Exhibitions – Page 3 – Crystal Ball Berlin

“Going Crazy in East Germany – Rügen mon Amour” by Manfred Kirschner

On March 31, 2021, the Berlin publishing house Art in Flow will publish a collage story by Manfred Kirschner as a printed art book.

From the press release:

Artist book/new release

Manfred Kirschner: Going Crazy in East Germany – Rügen, Mon Amour

What are old-fashioned photo albums other than testimonial picture books, which tell stories about a chronological collection of photographs or allow associations to be made. Being aware of this from the very beginning of his work the artist Manfred Kirschner used these albums to create life stories and histories of his protagonists: The fictitious life story of an American artist in the 1960s or short photo stories in which collages are placed instead of album photos and represent them. Once one has accepted this surreal change, one is quickly immersed in the logic of a parallel sphere, a fantastic imaginary life story that wrestles with reality, from a time when photography still surrounded the aura of the authenticity.
It was precisely in the early 1990s, with the onset of digitization and the reversibility of the processes, Kirschner began his serial collage stories and photo albums.
Now he has presented a first printed volume. His two-part collage story so far. “Going Crazy in East Germany – Rügen mon Amour” recounts in a light, humorous tone the turbulent travel adventure of Harald Baumeister, a Berlin-based
artist who, disappointed by his friends, travels to the Baltic Sea in search of meaning. The book is based on collaged landscapes that function like “film sets” for the artist. Through his technique, Kirschner associates a fantastic German
pictorial history in which fiction, the past and the present merge. The genre of narrative humorously illustrates a reflection of life. The protagonist Harald Baumeister appears like an alter ego of artists in crisis. An inner and outer
journey that should lead him to art and ends in life. With hallucinations and and lovesickness, he gets lost in an ironic conundrum of identities around a magical snow globe and in the end surprisingly finds friendship and love.

The artist’s book will be published as part of the Crystal Ball Book Salon, April through June 2021, at the
Crystal Ball Gallery.

More information about the book: https://www.artinflow.de/manfred-kirschner/
Manfred Kirschner: Verrückt Werden in Ostdeutschland – Rügen, Mon Amour
Hardcover/Leinenbezug, 130 S., 16 x 16 cm, Dt., 30,00 EUR
ISBN 978-3-938457-51
or ask directly in the Crystal Ball Gallery.

Collage D´Automne Discothèque

For entrance please look for the “Open” flag at the door or call us spontaneously from 10 a.m. until 9 p.m. Tel: 030 60052 828

Dieses Bild hat ein leeres Alt-Attribut. Der Dateiname ist M107_150x150cm_2020.jpg — M 107, Papier/ Acryl auf Leinwand, 160 x 150 cm, 2020

Lydia Karstadt curates for the second shutdown and the end of the year, a lonesome 1-person discotheque adapted to the circumstances – In one installation, the large-format collages handmade this year on canvas by Manfred Kirschner, curator Karstadt puts records on the individual visitors’ request. The access functions individually according to the slogan and strictly follows the current pandemic protection rules. In addition to the new large works, there is a small SALE series, which the gallery helps to buy, since 100% of the sales proceeds go to Crystal Ball.

Collage D´Automne Discothèque – Tiny Planet

Manfred Kirschner’s new semi-abstract series plays more with colors and geometric forms and deals with the loss and emptiness, the absence of physicality. His protagonists; people, mannequins, who actually usually appear on canvases and books in Kirschners collage sets, stories and as in stage sets populating his works, seem to have disappeared in favor of a painterly, aesthetic language of forms. As it turns out, however, man is not completely forgotten, on the contrary. “I am landscape – put me in” is the title of one of the great works in which beautifully shaped empty spaces open up for insertion. The title functions like a manual for the overall installation of the exhibition, inviting visitors to amuse themselves and to fit into the exhibition context. The artist’s collage photo novels, which he often sticks in photo albums or watercolor books, are also a secret tip. But to do so, one must follow Kirschner deeper into his fantasy and wonder worlds, perhaps like Alice, as she follows the forthoppelden rabbit into the dark hole, into an unknown sphere. For a visit to the exhibition, please look for the “Open” flag at the door or call us spontaneously from 10 a.m. until 9 p.m.

Evita Emersleben: Kussmunddrucke

Performance/ video/ lipstick prints
Fr. 4 September at 7 p.m., opening with performance
Sat. 12 Sept. at 5 pm Performance for the Art Week: Kissing Monster- Evita Emersleben

Evita Emersleben, Untiteled, Alterra: Classice Red/ Papier, ca 60 x 80cm, 2020

Evita Emersleben shows her performative art here once again in a conceptual context that gives rise to a new series of works. She kisses the drawing paper and thus „prints“ in a processual performance, portraits and pictures with her mouth. In complex work performances, the artist has already had the works of art themselves cast, moulded, cut up, served and eaten. Her most recent performance was as a meat saleswoman, selling her works in portions by the gram. The artist Evita Emersleben works on a holistic form of her works in that the products, the interventions or the actions are always an equal part of the artistic practice. The work action: kisses set sensitively and accurately, which build up her prints, is therefore just as important as the artifacts themselves. If we understand the paper, the canvas or the painting grounds as the classical medium of the artists*, Emersleben plays with a universal, the desire for artistic affirmation in this amusing series of works. But the gestural phatos of the production of the lipstick pictures, together with an almost absurd motivation, creates a wonderfully serious and ridiculous ambivalence that touches us in our own living context.

Kussmundmonster – die Ausstellung als Tiny Planet

Evita Emersleben showed her performance twice during artweek. Due to the applicable hygiene regulations, visitors* were only able to follow the events through the shop window. Each performance lasted about one hour.

Evita Emersleben – Performance/ Kussmunddrucke, Crystal Ball, 2020

upper-left: streetview, upper-middle: visitor wears costume with lipstickprints, by accident, upper-right: setting of the performance
bottom-left: Evita Emersleben, bottom-middle: portrait – result of the performance , bottom-right: artweek-visitors

The exhibition is kindly supported
by the Karin and Uwe Hollweg Foundation.

Fuck Your Selfie! #6 – Portraitsalon

F*** Your Selfie #6 Portraitsalon
25 to 28 August 2020 from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m.

FYS Numero Sei, Galerie Crystal Ball, Berlin 2020

Forget your selfie and exchange it for a real portrait situation, a happening and choose a style that suits you from the oeuvre of the artist team. Let yourself be drawn in a classical way or be presented as a collage, in poetry, as an art song, as a watercolour or even as a cat litter sculpture. This year, the legendary Crystal Ball portrait salon festival will take place for the sixth time! from 25 to 28 August. With some exclusive stars and artists performing and portraying all visitors. As always, it is also possible for other artists* to participate. Already announced have been: Meike Doelp, Elke Graalfs, Mareike Hube, Carola Humboldt, Lydia Karstadt, Andreas Kotulla, Bibi Kreuzberg, Annett Lau, Mini Mo, Rias, Stefan Ruf, Berit Schneider, Caren Sielaff, Veronika Schumacher, Oliver Voigt and others.

Gabriele Regiert – Plan B

The exhibition of Gabriele Regiert is open to individual visitors during the usual opening hours from Friday 8 May.
Finissage: 16 August, 5 p.m.

The exhibition is open to the public again. You can now visit the gallery again during the usual opening hours. In view of the Corona Pandemic we have also published a 360 degree panorama including an interview with the artist.

Gabriele Regiert, Plan B, ca. 320 x 350 cm, Installation/ Detail, 2020

Plan B, Gabriele Regiert on her tiny planet

In the exhibition Plan B, Gabriele Regiert shows her installation of the same name, a large tableau of assembled drawings and canvases. Each work, and drawing stands on its own, but its own presence adds up to an overall effect. Gabriele Regiert’s drawings are processes; their sequence of events, her work that wants nothing but her actions, is her motif. In this way, very free, highly aesthetic sheets are created which do not want but become art. In Plan B., the sheets are hung on top of each other and partly on top of each other like emergency seats, parts of the picture disappear or appear to be brought together in an uncontrolled way. It is precisely this strategy of an unusual, succinct treatment that effectively produces the emanation of the pictures and is exemplary for the artist as an artistic attitude. Gabriele Regiert quotes and touches on visual universals such as in this case note boards, pinboards or the case collections known from crime novels – collections that resonate in this aesthetic. The interplay opens up to meaning – unexpected associations – it is about the moment. The artist keeps her drawings open. The handling of the unfinished, an unconscious drawing action whose lines are always on the way, whose patterns look for themselves elsewhere and are more committed to the tea stain than to a concrete goal, reinforce her present presence. The installation is always temporary in this way of working. When hung again, the presentation resembled a re-enactment rather than a precise repetition.
The working process is dynamic, the artistic products almost performative, lively in their creative context, not fixed. Some would certainly have disappeared because they continued working or became material again in the artist’s fund. This way of working is very committed to life, it democratizes the works among themselves and works on a new innovative attitude. Gabriele Regiert’s work contains a processual, superordinate understanding and thus shows that art is immediate liveliness.

On the occasion of the exhibition the edition „Pret A Manger“, framed, 18 x 12 x 5 cm, edition of 15, each 120,-

Pret A Manger 2/15 – Gabriele Regiert, Edition #1, framed/ signed, 120,- Crystal Ball, 2020

Pia E. van Nuland – A Second Moon

Vernissage on Sa. 8 February 2020 at 7 p.m., extended until Sa. 14 March 2020
Look out! Due to the pandemic, the finissage on 14 March will be cancelled

Pia E. van Nuland, Main Street,
-SLC- USA, 120 x 160 cm, multicoloured linoleum print on canvas, 2020

In February and March, the gallery will show new works by Pia E. van Nuland, some of which she realized during her fellowship abroad in Salt Lake City, USA. Pia E. van Nuland’s linocuts masterfully expand the printmaking boundaries of the medium. The artist likes to work with special colors and color mixtures to achieve special, opaque and painterly effects. Size formats, conception and sensitivity of the cut, go far beyond illustrative attributes in the prints. The motifs, the image detail, the choice of colours are combined in Van Nuland’s works in a high virtuosity, so that the artist can take a special position. Pia E. van Nuland often works in thematic series, with multi-coloured large formats, whose individual pictures are unique in quality and expressiveness. The exhibition shows for the first time in Berlin, an overview and multi-coloured linoleum prints on canvas.

Jim Avignon – Your Portrait Here!

Vernissage on Sat. 7 December 2020 at 7 p.m. until Sun. 22 December 2019

Jim Avignon, who regularly participates in the annual Crystal Ball: “Fuck Your Selfie” portrait salon festival, will show his extraordinary portrait project in December 2019: “Your Portrait Here!”

The artist opens an exhibition with unfinished pictures, in which the spectators automatically take on an immanent role, as they can be painted into the pictures. An interactive art exhibition, which is only completed at the end by the composition of the portrait models with their scenery, their background. During this time, Jim Avignon will also use Crystal Ball as a studio to paint the empty spaces and develop the portrait series. Jim Avignon’s artistic work is refreshingly oppositional to elitist, high-priced positions. His working method is more life-oriented and is directed towards people and recipients. For more than two decades, Jim Avignon has tirelessly portrayed criticism in a humorous and stylistically confident manner as a kind of social reflexive in his art and music ouevre. In Kunstforum Volume 262, Borderlines /2019, Jim’s comparison to Charlie Chaplin stands out. The attention, the importance of such a position seems to have arrived there, at the same time as its explosiveness of the social in our hierarchized high culture.

