Galerie Crystal Ball

Zentrale Verwaltung – Nobert Bauer & Ralf Tekaat

Opening Reception: Sat. 23rd of September, 7pm

Zentrale Verwaltung – performative Reading, Friday, 13. Okt., 9pm

until Sat. 11. November 2023

Zentrale Verwaltung – Norbert Bauer / Ralf Tekaat, Ausstellungsdetails, Herbstausstellung Kunstverein Hannover 2022

Administrations create an idealized, formalized version of other areas of social life.
social life. They express the processes there in numbers, ratios, procedures, or regulations, and at the same time have an effect on them. Administration and reality generate each other, but are not congruent.
The work Zentrale Verwaltung by the artists Norbert Bauer and Ralf Tekaat deals with institutions and forms of expression of an “administered world”: Authorities, forms, documents, service instructions, organization charts, administrative buildings, etc. are as familiar as they are incomprehensible as constitutive elements of social life. The artists attempt to express this ambivalent relationship in their collaboration with the means of drawing. The aim of the series is not to create clarity, but to get lost in corridors, service rooms, outbuildings, regulations, optimization strategies and responsibilities.
So far, the Central Administration series consists of 270 drawings in A4 format. Zentrale Verwaltung continues to grow and has so far been shown in exhibitions in Hamburg at the Nachtspeicher, in Bremen at the Güterbahnhof in the art associations of Speyer, Hannover and Fischerhude. This summer she has now been awarded the Heitland Foundation Prize. The multi-part work reflects and evokes, in addition to its free representational force virtuously, the sensitivities associated with bureaucratic and administrative processes. Emotions lurk in the rows of leaves; indeed, the central administration, with its conceptual, cooperative strategy, quite aptly bundles social as well as personal situations of the viewer. With just one, or even several Di A 4 drawings, the whole drama of a stressful tax settlement, the despair in the face of a nerve-racking ink-guzzling printer, or other existentially stressful stories can be told. But at the same time, because it is bold and free-associated, Central Administration relieves us and we can smile again and distinguish, because really existential, administration is not.

/Performance Summer/ Veronika Dobers: Gesang des Großen Enttäuschten and The Story of Blue, Red and Yellow – Sigrun Paulsen & Manfred Kirschner

Vernissage with performance on Friday, September, 1st, 7 p.m.

Exhibition to Sun. 15th Sept. 2023
Tue. & Fri.: 2 p.m. - 7 p.m., Fri.
and by appointment
Veronika Dobers: Der Gesang des Großen Enttäuschten

With her performance “Song of the Great Disappointed” Veronika Dobers satirically addresses the position of man as the supposedly highest evolved living being. The creator of the world, however, doubts his work, which should culminate in the creation of man. (V.D.)

The artist friends Sigrun Paulsen and Manfred Kirschner, alias Lydia Karstadt, set their quite opposing artistic positions in an exhibition performatively against and with each other and examine the effects as in a collision. It is interesting that especially with this strategy similarities and relationships in common areas become visible, which otherwise would have remained invisible and perhaps would not have emerged. Sigrun Paulsen’s work is dedicated to pure color and its effects, she is concerned with a clarity and musicality also in the reception. In medium and large format works on canvas, Paulsen skillfully explores the combinatorial effects of her self-mixed colors and counter colors, cold and warm hues, which she brings together in deliberate processes. These color combinations thereby bring her paintings into vibration, the colors seem to vibrate. Paulsen’s paintings are free, free of inscribed meaning, nothing is hidden or suggested. They have something pure and are like food for the senses, which one can accept or refuse.

