topics

tools

editor's choice

Expatica readers offer tips for using social media for business

Why renting in Germany is more than just an apartment search

Learning German: Passing the critical stage

O’zapft is! German Festivals in 2011

Public holidays in Germany in 2011

Expatica countries

Index	Last	Var.(%)
BEL 20	2270.63	-0.42
DAX	6788.8	0.59
IBEX 30	8902.1	0.60
CAC 40	3424.71	0.43
FTSE 100	5895.47	0.33
AEX	325.12	-0.06
DJIA	12890.46	0.05
Nasdaq	2927.23	0.39
FTSE MIB	16653.83	-0.09
TSX Composite	12497.94	-0.18
ASX	4322.6	-0.79
Hang seng	20771.69	-1.13
Straits Times	2961.96	-0.64
ISEQ 20	503.71	0.33

You are here: Home

Leisure

Arts & Culture

Talking Vernissage: Fashionistas Descending

Arts & Culture

01/07/2009Talking Vernissage: Fashionistas Descending

Expatica art critic Jessica Saltz gets the skinny on Berlin’s incipient Fashion Week and tries to listen to salt.

Berlin Fashion Week: Adorned with glamour - Berlin style

Fashion thumbs nose at crisis at Paris men's shows

Organic clothing comes of age

Berlin scores a hat-trick this season as homegrown style tradeshow Bread and Butter returns from its sabbatical to join Mercedes Benz Berlin Fashion Week and Premium in hosting five days of fashion frenzy around the city. This news is probably met with an apathetic shrug by most Berliners, or perhaps resentment by the few who dislike the idea of stilletoed fashionistas descending on their city but Berlin is becoming a style landmark, so learn to appreciate it, ye sceptics. Fashion Week itself tends to be a pretty esoteric event but Bread and Butter – returning home from four years in Barcelona – and Premium are both open to the public and each are throbbing hubs of international and local fashion. Bread and Butter will be held in the now-vacant hangars of Tempelhof airport and is probably the most important urban tradeshow in the world for anyone interested in streetwear and the people behind the brands.

Fashion design may be visual art’s more flamboyant cousin but Berliner Kunst is not without its own pretensions. A pithy article piqued my curiosity about a sound installation in Prenzlauer Berg’s cluster of late nineteenth century water towers, the highlight of which is a work called “34 turns” by the late Terry Fox. In the work, 34 trays filled with small piles of salt are placed in each of the identical outer chambers of the smaller water tower and they are supposedly meant to slowly absorb the moisture from the air – a process that is meant to be “at the threshold of audibility” according to the press release. I don’t really know what I expected but those salt crystals sure weren’t making much noise when I was around and after a few minutes of staring at a tray of watery sodium, I felt a bit duped.

Luckily, the building itself is enough of an attraction. It is a dark, dank, magnificent brick chamber, the centre of which does actually echo the sounds going on outside: cars and children playing and shouting are all ominously muted by the rounded cavernous walls. The salt may not have added any flavour to the experience but the haunting acoustics were impressive – and probably happen regardless of an artist’s fiddly installation.

The exhibition continues outside with “Fehlformen” by Berliner Stefan Rummel in the surrounding small park and in the neighbouring tower and “Turntable History” by Arnold Dreyblatt in the nearby water reservoir. I found this also a rather dry presentation. Dreyblatt installed a projector to illuminate the walls with the history of the water tower and its construction. The words move around slowly and the only sound that can be heard is the monotonous click of the projector. Overall, I found the concept quite uninspired but the entire exhibition is only 3 euros, which in itself is worth the chance to explore the amazing spaces that are not usually open to the public.

Bread and Butter, Berlin
1-3 July

Premium Berlin
1-4 July

Singuhr – Sound gallery 2009, Berlin – Prenzlauer Berg
Through July 12

Kaleidoscope: Hoelzel within the Avant-Garde

Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, July 11 through November 1, 2009

On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of Adolf Hoelzel’s death, the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, which houses the most important Hoelzel collection worldwide, illuminates the meaning of his work for the art of our epoch on 1,000 square meters in the exhibition “Kaleidoscope: Hoelzel within the Avant-Garde.” Representing this pioneer of the European avant-garde will be 220 works, some on view for the first time, including landscape and figurative pictures from Dachau, pastels, stained glass, Hoelzel’s famous red series and works on paper, as well as exponents of his art theoretical works from the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart.