Alicja Kwade (door) and Jeppe Hein (letters) at Johann König, Berlin
Michail Pirgelis at Sprüth Magers Berlin London
Thea Djordjadze at Sprüth Magers Berlin London
Walter Dahn at Sprüth Magers Berlin London
Booth by PSM Berlin
Joelle Tuerlinckx at Galerie Nächst St. Stephan
Andrei Roiter at AKINCI, Amsterdam
Peter Krauskopf at Galerie Jochen Hempel, Berlin, Leipzig
Booth by Produzentengalerie Hamburg
New Positions: Booth by artist Valentin Ruhry for Galerie Christine König, Vienna
Jürgen Teller at Suzanne Tarasieve, Paris
Anna Vogel at Conrads, Düsseldorf
David Ostrowski at Peres Projects, Berlin
Dash Snow at Peres Projects, Berlin
NADA: Absalon Kirkeby at Peter Amby Gallery
Booth Soy Capitan Berlin
NADA: Anna Virnich at Drei, Cologne
NADA: Booth DREI, Cologne
// all images by artfridge, courtesy Art Cologne the galleries and the artists
// all images by artfridge, courtesy Art Cologne the galleries and the artists
The German Rhineland is an area with a long and popular tradition of art - its history still influences the art dealers' and curators' casual way of handling trends coming and going. Staying true to its distinctive style, the Rhineland manages to create a calm and unexcited balance between the new contemporaries and the big players - a unique and reliable phenomenon that can be best observed at the current 47th edition of Art Cologne, which includes roughly 200 exhibiting galleries. Carefully, Art Cologne director Daniel Hug moves the fair towards being the most contemporary one that the Rhineland has seen in decades - a welcome and desired change. In this post I will first give you an impression of the New Contemporaries (galleries founded after 2000), the external fair NADA (New Art Dealers Alliance, New York) and the established contemporary art galleries, which are, as usual, located on the second floor, whereas the next post will be showing pictures from the established and more classic Galleries on the first floor.
Even though there should be much to expect from NADA, only few booths could convince with exciting positions: DREI showed beautiful textile installations by Anna Virnich and combined these with three minimalist sculptures by James Clarkson. Schmidt & Handrup, another Cologne-based gallery, had Nathan Peter transform their whole booth into a corner wrapped in silver stripes, covering three paintings on the wall-space. There were also some new discoveries to make at NADA, including a great yellowish photo collage by Per Kirkeby's son Absalon Kirkeby at the Copenhagen-based Peter Amby Gallery and a brave booth curation by Blank Projects from Cape Town.
In the much bigger section of the New Contemporaries the gallery booths of the brothers Johann König (Berlin) and Leo König (New York) are among the most striking spaces. Johann König, whose gallery focuses mostly on conceptual art, exhibits a bended door by the up-and-coming star Alicja Kwade and, amongst others, "We all are", a humorous manifest by Jeppe Hein, continuing the grammatical conjugation table of "I am". Leo König has a huge plexiglass installation by John Armleder in his program and placed a typical Cindy Sherman self-portrait next to it. This might have been the reason why Berlin- and London-based gallery Sprüth Magers decided not show Sherman, but instead dared to put installations by younger positions, such as Michail Pirgelis and Thea Djordjadze, in the spotlight and let them dominate a knitting picture by Rosemarie Trockel and a great series of works on paper by Walter Dahn.
Arguably, Berlin-based Galerie Neu got the most out of their space: exhibiting 16 artists, the booth is transformed into a seemingly disorganized pile of two- and three dimensional pieces by well known artists as Sergej Jensen, Klara Liden or Manfred Pernice, which made the curation stand out as the most noticeable. In contrast, Peres Projects from Berlin seems very organised and clean, but still has one of the most cool booths that includes collages by Dash Snow and large paintings by David Ostrowski. Also BQ from Berlin managed a remarkable presentation with only two-dimensional works, out of which a painting by Friedrich Kunath was among my favourites from the whole fair.
With every forthcoming year, Art Cologne's first and second floor develop a bigger distance between each other: Only a few famous classics by Imi Knoebel, Georg Baselitz, Dieter Roth or Günther Förg still hold the two worlds together. But this time the young generation was finally allowed to overshadow the busy buying processes from downstairs and to dominate the fair - simply with a good contemporary art exhibition. Thanks for that, Daniel Hug!
ART COLOGNE 2013
19. - 22. April
Messeplatz 1
50679 Cologne
Germany
Opening hours: noon to 20h / 22 April, noon to 18h
Michael Neubürger at L.A. Galerie Frankfurt
New Positions: Bill Balaskas at Kalfayan, Greece
Asger Carlsen at V1 Gallery, Copenhagen
Erik A. Frandsen at Mikael Andersen, Berlin, Copenhagen
NADA: Booth Schmidt & Handrup, Cologne
Christopher Williams at Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne
Karla Black at Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne
Friedrich Kunath at BQ, Berlin
Carina Brandes at BQ, Berlin
NADA: Booth Blank Projects, Cape Town
Robert Janitz at Martos Gallery, New York
NADA: Alexander Wolff at Blanket, Cologne
Booth Galerie Neu , Berlin
Booth Galerie Neu , Berlin
Booth Galerie Neu , Berlin
New Positions: Yelena Popova at Figge von Rosen, Cologne, Berlin
Jonas Maas at Figge von Rosen, Cologne, Berlin
Booth Leo König, New York
Günther Förg at Elisabeth & Klaus Thoman, Vienna, Innsbruck
Siegfried Anzinger at Elisabeth & Klaus Thoman, Vienna, Innsbruck
Stefan Müller at Bärbel Grässlin, Frankfurt
Werner Büttner at Bärbel Grässlin, Frankfurt
Gregor Hildebrandt at Wentrup, Berlin
Marina Abramovic at Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna
Jimmie Durham at Christine König Galerie, Vienna
Mounir Fatmi at Conrads, Düsseldorf // all images by artfridge, courtesy Art Cologne, the galleries and the artists