Manfred Kirschner explores in his smaller collages on canvas, irritating strategies of seemingly harmonious subject combinations. He places his protagonists, mostly mannequins, which certainly represent us humans, in melancholic landscapes or historical photographs, as in or historical photographs, as if in film sets and stage sets. The collage knows per se the combination of opposites as a stylistic principle. Kirschner’s art, however, works beyond this with the harmonization of the parts of the picture, such as the adherence to color spatiality or a combination of colors. Very often in Kirschner’s work, as for example in the in Kirschner’s series “The Story Of Blue, Red And Yellow”, for example, the figures are figures stand out from their background in a certain colorfulness, as if they were as if they were displaying themselves in their new pictorial world and also sayingsaying, “Look! I’ve been pasted in here!” Thus, just combinations raise unusual questions, or ironically expand the traditional or ironically expand the traditional lines of vision. Kirschner’spictures seem to draw their lightness from the fact that they are
their own statements at their fractures and distortions, asserting themselves as if they were assert themselves, as if they were above these receptionist processes.
Very often in Kirschner’s work, as for example in the titular series “The Story Of Blue, Red And Yellow,” the figures stand out from their background in a certain colorfulness, as if they were displaying themselves in their new pictorial world and also saying: “Look! I’ve been pasted in here!” Thus, it is these humorous to dramatic combinations that raise unusual questions or ironically expand traditional lines of vision. Kirschner’s paintings seem to draw their lightness from the fact that they make their own statements at their fractures and fault lines, asserting themselves as if they were above these receptionist processes. They free themselves from and the artist from authorship. Thus, if one sees Paulsen’s and Kirschner’s positions side by side, I maintain that both are about an essentiality that is evoked through a harmonization of opposites and polar effects and, beyond that, about a philosophy of freedom with art- Renate Kemper, Berlin 2023




/Performance Sommer/ Unboxing – Evita Emersleben & Manfred Kirschner

Am Sa. 5 August um 19 Uhr

Unboxing, Performance, Evita Emersleben und Manfred Kirschner, Künstlerhaus Bremen, September 2022

Boxing is the sporting variation of the classic fistfight. Boxing is popular worldwide and raises an aggressive, destructive and violent action to the level of a game and competition. To the pacifist-oriented artists Evita Emersleben and Manfred Kirschner, boxing appears as a symbol of a lifestyle based on competition, self-interest and social indifference. They perceive the fight as anti-social and outdated, similar to the impetus of bullfighting. Well, both artists do not want to completely deprive the boxing fight of its justification in their performance “Unboxing”, but rather examine the fight personally with each other in an experimental way, present their critique aesthetically and transcend the fight. Thus, Unboxing also shows, in the form of a social parody, current social tendencies of shifting the trivial into visible ubiquity. The two artistic positions of Emersleben and Kirschner are characterized by a partly open conceptual form, which always plays with the reception of the action by the spectators. Unboxing was first shown in Bremen in 2022 and will be performed again this year at the Crystal Ball on August 5 and at the Villa Sponte in Bremen on August 26

/Performance Sommer/ Zugvögel: Träumen mit Bäumen

Fri. July 14, performance at 8 p.m. and at 9 p.m. respectively
Galerie Crystal Ball
Schönleinstr. 7
10967 Berlin

Admission free!

Dreaming with Trees, Conceptual Co-Creation, three migratory birds in the wood, foto: Christina Olschewski

The doors open, and who flies in? The Zugvögel-Ensemble. After having spent their company outing this summer in Kolberg, Brandenburg at the historic Central Institute for Radio Technology (ZIF) with numerous mind-expanding rehearsals in the forest, Zoë Tomruk’s performance ensemble show us their latest production; the results of the four-day workshop of the same name, (which, by the way, was led simultaneously by all ensemble members): Dreaming with Trees and a performance dedicated to the current exhibition: The Atlas of Uranus.

We look forward to seeing you again!

Birch Hayes – Uranian Atlas

Opening Reception, April, 28th, Friday, 7 pm

28.4. Midissage am 16 Juni ab 19 Uhr

und verlängert bis 14. Juli, mit arbiträren Öffnungszeiten & nach Vereinbarung

Performance der Zugvögel am 14 Juli, um 20 & 21 Uhr: Träumen mit Bäumen & Der Atlas des Uranus

