Enjoying The Berlin effect

Berlin @ the Edge (part i)

http://blogs.artinfo.com/museumviews/2011/05/06/berlin-the-edge-part-i/

Alon Levin, End to The Grand Gesture @ Galerie Klemm's (photo courtesy Galerie Klemm's)

The 2011 edition of Gallery Weekend Berlin has come and gone. Forty-four galleries hosted forty-four openings, over a three-day period (April 29 – May 1). As with any institutionalized effort of its kind, the Gallery Weekend’s vetting committee invites top (selling) dealers to participate in the official event. Efforts are accordingly made to invite international public (museum curators) and private collectors, and engage them in tours of participating galleries across the capital. This year, the formalized annual affair, which began seven years ago, had expanded to include ten percent of the 440 galleries that are part of Landesverband der Berliner Galerien (Regional association of Berlin galleries).

This type of endeavor is particularly significant to Berliners considering that the city’s collecting culture is defined by the flow (transient, non-resident community) of international private and institutional collectors. Not surprisingly, any effort to chart this tidal stream of arts patronage is not an easy task. In fact, during my recent visit to the German capital, in April, I inquired about meeting some of Berlin’s major collectors. Well, nearly everyone with whom I spoke mentioned the names of the same half a dozen or so figures, including: Erika Hoffmann (Sammlung Hoffmann), Thomas Olbricht (me Collectors Room Berlin/ Stiftung Olbricht) Christian Boros (Sammlung Boros) and Peter Raue (Raue LLP – not open to the public).

Surely, I thought to myself, there must exist more private collectors and cultural patrons in a city the size of Berlin. A city that is home to, according to some, 600 galleries and exhibition spaces, bar museums. Speaking of which, from among all cultural capitals, Berlin has a most exciting museum scene. For starters, there are virtually every type of arts and cultural institution that one can think of. And, to top it off, in many instances, there are nearly two of each such institutions.

In any case, I found it somewhat curious that last weekend’s citywide art fair – which is what the Gallery Weekend really is – excluded more than 90% of Berlin’s artistic community. Of course, there is no harm in having these types of events since most Berliners can benefit from a(ny) gathering of art lovers in their city. And, since Berlin’s (other) major fair, art forum, is said to be facing crucial challenges, all measures to attract international cultural patrons are welcomed by the city’s vastly creative population.

From the perspective of artistic production, everyone in the art world – at least those with whom I have spoken from Doha to San Francisco –, is convinced that Germany’s capital possesses an invigorating contemporary art scene. They also agree that Berlin is not New York. Nor is it London. And, thank goodness for that. This is mainly due to the fact that, until recently, the city’s affordable real estate enabled artists, dealers and curators from across the world to either move to Berlin or set up a permanent base there.

Unfortunately, though, the rapidly rising rental prices are posing serious threats not only to Berlin’s large community of artists but, also, to the expanding number of young dealers who provide them with critical and professional support. I have been particularly intrigued – ok, inspired and at times even humbled – by some of these gallerists’ dedication to find and present new artists whose works are far from comfortable sells. Despite the pressures of rising costs; the absence of a resident collectors’ community; and lack of state-based infrastructural support, these dealer-curators continue to assert their respectively dynamic and autonomous styles. There is something awe-inspiring about their resilience not to cave into crude commercial forces of buying and selling easy stuff (yes, I mean stuff).

Of course, it’s initially somewhat taxing to separate the fake-it-‘til-you-make-it wanna-be’s from those who are genuinely doing their very best to influence the canon of art history. However, once we get passed the pseudo-cool contenders, we meet those who work at the magnetic margins, the mutinous edges, of contemporary aesthetic production. And, as with many other phenomena, it is always more thrilling, and yes, provoking, to meet them in their socio-geographical context: that is, at the edge. This is where tensions run high and frictions are not yet (or entirely) ironed out.

It is even more exciting to leave (& love) the edge where it is – with rock star attitudes, tattoo parlours, et al. – rather than attempt to drag it to the sobered and gentrified center. That is, at least for the time being, before they (or their artists) are adopted (I am being kind) by dealers from more affluent markets such as London, New York, Basel or Cologne.

