the present. The scenes, faces and expressions seem familiar and yet alien – as if our society has been transported to another time.

His intricate and multi-layered works on paper and collages appear like pages from an old storybook, sacred book manuscripts, illustrated literature, modern code pages, or futuristic comics.

The figures we find in the large-scale paintings on wood fit naturally into their surroundings, which consist of non-representational and immobile spaces. A close inspection reveals that the outlines of the figures are carved or engraved into the white plaster that forms the flat surface of each wooden painting.

These wondrous pictures impose themselves on the viewer and offer fascinating insights into the creative journey of a visionary artist. Daniel Butcher’s works bear a poetic quality characterized by a unique artistic language and insightful intellectual notion. If paintings are an artist’s statement, then in Butcher’s case, meaning comes out of the process rather than preceding it. Thus, the artist is more interested in “doing” than in “saying”.

Rider with fallen Horse, 1928-1929, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner at Akim Monet Fine Arts

Alongside 3 of Paul Mc Carthy’s art works, Kirchner’s was the most expensive painting shown at POSITIONS Art Fair. German artist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was a leading figure of the pioneering early 20th-century German Expressionist group Die Brücke, he made vibrant paintings, prints, and sculptures that opposed the conventions of academic art.

Natalia LL at Lokal 30

The late Natalia LL is one of the currently sought after artists in the contemporary photography field. The polish feminists rather provocative works defined her and are admired by her collectors. The Warsaw based Galerie Lokal 30 has presented some of her works best during this week’s fair.

Karen Finley Installation at GOLESTANI

Düsseldorf based gallery COLESTANI presents a number of Finley’s works in this eye-catching installation. Karen Finley (born 1956) is an American performance artist, musician and poet. Her performance art, recordings, and books are used as forms of activism.

Vera Molnar Installation at Dam Digital Art

The ‘grande dame’ of digital art, Vera Molnar. Purposefully random and parametrically witty, the muse of entire generations of artists since the 1960s.

Calm Before, Logan T. Sibrel at Galerie Fuchs

The 1986 American born Logan T Sibrel is an artist and musician based in Brooklyn, NY. One of the greatest young talents with worldwide recognitions and awards, represented by Galerie Fuchs.

ACADEMY POSITIONS

POSITIONS Berlin Art Fair is a special exhibition with the special support of Berlin Hyp 27 young contemporary positions of graduates and students of German and international art schools. The selected artists from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design Ljubljana are supported by SKICA Berlin – Slovenian Cultural Information Centre Berlin.

Line Lyhne: 1. Hearing the House Slip 2021 2. I am in front, yet inside 2021

POSITIONS Berlin Art Fair is an official partner of Berlin Art Week, which jointly presents selected exhibition openings of Berlin’s major museums and institutions such as KW Institute of Contemporary Art, Berlinische Galerie, Gropius Bau, Hamburger Bahnhof and Berlin’s numerous private museums.