Birch Hayes calls his first exhibition in Berlin, at the Crystal Ball gallery the Atlas of Uranus. In a way, this is an extremely apt description for the works presented by the American artist. Hayes’ elaborate, detailed drawings sometimes seem like cartographies of an unknown world or even like surfaces of a distant planet. This may be due to the homogeneous but alien organic presence of the structures depicted and their particular expansiveness of perspective. In this respect, the drawings evoke an almost authentic presence, familiar from scientific illustrations, biological diagrams, and drawings based on nature. Certain structures appear as if cut into, at these points their structure becomes apparent and explainable. All discovered forms and things show themselves. Hayes uses these attributes masterfully, creating a real plane, but presenting us not with a familiar one, but with an extraordinary glimpse into a mysterious, fantastic world that seems strangely real. Physical structures lie, stick, grow in and out with other substances. Things float, buzz, are interconnected, and the motifs sketch a specific dreamy variety. Birch Hayes drawings in this way have similarity in strategy to science fiction, as the latter also repeatedly indulges in describing the connections and details in order to assert reality. The artist Birch Hayes, however, has no plan or sense of mission in this direction at all. He calls the exhibition of his black and white and color works Uranian Atlas, because that is how they appear to him. Hayes draws to enter a dreamy state of meditation. He has no specific ideas from the beginning, but in an automatic, unconscious formulation also discovers one form next to the other and records it in the picture. But it is thanks to this idiosyncratic and particular position of Haye’s work that the worlds and landscapes can be explored light-footedly, as if we have now gained access to a world of the unconscious while awake. Lydia Karstadt.

Kaleidoskop; Bücher alleine zu Haus?

Neun Autorinnen der Gegenwart lesen in der Crystal Ball

Doris AnselmEsther Becker – Ilse Biberti – Kerstin E. Finkelstein – Gabi Garland – Claudia Gülzow, Orsolya Kalász – Slavica Klimkowsky – Monika Rinck

Am 30. April um 19 Uhr, Einlass um 18 Uhr

Die Veranstaltung wird organisiert von Ilse Biberti und Manfred Kirschner.

/Performance Summer/ Ich Ich Ich : Ich bin Ich !

Wir bitten Sie dazu, selbst als Star auf unserer Vernissage im Kunstpunkt zu erscheinen!

die Galerie Crystal Ball zu Gast im Kunstpunkt Berlin, Schlegelstraße 6

Eröffnung mit Happening und Performance am 14ten April, 19 Uhr

Ich bin Ich, ca. 12 min, film still, with “Pas de Costumes”, Berlin 2023 – exhibition and performance project, video, installation, 2019-2023

Am Freitag, 14. April 2023 um 19 Uhr eröffnet die Ausstellung ICH ICH ICH im KUNSTPUNKT BERLIN,
Schlegelstr. 6, 10115 Berlin-Mitte.

Together with another artist collective (Stay Hungry), Pas de Costumes is invited to explore the toxic effects of egomaniacal artist cult during Gallery Weekend at Kunstpunkt Berlin in April. In spring 2019, Natascha Frioud and Manfred Kirschner began the project of “I am I.” Since then, a loose group of female artists has formed around the Crystal Ball exhibition space in Pas de Costumes. The current presentation features works by Caren Sielaff, Miriam Jadischke, Berit Schneider, Stefan Ruf, Zoe Tomruck, Lydia Karstadt, Natascha Frioud, Gabi Garland and Frank Schoppmeier.
“I am I” comprises a group of works centered around the fictional artist-personality Arielle Schuberti. An exhibition opening, a series of artworks, accompanying performances and a documentary video, create the person Arielle. A strongly self-referential person who is convinced to be a very important artist. The video jumps between fiction; the vernissage with play scenes and reality, showing the artists working on the project. The complex of “I am I” aims to problematize the cliché, the narcissistic artist, in the form of over-individualization, which in its exaggeration can have a toxic effect on society.
Pas de Costumes has been working on the concept since 2019. In the process, an “Oneday Exhibition” with works by the artist “Arielle Schuberti” has been realized in the exhibition space Crystal Ball in Kreuzberg. This opening of the exhibition of “Arielle” was promoted with posters, internet presence and email invitations. Crystal Ball had, as usual, invited to one of her vernissages. Unknowing visitors were then confronted with a fake presentation and a highly performative evening. At the exhibition opening, fiction and reality collided, Arielle played on the keyboard of her self-absorption and egocentricity. After a few questionable performances, the situation was hardly tenable. Arielle destroyed one of her works when a buyer showed interest in it. It came to an éclat with the gallery owner and culminated in that the artist destroyed her works in front of the public.
In the exhibition ICH ICH ICH at Kunstpunkt, Pas de Costumes will show the film “Ich bin Ich” for the first time, as an official document of the project. The premiere will be accompanied by an installation of leftover artworks by artist Arielle Schuberti, as well as works by her friends. An extraordinary, introductory happening will accompany the performance group’s exhibition.

