From Drawings by Albania’s Prime Minister to Ground-up Artworks, Here Are 5 Intriguing Pieces to Discover at art berlin for Under €10,000

The
third edition of the art berlin fair opened to the public
yesterday, September 12, with 110 galleries presenting their
artists’ work in two vast hangars of the historic Tempelhof
Airport. It is the second edition of the fair at the wartime
airport built by the Nazis, a location it now shares—albeit in
different hangars—with the smaller, more indie art fair, Positions
Berlin. The pairing wasn’t intentional but rather the result of a
scheduling clash last year during Berlin Art Week, and the two
fairs have been little more than begrudging neighbors
since.

Roughly a third of art berlin’s exhibitors are
participating in a section dedicated to special presentations in
smaller, more affordable booths. But collectors can
find reasonably priced
works by artists at different stages in their careers all across
the fair. Here are five standout works that span various media, all
priced under €10,000 ($11,000).

Isaac Chong
Wai’s Suspension of the Air (2017)
Zilberman Gallery, Istanbul and Berlin
Price: €9,000

The
Berlin- and Hong Kong-based artist Isaac Chong Wai is currently
showing his first solo show in Zilberman Gallery’s Berlin space, as
well as a special presentation at the gallery’s Istanbul location.
The artist has previously created a performance based on Chinese
police training exercises. His installation at art berlin also
touches on the theme of the feeling of powerlessness in the face of
an authoritarian regime. Called Suspension of the Air (2017), it is a floor sculpture comprising
broken glass and a deflated lifebuoy cast in bronze. The unique
piece is perhaps a visual metaphor for the judicial and state
organizations meant to protect citizens that are used instead as
means of oppression and control.

Edi Rama
carlier | gebauer, Berlin and Madrid
Price: €3,500 each

Albania’s prime minister, Edi
Rama, is also, famously, an established artist who has shown his
work around the world. His Berlin- and Madrid-based gallery,
carlier | gebauer is showing a ceramic sculpture resembling slabs
of soft matter stacked on top of each other, as well as wallpaper
with a pattern of small, brightly colored drawings on which tiny,
amorphous ceramic pieces are hung. Sculpting is, according to a
gallery representative, something that Rama does on the weekends.
But the artist’s doodles are done “on the job,” when he is in
politician mode. “I couldn’t find a way to survive these long
meetings,” Rama told the Guardian in 2016. “Drawing helped
me to listen. Only much later did I read studies that showed
doodling improves concentration, or lowers stress. It’s a process
that has become completely part of me. And it’s very
fruitful.”

Vera Kox’s resting
assured, piling (2019)
Galleri Opdahl, Stavanger
Price: €5,500

There is no hierarchy of
materials in the sculptural works of the Luxembourg-born artist
Vera Kox. Her humble materials range from foam packing “peanuts” to
faux “fried eggs” used in restaurant displays, and even casts of
industrial anti-slip flooring can be found in her whimsical works.
Her transformation of mass produced materials are as
evocative—thanks to their familiarity—as they are enigmatic. Her
new piece shown at the fair, resting assured, piling (2019), features a rough patterned ceramic,
which is draped like a piece of fabric on a stack of protective
foam, the material typically lines the sides of wooden crates used
for shipping art.

Natalie Czech’s “Cigarette
Ends” Series (2019)
Galerie Capitain Petzel, Berlin
Price: under €10,000 each

The German artist Natalie Czech
has a knack for detecting the beauty and poetry in advertising copy
and other pieces of ephemera. She has created poems composed of
text fragments from album covers and 1980s TV manuals in the past.
Her new series, Cigarette
Ends, stages groups of
cigarette butts whose logos comprise short, visual verses, like an
accidental message found in an ashtray. But none of the featured
brands exist anymore. The artist collected packs of discontinued
cigarettes from around the world, some dating as far back as the
1950s. Then, disregarding the collectible value of an unopened
pack, she smoked them. The various prints are all priced just under
€10,000 each for an edition of five.

Nicola Martini’s
“Testimoni” Series (2019)
DITTRICH & SCHLECHTRIEM, Berlin
Price: Between €8,000 and €10,000 each

Italian artist Nicola Martini is
showing minimalist sculptural pieces along a long wall dividing the
two hangars of the fair in a generous, museum-quality staging. The
slug-like plexiglass forms are from a series titled “Testimoni”
from 2019, and each contains powder-fine substances that are in
fact older works that the artist has ground down. The floor
installation, from 2018, consists of aluminum pillars and epoxy
resin spheres all containing liquid materials like shellac and
water mixed with clay, such that their interiors are never fixed,
and always in motion.

art berlin is on view through September 15
at Hangars 5 & 6 at Tempelhof Airport in
Berlin.  

The post From Drawings by Albania’s Prime Minister to
Ground-up Artworks, Here Are 5 Intriguing Pieces to Discover at art
berlin for Under €10,000 appeared first on artnet
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