ART CITIES:Berlin

Ed Ruscha refuses to be typecast as either pop or conceptual. He is recording the shifting emblems of American life in the last half century. The motifs for his new series “Metro Mattresses” were found, like so many of the subjects of his work, on the streets of Los Angeles. In each of the twelve works in the series we encounter a mattress, or mattresses, isolated and in various states of neglect, all depicted against a neutral backdrop. The consistent neutral background emphasises the typological nature and the heightened formality of the series, transforming the boxes of springs and padding into geometric abstractions. Info: Metro Mattresses, Spruth Magers Berlin, Oranienburger Straße 18, Berlin, Duration: 3/11/15-16/1/15, Days & Hours: Mon-Fri 10:00-18:00, www.spruethmagers.com

The work of Andrea Zittel investigates domestic and urban life in Western societies, exploring the various aspects of living. The artist designs her own household settings to serve as a test case for her experimental living structures. Her latest works are still grounded in this examination of life and living, however, they are less traditionally functional, and instead explore the nature of reality and human perception. Her interests become more fundamental and existential. The forms have become more simple and elemental. Info: Andrea Zittel – Parallel Planar Panels, Spruth Magers Berlin, Oranienburger Straße 18, Berlin, Duration: 3/11/15-16/1/15, Days & Hours: Mon-Fri 10:00-18:00, www.spruethmagers.com

Dutch photographer and film director Anton Corbijn photographs are not frozen, isolated moments of reality, but comparable to film stills or excerpts from images with a before and an after. His work is both documentary and narrative, and it shares more with street photography in both process and impact than it does with classic portrait photography. Through his deliberate rejection of glamour in both the formal structure and subject matter of his photographs, he celebrates the anti-pose and the anti-star. For Anton Corbijn’s sixtieth birthday, C/O Berlin is presenting a retrospective of his oeuvre encompassing around 600 photographs, with some films, and other materials. Info: Anton Corbijn – Retrospective, C/O Berlin(im Amerika-Haus), Hardenbergstraße 22–24, Berlin, Duration: 7/11/15-31/1/16, Mon-Sun 11:00-20:00, www.co-berlin.org

In his photographs, David Favrod recreates memories of events that he never experienced, and in this act of artistic appropriation, he tests the fine line between fiction and reality. His photographs are not realistically staged re-enactments of historic events. Instead, they explore how the memories of events have been handed down and interpreted. He does not rely on the medium of photography alone but uses a combination of visual techniques such as superimposition, collage, and drawing to create an artistic whole. Info: Hikari, C/O Berlin (im Amerika-Haus), Hardenbergstraße 22–24, Berlin, Duration: 7/11/15-31/1/16, Mon-Sun 11:00-20:00, www.co-berlin.org

On 17 September 2012, Christian and Karen Boros unveiled the second exhibition of works from their private contemporary art collection, on display in the WWII bunker in Berlin-Mitte. The exhibition juxtaposes 130 artworks by 23 artists which range from the early 90s up to the present. As in the first showing of the collection, many of the artists have personally installed their works in the space. A visit to the collection is only possible through an advance reservation through theit website. Sammlung Boros Bunker, Reinhardtstr. 20, Berlin, www.sammlung-boros.de

Cindy Sherman has created an unmistakable and seminal body of work that broke new ground in photography. Throughout her career she has simultaneously acted as her own actress and photographer, subject and object. And yet her portraits do not represent actual personalities. Instead they paraphrase social and cultural stereotypes with the aim of deconstructing them through the prism of cinema, classical painting, or advertising. Her legacy is one of the most important oeuvres by any artist of the modern day. The exhibition “Cindy Sherman – Works from the Olbricht Collection” features 65 photographs by the artist. Including works from almost all periods of her career, the collection provides a remarkable overview of the entire body of work. Info: Cindy Sherman – Works from the Olbricht Collection, me Collectors Room Berlin / Olbricht Foundation, Auguststrasse 68, Berlin, Duration: 16/9/15-10/4/16, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 12:00-18:00, www.me-berlin.com

Peter Stauss presents a series of large-scale oil paintings alongside related small-scale bronze sculptures. The exhibition focuses on a single character, who appears throughout the works on view in different permutations: the Dutch master. Although their significance may not seem immediately apparent, the legacy of Dutch master paintings weighs heavily on our present. Their depictions of the emergence of an inchoate capitalism begs comparison to our contemporary system of alienated labor, speculation, and futures dealing. Info: he Invisible and the Third Hand, carlier /gebauer Gallery, Markgrafenstraße 67, Berlin, Duration: 7/11-19/12/15, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 11:00-18:00, www.carliergebauer.com

Working with industrial materials and byproducts, like steel wool, rust, and polyethylene, Daniel Turner highlights the austere beauty and poetry in the chemical processes of dissolution, transference, and transformation. Though he was trained as a painter, and began his emerging career producing large-scale canvases, he felt confined by his medium’s two-dimensionality. True to his current explorations, he moved away from painting and towards wall reliefs, sculptures, and installations by destroying his canvases in a bonfire, titling this action, Burning an Entire Body of Work. He is presenting two of his works at KÖNIG GALERIE, St. Agnes Chapel, Alexandrinenstr. 118–121, Berlin, Duration: 31/10-6/12/15, Days & Hpours: Tue-Sun 11:00-18:00, www.koeniggalerie.com

With his characteristic compositions of rectangles and black lines, Piet Mondrian is regarded as one of the founders of abstract painting. Through his method of strict reduction to the basic elements of painting, Mondrian created icons of classic modernism. A lesser-known fact, however, is that Mondrian started out by creating paintings in the impressionist style of the Hague School and explored different styles of art before lines and the organisation of image areas dominated his artistic creations. With 50 paintings and drawings, the exhibition provides visitors with an insight into Mondrian’s quest for his own artistic path. Info: Piet Mondrian – The Line, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Niederkirchnerstraße 7, Berlin, Duration: 4/9-6/12/15, Days & Hours: Wed-Mon 10:00-19:00, www.berlinerfestspiele.de

Germaine Krull (1897-1985) was a prominent photographer in 1920s and ‘30s Paris, who shaped the history of photography with her experimental shots and photo articles for magazines like VU, Variété and Jazz. She is one of the protagonists of modern-day photography, yet her work has rarely been explored, and only presented at a few exhibitions. For the first time in Germany, the Martin-Gropius-Bau, in co-operation with the Jeu de Paume Paris, is dedicating a retrospective to the focus areas of her work and her aesthetic innovations. With about 130 original prints, and excerpts from photo magazines, the exhibition demonstrates the extraordinary depth and inventiveness of her pieces. Info: Germaine Krull – Photographs, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Niederkirchnerstraße 7, Berlin, Duration: 15/10/15-31/1/16, Days & Hours: Wed-Mon 10:00-19:00, www.berlinerfestspiele.de