In all their disparity and asymmetry, some young Berlin galleries constitute a highly innovative platform that defies ossification. Collectively, they form a system of creative flow that contributes to the accelerated evolution of artistic cultural production, at a global scale. In a yet-undocumented fashion, they continue to affect what collectors will acquire in New York, London, Cologne and Basel, over the coming years.

If it were not for their audacious contributions, and, if Berlin relied on, say… only 44 of its top selling galleries to cultivate its reputation as the art world’s artistic capital, then, it simply would not be. In that case, Berlin would be (a) Cologne or Munich or Düsseldorf where prominent galleries serve their strong, local and fairly conservative collecting constituencies with healthy diets of blue (or almost) chip artists.

During my recent and sadly short stay in Berlin, I couldn’t find anyone (well, perhaps one) who could explain to me the direction that the city was taking, first, to acknowledge and, then, to support this tremendous wealth of cultural and financial capital. A grasp of this course, at any level, would also, necessarily, facilitate Berlin to identify (if not brand) itself to an entirely new generation of collectors and cultural patrons. As a matter of fact, I managed to rub off a few dealers with my, perhaps, (admittedly) too persistent questions about this very topic. Well, it served them well as it did me to a most humbling effect since I (we) came to the realization that there are no easy answers for appreciating the Berlin effect.

This, at least for me, also, means that there are no lucid answers for understanding the future of art. Mind you, I am not speaking of what art will be or look like in a few years’ time. I am referring to understanding the future of art in relation to patterns of critical influence that arts patrons exert on the cultural life of a city. Influences that, in turn, affect aesthetic production on the international stage. Perhaps, this is where Berlin’s seduction lies. Berlin, we, the art world are in such a state of flux – flow or call it what you will – that, if we are honest with ourselves and with one another, any attempts at deciphering and presenting a cogent picture (no pun intended) will fail us miserably.

When in Berlin – ok, when I was unintentionally rubbing those gallerists the wrong way -, I realized that my pattern-seeking urges are based on two primary factors. First, I am a recovering academic who was institutionalized for too many years, and that is what academia demands of us. In my case, it was to decipher and record patterns of collectors’ lives and bahaviors as they relate to the formation of museums, since the reign of Rudolf II. Second, my perspective on the art market and its collecting constituencies are based on my experiences of having lived and worked in London and New York City (and Paris) where pressures of capitalism, and intense parochialism, force one to cultivate the illusion of authoritarian knowledge. Yet, in the words of my friend, the author of The Power of Pull, John Hagel III, “Increasingly, the source of economic [and I add artistic] value resides in effective participation in a larger, richer and more diverse set of knowledge flows to refresh knowledge stocks at an accelerating rate.”

Too often, the New York/London style of inquiry into a city’s patronage and collecting life reads something like an art market report. One that either comprises the latest top 10 auction records or one that (allegedly) includes a broader analysis of sales at top selling galleries from either market. These are pretty depressing views that, consciously or not, propagate the impression, and accordingly the confidence, that we are, in fact, well-informed. Market security, anyone?

Again, as Hagel, writing about the future of experience design, explains, “The systems that survive and thrive are those that evolve most rapidly and effectively to enhance flows…  Designing for flows becomes the core of system design. The emphasis also shifts from design of static systems to design of evolving systems. Rather than optimizing for the present, the challenge becomes designing in ways that accelerate evolution.”

The stunning flow of artists, dealers, collectors, curators, art historians, and works of art renders Berlin the contemporary art world’s aesthetic evolutionary mecca. On that note, I turn full-circle back to my initial question: do Berlin’s city authorities realize that they are the guardians of this wealth of innovative system(s), and if so, what are they planning to do with or about it? Am I being persistent? Yes. Rhetorical? No. Perhaps, during one of my forthcoming visits, a Berliner can satisfy my curiosity…

Ultimately, it is that city’s raw materials of creation, the works of art, that turn it into the spectacularly pioneering theatre that it is. In the words of the former president of Epic Records, Charlie Walk, “Before it’s discovered. Before it’s packaged. Before it’s marketed. Before it’s promoted. Before it’s a video. It’s a Song.” And, Berlin has got plenty of songs: raw, dynamic and innovative art that is waiting to be discovered, packaged, marketed, promoted, etc… In Berlin, it’s rock’n roll, all the way!

* Early next week, we will look at a few Berlin-based galleries and exhibition spaces whose work expand the boundaries of contemporary artistic practices.

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