The first thing that struck me about Berlin when I arrived here, fresh from the gritty, red-brick delights of Manchester, was a heightened awareness of space. Perhaps this is the secret behind Berlin’s impressive creative output. You cannot but help feel inspired by what feels like a cosmopolitan concrete playground, an urban jungle with a seemingly endless array of characterful and disused building space waiting to be taken advantage of, as I have seen previously at Mica Moca and, earlier this week, Based in Berlin.
Berlin is a city that constantly surprises. Dismounting from my bike at Monbijoupark in Berlin-Mitte, the central exhibition space for Based in Berlin, all I could initially make out was a modest marquee and a few piles of rubble. Turn a corner, however, you’ll be met with a professionally refurbished studio housing a project with a huge amount of ambition and genuine weight behind it: spread over 5 separate venues, Based in Berlin displays the work of 80 emerging artists who live and work in the German capital. Its comprehensive programme delivers a daily evening programme of film screenings, performances, concerts and artist talks, on top of free guided tours by bike to each of the gallery spaces.
It says something about the attitude of an exhibition that the first artwork you come face to face with is literally life threatening. In the entrance is parked a mini cooper with two propane gas tanks propped up on its two front seats. A tiny flame burns from a valve in one of the car’s side windows, a hair’s breadth from its highly flammable contents, immediately undermining the peaceful space I initially believed to be entering. In another room there is a spillage of oil leaking onto the floor accompanied by the sign marked ‘enter at your own risk.’ Unsettled with the prospect of exploring what now felt like a war zone, I approached with caution, ready for a challenge.
Like the city that it celebrates, this is an exhibition that encourages you to look twice at every juncture. All is not what it seems. Walk down a corridor and you’ll find a bookcase accommodating what may appear to be several hundred copies of a Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. A further look reveals that behind its blank cover this is no ordinary edition: each copy contains the marginal notes and scribblings that the artist Kajsa Dahlberg has transferred from every copy available in the city’s public libraries, fusing a network of thought patterns into one single textual body. An installation piece by Adrian Jeftichew exploring universal themes such as homecoming and urban landscape reveals upon further inspection endless minute details tailored to this unique space, from drawings daubed in corners to partially hidden objects. Elsewhere the message is less evasive: a split screen video installation simultaneously plays nine t.v recordings of celebrities each singing the American national anthem at the SuperBowl, creating a brazenly discordant, uncanny sing-song; a powerful critique of individuality and the myth of collective national identity.
The variety here is extensive: there is the usual fare of painting, sculpture, photography and video mixed in with a few installation pieces, one of which can be found on the rooftop terrace overlooking the river, another hidden away in an abandoned outhouse. Some of the work has been created especially with the exhibition in mind whilst other pieces have already become relatively well established. Most notably in this respect is a fascinating self-referential video by the artist Matthias Fritsch. Drawing on the phenomena of internet distribution channels such as YouTube, Fritsch combines copy-cat reproductions mimicking one of his own most notorious short films into one single, humorous montage.
Based in Berlin celebrates work from a city whose creative output appears to be as strong as ever. If you want to grab a real flavour of Berlin’s thriving contemporary art scene, this is the place to find it. The exhibition continues until July 24th and is, unfortunately, the last chance to see this space before is demolishment, after a long and eventful history.