For this, we ask you to come as a star yourself to our vernissage at Kunstpunkt!

Exhibition dates:

Vernissage: 14.04.2023, ab 19 Uhr
Ausstellungsdauer: 15.04. – 01.05.2023
Öffnungszeiten: Fr 17–21 Uhr, Sa + So 15–19 Uhr
Finissage & GET-TOGETHER NETZWERK: 01.05.2023, ab 15 Uhr

Becky: Walk the Village with the Cuckoo Bird

Exhibition opening with concert, Fr. 31. März um 19 Uhr

Exhibition from March, 31st to April, 2nd, 14 bis 19 Uhr

Becky c/o Crystal Ball, Berlin
Becky, Foto: Emily Leshner

A swan looks dirty on closer inspection. Words lie on the tongue and loll in the fur. And the heart is nothing more than a hollow muscle. These are the things Becky sings about. Becky (She/ They) is drag persona, performance artist and puppeteer of herself. From first Youtube music videos, 2022 evolved into charming live gigs with a lot of makeup and minimalist drums. Her songs are intimate insights into a queer Berlin of today with a view on the East German province of yesterday, alternating between melancholy and absurdity. With a musical DIY attitude and German as well as English lyrics, sometimes poetic, sometimes painfully direct, she creates tender little worlds that resonate. Becky’s sound combines singer-songwriter elements, pop melodies and alternative rock sounds. Her first EP, Tossing and Turning, was released in January. In “Walk The Village With The Cuckoo Bird,” drag persona Becky strides through the place of her childhood, a dreamy East German village, always on the lookout for other queer people. In the process, each step is also an act of reclaiming space. Sounds and stories buzz around her. According to a local legend, a man was saved from the flood precisely because he imitated the call of the cuckoo and the villagers heard this call for help. The sound collage in the video plays with this legend, the cuckoo call, the sounds from the surroundings, fragmenting and deconstructing them until no orientation is possible anymore. The work associatively questions the stories of the village, which are concentrated in the baroque castle of the place. The venue of today was a secret file storage facility of the GDR and previously an SA sports school. “Walk The Village With The Cuckoo Bird” was shown in a first version at the festival Traumburg 2022 (Dornburg Castle on the Elbe) and can now be seen for the first time in Berlin.

Walk The Village With The Cuckoo Bird, 2 Kanal Video Installation, Mathias Becker, 2022

ERDEN. Naturphilosophische Brocken – Book Presentation & Audiovisual Performance

am Freitag, 3. Februar 2023 um 19:30 Uhr 

Erden-Buchcover, (unter Verwendung eines Bildes von Elisabeth von Samsonow,

Geo Psyche Backup System, Tempera auf Leinwand, 2021)

Extraction regimes, elective affinities, bodily juice analyses, alternative epistemologies of nature: Volume 45 of Schriften zur Verkehrswissenschaft, edited by Ivo Gurschler, Andreas Hofbauer, and Alexander Klose, gathers “necessarily fragmentary advances to think about nature in times of crisis.”
Theorizing turns again to a sphere that, for lack of another term, continues to be called nature. At the same time, nature returns in the form of floods, droughts, and storms in an ever more urgent manner, and people increasingly learn to see themselves as earthlings. Under these circumstances, radical gestures of decentering into terrestrial constellations emerged as new forms of thinking about nature. The volume gathers such advances, which necessarily remain fragmentary in their totality, as four chunks of natural philosophy – thrown onto the earth and into the unknown.

