The Positions Art Fair, of all places, in the anniversary year of Berlin Art Week a week earlier as an “overture”? That leaves you puzzled. But when the world’s largest and most powerful Art Basel flaps its wings, it triggers movement in Berlin too, if not chaos. Too close timing with Art Basel, which was postponed to autumn due to the pandemic, would have brought both exhibitors and collectors into conflict.
Last but not least, the positions team around Kristian Jarmuschek and Heinrich Carstens. Because after the Paper Positions in Berlin at the end of August a Hamburg edition followed a week later, and from the Tempelhof hangars it goes to Basel, where Jarmuschek and Carstens open one of the four satellite fairs with the Paper Positions Basel. Then Munich calls in October. When asked whether it wasn’t a little breathless, Co-Director Carstens said euphorically: “The collectors are so starved and our concept is bearing fruit!”
In fact, the exclusive “Behind the Scene” tour already bore its first fruits on the evening before the opening. The Leipziger Galerie Kleindienst was able to sell a large photograph (14,000 euros) by Berlin-based artist Anett Stuth to a collection in North Rhine-Westphalia. As in the previous year, the Stuttgart gallery owner Thomas Fuchs is enthusiastic. Only one of his pictures by the South Korean Yongchul Kim is still available, a grim, narrow-minded “German Hare Hunter” (14,000 euros), works by the US painter Logan T. Sibrel are sold out and a floral “steppe garden” fresh from Rainer Fetting’s studio has found a buyer for 69,000 euros, while two less pleasing motifs from the “Shootingstar (Jana)” series by the former Junge Wilden are still available for 83,000 and 94,000 euros, respectively.
110 galleries from 16 countries are presenting the Positions in their eighth edition and, as in the previous year, will have two hangars, albeit in Halls 5 and 6 to the west, which are not only more accessible, but also offer a fifth more space with a total of around 10,000 square meters. In spite of the airy character, a maximum of 1000 visitors are let into the former aircraft garages with their rough charm: inside at the same time. The hangars have a ventilation system, but not the ventilation required due to the pandemic.
Many of the berths and the halls are generally pleasantly spacious, which, according to Kristian Jarmuschek, was achieved “thanks to the support of Neustart Kultur”. The program reimburses the galleries 70 percent of the stand fees, and Minister of State for Culture Monika Grütters insisted on personally inspecting the result during the tour at the opening.
Concrete art or would you prefer Max Pechstein?
As always, young painting is particularly well represented. At Feldbusch Wiesner Rudolph with Anna Nero or Paul Pretzer, at Studio 4 with Clara Brörmann and with Jurgis Tarabilda at Menonisa from Vilnius. Kai Hilgemann shows colored abstractions by the Romanian artist KITRA and the Brusberg Gallery Heike Ruschmeyer’s dark, disturbing pictures of assassinations. The oil paintings by Kerstin Serz at Kleiner von Wiese are rather bizarre and political. With a “mussel diver” that disappears into an Art Nouveau vase or bones that promise “domestication” around KPM porcelain.
Lovers of concrete art will get their money’s worth at the drj art projects booth. Gallery owner Matthias Seidel presents unique series from the Rote Insel edition by Nils-Simon Fischer, Yasuaki Kuroda or Käthe Kruse, mostly in the three-digit euro range. With works on paper by Oskar Holweck, Martin Kudlek from Cologne highlights one of the less prominent artists from the Zero environment (4200-16,000 euros). You only miss classical modernism. The Hamburg art dealer Thole Rotermund is present with at least selected works on paper. Including a still life by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and Hermann Max Pechstein’s impressive “Woge” (68,000 euros each). Berlin is not an easy place, “but here we show the basis of contemporary art,” says Rotermund. “We are gradually finding a group of young people who confess it!”
It is flanked by Kunkel Fine Art from Munich, where a watercolor by Emil Nolde and an ink drawing by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner are presented between photographs by Gilles Lorin. The Frenchman, born in 1973, produces still lifes and portraits as palladium prints (from 1800 euros), and Kunkel shows how well the classic and the contemporary communicate with one another, even in different media.
One of the most exciting discoveries is the Colombian-Dutch painter Raquel van Haver, to whom a special exhibition is dedicated. Large format portraits and stories about the global community in your Amsterdam neighborhood. The artist, born in Bogota in 1989, sees herself as a “documentary painter”. She mixes various cultural influences just as boldly as her colors: oil meets charcoal and resin, mixed with hair, tar or ash. Their earthy and impasto overlays give the pictures an impressive surface feel that looks like textile reliefs and an unmistakable style (5000-30,000 euros). Van Haver, who has already been shown with solo exhibitions in the Stedelijk Museum and the Bonnefantenmuseum, is represented by the Aachen gallery Artco, which will open its Berlin branch with van Haver after the fair.
Textile works by artists are increasingly catching the eye, and not just in the Fashion Positions section, which is presenting fashion labels from Berlin for the third time. Among the strongest are Claudy Jongstra’s irritating skins under the title “Woven Skin” (Galerie Fontana, 15,000 euros each), there are also “wrinkled pictures” by Anne Jungjohann (Kleiner von Wiese), large formats made of felted wool by the painter Marlon Wobst, who was born in 1980 ( Studio 4) or tapestries by Estonian artist Laura Pold, winner of this year’s Claus Michaletz Prize for Eastern European Art from the Secco Pontanova Foundation, which also supported the arrival of six galleries from Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland.
Positions Art Fair, Tempelhof Airport Hangar 5 + 6, Tempelhofer Damm 45, until September 12th. positions.de
