Come inside the graffiti covered walls of Berlin's most famous Kunsthaus (or tourist trap) with four of Tacheles' long-term residents.
Barbara Fragogna | Tim Roeloffs | Kurihara Kurihara | Peter MissingBARBARA FRAGOGNA
…is Tacheles’ resident curator. She paints large, figurative paintings inspired by the body and also sells small drawings for €5. She just curated her third annual showcase of works by Tacheles artists, and she has organized exchanges with artists in Padua and Belarus.
Before coming to Tacheles she struggled to get gallery representation in her native Italy. Within a few months of arriving in Berlin, she had her first solo show at Emerson Gallery.
She says “A lot of people find my paintings very confrontational. It’s important to have somewhere in the middle of town where artists who aren’t commercial can work, and also for people to see that work.”
www.barbarafragogna.blogspot.comTIM ROELOFFS
…sells photo-collage prints out of his third-floor gallery. His 3D collages were commissioned for a Versace collection in 2008.
Before coming to Tacheles in 1996, Roeloffs was a tennis teacher in resorts from Portugal to Egypt.
He says “Tacheles was a university for me. You can’t work there unless you have fire in your belly. Tacheles artists don’t work with their heads – they just poop it out. That’s the way art should be made, with the hands, without elitism. If they close Tacheles, we’ll give away collages to beer-drinkers in Phnom Penh.”
www.roeloffs1.deKURIHARA KURIHARA
…is a 27-year-old Japanese painter. He sells abstract paintings on canvas and drawings on cardboard as well as paintings, drawings and hand-printed t-shirts by other artists from his third-floor studio.
Before coming to Tacheles Kuri worked full time in restaurants in Tokyo, painting on his days off. He left in 2007, travelling Eastern Europe for six months before settling in Berlin.
He says “I used to paint figurative, but it hurts my stomach. I’m inspired by the messy atmosphere and the crazy music here.”
www.myspace.com/kuriharakuriharaPETER MISSING
…sells his paintings in his bamboo-roofed Conto Gallery in the Johannishof. He produces music on his Humanity Records label and plans to build a schoolroom for the young people he teaches at Tacheles.
Before coming to Tacheles Missing was a street artist and musician in the New York 1970s scene. His “party’s over” logo of an upside-down champagne glass became the symbol of the city’s anti-gentrification movement. He founded an industrial band, The Missing Foundation, in Hamburg in the 1980s.
He says “In Tacheles there’s no art. There might be some exceptions. But here it’s more like a big flea market. I’m not that interested in selling. I just want to have somewhere to work and show my art.”
www.petermissing.de, www.humanityrecords.de