Presentations, projections and audience discussion by and with the authors Salome Rodeck, Tom Turnbull and Daniel Tyradellis, the artist Jenny Michel, the composer Konstantin Schimanowski as well as the editors Andreas L. Hofbauer, Alexander Klose and possible surprise guests.

Followed by Crystal Ball Bar and record music by dj.catastrophé

Apfelmus

Eröffnung am 14.1. um 19 Uhr

Apfelmus – 16 Jahre Galerie Crystal Ball
Ausstellungssalon und Veranstaltungsreihe

Performances zur Eröffnung:
20:00 Lydia Karstadt: All You Need
22:00 Danja Schilling: Danger Danger/ Volume 2: Apfelmus

Ein Paket mit der Aufschrift Apfelmus steht auf einer Wiese
Apfelmus, Karton/ Papier/ Shellack, M. Kirschner, 1996

Lydia Karstadt wanted “Applesauce” to be a thematic group exhibition for her birthday, because in 2023 the Crystal Ball phenomenon will be 16 years old. It is true that there is probably not much left to celebrate at the moment. But “Applesauce” is supposed to convey its positive impact in a reflection on essential life contents. Peace and human renaturation. The subordination of human existence to the ecological sphere appears as the inevitable, only way out of the crisis. In Karstadt’s view, art is never an opponent or even a target, but a partner in the conflict for a future.
Numerous foodstuffs have taken on a higher significance in the museum art context in recent months as a result of the protest culture. Thus applesauce can be a performative device; political statement, enigmatic object, poetic sphere, or just a big old cardboard box with “applesauce” written on it. The playful exhibition in Crystal Ball shows positions of artists who, through the subject and its field of interpretation, imply associations of transience in their work. The exhibition salon is accompanied by a program of events. Performances will be shown at the opening.

Françoise Cactus, Evita Emersleben, Ersatzschrankorchester, Gabi Garland, Elke Graalfs, Miriam Jadischke, Manfred Kirschner, Andreas Kotulla, Gabriele Regiert, Danja Schilling, Caren Sielaff, Juwelia St. St., Lydia Karstadt, Vikenti Komminski, C.C. Kruse, Agnieszka Pasek, Frank Schoppmeier, Silky, Berit Schneider, Veronika Schumacher, Uwe Teichmann, The Wa, die Zugvögel und weiteren Künstler:innen

Aria of the god of happiness: Brother, you make my eyes wet. I see your life is no fun. Here is an apple, look, I have three, so I can give you one. I don’t see anything excessive about it, we can both live. Now promise me you won’t swallow the seeds in your greed, but before I leave, spit them into the ground. And if it becomes an apple tree in the middle of your field, then come and get the apples from the tree which you cultivate. (Brecht/ Dessau)

The Wa, unfinished dog

Freitag, 20.01. um 19 Uhr
analogSCHATTEN  – Die Zugvögel Improvisation mit Licht und Schatten

Freitag 03.02. um 19:30 Uhr
ERDEN. Naturphilosophische Brocken – Buchpräsentation
Extraktionsregime, Wahlverwandtschaften, Körpersaftanaly­sen, alternative Naturepistemologien: Der von Ivo Gurschler, Andreas Hofbauer und Alexander Klose herausgegebene Band 45 der Schriften zur Verkehrswissenschaft versammelt “notwendig fragmen­tarisch bleibende Vorstöße, um über Natur in Krisenzeiten nachzudenken“.
Präsentation, Projektionen und Podiumsgespräch mit den Herausgebern und Autor:innen

Samstag, 25.2. um 19 Uhr/  Finissage
Apfelmus
– der Film, Thedinghausen 1996
M. Kirschner, Sound von Christian C. Kruse
Wiederaufführung mit Performances:
Wie man einen halben Pudding macht – Evita Emersleben
The Making Of Apfelmus- Manfred Kirschner

Crystal Ball Berlin