While most people wind down for summer, Mona Stehle the director of Berlin Art Week, will be rolling up her sleeves and getting down to business: “I’m on a different schedule to most people,” she says, “summer is always my high season”. Stehle’s restless summer months are spent coordinating Berlin Art Week, a vast city-wide art festival that each September draws over 130,000 visitors to the city for a week-long whirlwind of exhibition openings, tours, performances and parties.
Now in its 14th edition, Berlin Art Week has become one of the city’s most vital cultural events, notable for uniting commercial galleries and major art institutions like the Neue Nationalgalerie with much smaller independent project spaces and artist studios. To participate, all applying venues must host an opening or major event during the week and are selected either by jury or through specialist partners. “We try to spread the events across the week,” explains Stehle. “The major museums open on Wednesday, followed by Gallery Night and Positions Berlin Art Fair in Tempelhof on Thursday. Friday is Featured Night, which focuses on Berlin’s independent scene and special initiatives – a great moment to discover emerging artists and new locations. Saturday highlights private collections, and on Sunday – for those still standing – everything culminates with events across the city from Wilhelm Hallen in Reinickendorf to Fahrbereitschaft in Lichtenberg.”
This year, Stehle is especially excited about Discovering Collections, a recent initiative on Saturday where five private collectors open their homes to the public. “These aren’t institutional collectors,” she notes, “but regular people living with their art every day”. Participating collectors include Brigitte Trotha Collection in Charlottenburg and the Eigenmann Collection in Schöneberg. For Stehle, this kind of access is what makes Berlin Art Week so special: “Normally such programmes would be reserved for VIP programmes. But here, it’s free and open to everyone. If you stick to openings and special events, you can spend the whole week exploring the city’s art scene without paying a single entrance fee.”
That spirit of openness also extends to this year’s many nomadic initiatives. “This year, Trauma will take over a former church – St Elisabeth – and the curatorial project Passage is staging projects both at Hermannplatz U-Bahn and at Funkhaus Berlin,” says Stehle. “Artists like Sophia Süßmilch and Cathrin Hoffmann will realise a group show in their studio at Remise im Wrangelkiez, many of which are under threat.” While Berlin Art Week has always aimed to expand beyond traditional gallery clusters in Mitte and Charlottenburg, this year’s dispersal reflects a growing financial precarity. “Many [artists] are being creative in finding more accessible spaces or new ways of collaboration,” Stehle says. “That’s the reality.”
That instability, both economic and political, is also present in this year’s programming. “You can see it in the major group exhibition Global Fascisms at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, opening September 13, which explores the aesthetic and political dynamics of fascism,” Stehle says. “But those themes run through many of the smaller programmes too – there’s a great deal going on.”
Stehle, who joined Berlin Art Week in 2017, knows how overwhelming the week can be, alongside all the openings and events there’s also a raft of talks and film screenings too. “I recommend taking one of our bullet tours; they combine three, four, even five stops into one guided route. You get a great mix of perspectives across the scene.” Her other top tip? Pop into Berlin Art Week Garten at the Hamburger Bahnhof. “It’s the best place to get information, meet people, and find out what’s happening. But really, on Wednesday, when the week kicks off, just pick a part of the city and dive in. Go to as many openings as you can – you’ll get a broad overview of what the city’s rich art scene has to offer.”
- Berlin Art Week, Sep 10-14, venues across the city
