Berlin Art Week | Grand Opening 9/17/13 on August Straße | 6 days, 21 venues

Berlin art fans had the fortune of faire weather for Berlin Art Week’s outdoor Grand Opening on August Straße. Here’s the Berlin Tourist information guide to Berlin Art Week 2013 in English as well.

Berlin Art Week opening on August Straße in Mitte
September 17, 2013

Berlin Art Week September 17th – 6 days, 21 venues

Hundreds compacted the street, snaked up stairs and brushed past one another in and out of galleries along the chic Mitte street in the center of Berlin.

August Straße glowing stage

The KW (Kunst-Werk/Art Work) Institute for Contemporary Art on Auguststraße 69 was as well naturally clogged with people.

KW Institute for Contemporary Art on Auguststraße 69

I was captivated with Astrid Köppe’s work ‘Pareidolia’ in Galerie Weißer Elefant on August Strasse 21, up the rear stairs to the 1st floor.

She featured eloquent prints, in which she constructed with hair-thin lines and bubbles, glaringly simple and elegant forms. Many of them emulating nature, in my interpretation.

Artist Astrid Köppe’s Pareidolia series

Her exhibition also consisted of physically interactive installations

Astrid Köppe’s bubbling wall installation

among bold paintings

along with some humorous twists, featuring glamorous portraits of the artist herself in her eyelash fingernail series.

Astrid Köppe’s eyelash fingernail self portraits.

Astrid Köppe’s eyelash fingernail self portraits.

The Alfred Ehrhardt Stiftung (Foundation) on Augustrstr. 75 featured Ute Behrend’s works with pairs; Conifer Club/Second Glance.

Ute_Behrend’s series of photographs in pairs at th Alfred Ehrhardt Stiftung

The festivities included live music on a stage and several dj’s spinning as people congregated to dance before their turntables. A highlight before the street was closed down, was when a Policeman came to shut down a dj’s music, to which the crowd in unison boomed a dropping-tone reactive plea to the Police officer when he arrived…and without a skip in the beat, responded with a crescendoing cheer when the music promptly started again. Animated to get in that last song, the crowd (including myself) danced emphatically as the dj played his last song; a very appropriate hiphop tune that started with words announcing ‘the last song’. The jumpn’ beats pitched to a crashing, noise violating climax, during which time you could detect the officer’s increased agitation. Then the beats picked up for a last danceable stretch before the turntables came to a stop.

dj gesticulating and dancing as agitated policeman waits

As the turntables spun out that last song, it gave the dj freedom to move away from them – climb onto a speaker for a bit – and fully interact with the crowd as he mouthed the words, danced and gestured > true hiphop style. Those last minutes seemed grueling for the police officer, as he patiently waited at the decks for the song to come to an end.

glowing turntables on Auguststrasse

It was fantastic.