EXBERLINER Issue 168, February 2018

WHAT’S ON — Art
DON’T MISS
Right to Orgasm
With a focus on the
socialist Eastern
Bloc from the 1970s
to the present,
Left Performance
Histories at NGBK
includes works from
over 25 artists and a
live programme (Feb
16-17) that spans art,
fashion and politics,
including the ongoing
performance “Right
to an orgasm at over
60” by Vlasta Delimar.
Feb 3-Mar 25
A Swarm of Two
Carlier | Gebauer
presents Dutch
artist Aernout Mik’s
most recent work
commissioned by
Mu.ZEE in Belgium, a
silent, two-channel
video that follows the
ambiguous interplay
between two police
officers in a seemingly
never-ending trek
through deserted
shopping streets in
Ostend at night.
Through Mar 3
Love Before Bond
In his first solo
exhibition in Berlin,
Sung Hwan Kim’s new
installation developed
for Daadgalerie
includes drawings
and sketches created
during the formative
stages of the eponymous
video (touching
on fear, racism and
domestic violence),
which was first shown
at last summer’s
Venice Biennale.
Through Feb 27
Courtesy of Stanley Picker Gallery at Kingston University London
Interview
Comma chamaeleon
Starting this month, American artist Prem
Krishnamurthy opens up the creative process
to the public in Schöneberg. By Sarrita Hunn
After spending a few years in
Berlin and Dresden in the
post-Wende 1990s, the New
Jersey-born Krishnamurthy moved
to New York, where he ran the experimental
exhibition space P!. Now
back for a year-long residency with
KW, he’s repeating the formula with
the off-site project K, (“K-comma”).
The programme promises to be as
eclectic as Krishnamurthy’s genredefying
practice, which spans design,
writing, curating and education. It
opens with a presentation of works
by the late East German graphic
designer Klaus Wittkugel, accompanied
by a conversation between
Krishnamurthy and design professor
Jeremy Aynsley – who’s changed his
middle name to “Kai” to fit in with
the K-centric theme.
What exactly will you be doing
with KW? K, has come out of a longer
conversation I have been having
with the director Krist Gruijthuijsen
about opening a space in Berlin that
would in some ways extend, but also
contradict what I did in New York
with P!. I am calling it a “workspace
for exhibition making” to differentiate
it from either a gallery or project
space. This is a space for reflection,
to think through ideas with other
people. I will have an office space
where I will continue to do my
graphic design work and curate projects,
but I am also sharing the space
with [Brooklyn’s] Cabinet magazine.
The editor, Sina Najafi, has moved
to Berlin, too.
So what can we actually expect
to see in the space? Basically, I
will be inviting people – artists,
designers, curators, musicians and
others – to spend some time with
me. We will somehow change what’s
on view, and then we’ll have a public
event. But it’s not all going to be
artworks. Some people are going to
bring whatever they can fit in their
suitcase, or photocopies, or we’re
going to build structures... It’s not
about finished presentations; I really
don’t want something in that mode.
That is also why we looked for a
space that is not right in the gallery
districts. It is still close to things,
but a little bit out of the way.
Where is it located? It’s a groundfloor
space in Schöneberg. Funnily
enough, I lived right there 20 years
ago in my second apartment in Berlin
– when we were like “Oh, David
Bowie and Iggy Pop lived around
the corner!” It was an Ofenheizung
apartment where we slept two
people in a room, while I was working
as a tour guide and interning at
a graphic design studio. Now that
can seem kind of romantic, but back
then it seemed depressing.
What is your experience of Berlin
today versus the 1990s? Well,
what I think is interesting is that in
every moment that I have lived in
Berlin, people always say how much
better it was five years earlier. When
I came here for the first time in the
mid-1990s, everybody said “Oh, the
early nineties! People were squatting
buildings, it was so much better.”
Then I came back in the late 1990s
and everybody said, “Man, the midnineties
were so much cooler.” And
then I remember about five years ago
one of my best friends here said, “Oh
man, everybody is so boring. Nobody
goes to clubs anymore,” and I was
like, “No. We don’t go to clubs anymore.”
It’s the age cohort problem.
There are still lots of people who are
doing all the things we used to do –
it’s just not us anymore.
Why create this space here,
instead of in New York? In
New York everything you do is on
a stage. To be honest, the main
reason to live there is to do things
that are very public. You can reach
a lot of people very quickly. I have
already done that for 15 years and
will continue to have a presence
in New York, but I am super lucky
that KW is giving me this residency
because it will allow me more space
to develop ideas on my own. I have
always thought that Berlin was in
many ways a much better place to
work on things than it was to have
as your main place of presence.
I always described it as a production
centre, as opposed to a
commercial centre like New York
– although that might be changing...
That’s an awesome phrase.
I think that it is changing for sure
and I don’t want to be too naïve or
nostalgic about Berlin being this cool
city... We just finalised the brochure
for the programme and there’s a
really funny alliterate text in it that
I wrote about process and production.
I wouldn’t call it a manifesto,
but it says the point of K, is not to
show finished products. It is going to
be about opening up the process of
creative production itself. n
Prem Krisnhamurthy: K, Feb 3-Dec
16 (opening Feb 3, 17:00) Ebersstr. 3,
Schöneberg, Fridays 11-17
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EXBERLINER 168