© Christian Sickmeier Galerie Noir
City of Art
Berlin is doubtlessly a city of art. Often the canvas where art formed, actually was no canvas. Who would have thought that the monster called anti-fascist wall would become the largest painting of the city and after the original use was abandoned it became the largest gallery in town, the East Side Gallery? Three painters who work since the eighties with the wall are Christophe Bouchet, Thierry Noir and Kiddy Citny. Since 1994 it is possible to buy some of their work in Galerie Noir without having to vandalise the actual wall itself. The gallery has been offering French cuisine for some time due to the fact that Thierry himself says dryly: A gallery alone is not enough to get by.
That is what gallery owners now do, they fulfill various purposes.
Originally Werkstattgalerie was to be a studio for the artist Pascual Jordan so far the plans at the opening, but this had to make way for more art exhibits. “We needed more space for exhibitions”, explained co-owner Mirko Freiwald. Modern art, paintings and photographies as well as group exhibitions are shown. “We want to use the medium art to address social topics”, says Mirko.
Christian Sickmeier
Showroom and studio
Not far from there everything is about communication. “I was looking for a studio and I did not want to go into a back building”, says Andreas Herrmann. That is how he opened his production gallery Mianki in October 2008 as showroom and studio and is happy about the neighbours and visitors who all show interest in his art. He only works with wax, a technique called encaustic which was already very fashionable in ancient Greece.
Whilst “Mianki” is an invented name without meaning, there is a new gallery called Exile which opened in autumn 2008 and here the name is a concept, artists actually find exile here. “Until now the room was mainly used for exhibitions of groups of artists. In the future Exile will be used as studio and living quarters for artists”, says Christian Siekmeier. There is a small flat in the attic that goes with the gallery, so the exhibiting artist can live there. The galleries in Berlin are no less innovative than the city itself!