Oliver Voigt – Mind The Gap!

Opening Friday, 11 October 2019 at 7 p.m.
extended until 2 November 2019, with finissage at 8 p.m.

Oliver Voigt, New York #1, Tusche auf Papier, 2018

Oliver Voigt represents an equally free and modern artistic position. He works in different fields and frees himself from an always same artistic gesture. He works on thematic fields with high concentration, often developing the necessary production techniques and strategies in the respective medium.

For “Mind the Gap”, the artist has now developed an aesthetic methodology that circumscribes the tonal values ??of the quoted images in numbers, which are then transferred with ink on paper. The basis of the pictures are newspaper photos, photographs of the victims of attacks and terror. Disturbing images, their content, their inherent brutal violence and contempt we are barely able to endure.

In this way, Oliver Voigt is convinced that in our social context we often already unconsciously work on distancing ourselves from certain pictures and messages and no longer “see” the images exactly. But it is about a personal, as pictorial approach. By analyzing the pictures analytically, getting them to himself and turning them into a mosaic, he can approach them. The interesting thing about this analytical, technical work of the artist is that he recreates exactly this created gap, the incomprehensible and makes it visible.

Hiske Hilgenga – Sneaker Art

Vernissage on Sa. 7 September 2019 at 8 p.m. to Fr. 20 September 2019

The Dutch painter Hiske Hilgenga has a special weakness for sneakers. For him, they have as much aesthetic as erotic appeal. So he has found a way in his art to translate his interest into a painting that does justice to the complex of this preference. Hyske Hilgenan’s works are characterized by a rough, impasto, almost unadorned painting style.

The two-dimensional, unpretentious pictures seem to leave it up to colour alone to construct the motif. They bear witness to a high degree of infatuation with the material, which in the process effortlessly and unheeded overcome the difficult boundaries between abstraction and pictoriality, material and effect.

Hyske Hilgenga’s striking sneakers have an aura that is as light as it is ironic. They do not add another plastic garbage to our crowded world of goods, for their debut nobody has to spend the night in front of a shop.

No, they reflect their quoted subject-object relationship quite simply and playfully in that of art. One can also read a subversive commentary on toxic high capitalism in this strategy.

Fuck Your Selfie! #5 – Portraitsalon

You are invited!
From 29 May to 2 June 2019, from 2 p.m. to 19 p.m.

Now – the legendary Portraitsalon Festival for the 5th time !
Berlin artists portray you in poetry, painting, drawing, object, singing, dance and performance!

Fuck Your Selfie Numero Cinque, Lydia Karstadt, 2019

With: Jim Avignon, Herve Cabin, Francoise Cactus, Betty Diggler, Gina Dorio, Natascha Frioud, Gabi Garland, Maike Hartwig, Mareike Hube, Carola Humbodt, Elke Graalfs, Miriam Licia Jadischke, Lydia Karstadt, Manfred Kirschner, Andreas Kotulla, Eike Lauen, Rudi Paris, Caren Sielaff, Gabriele Regiert, Rias, Veronika Schumacher, Berit Schneider, Heike Walter, Oliver Voigt, Gisela Wrede und weiteren!

It is perhaps absurd to assume that a classical portrait situation, in which a model, in this case the visitor, enters into a direct relationship with an artist, is so special that it ennobles her to art. In our time, however, which is also marked by populism, the proliferation of unchecked subjectivities and an annoying over-individualism, the classical, lifelike conversation, the communicative act of interpersonal perception, reflection and depiction declares itself to be avant-garde. On five consecutive days, the artists present, the visitors to the gallery, will portray the artists. The communicative working atmosphere is accompanied by performances and musical contributions, while a new portrait exhibition grows. Participation in this exhibition is still open during the festival. We are looking forward to the fifth edition of the Salon!