Claude Cahun
Fake or Feint, Scenario I: Claude Cahun, Eran Schaerf
Berlin Carré shopping mall at Alexanderplatz
Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse 13
Until 7 February
The organizers of this half-year exhibition program have chosen the ambitious theme of "dissemblance". Round one pairs Cahun's surrealist self-portraits (c. 1920) with an architectural veil by German-Israeli sculptor Eran Schaerf (Voile, 2009).
Pablo Bartholomew
Eclectic Images: Pablo Bartholomew and Julian Rosenfeldt
Bodhi Berlin
Halle am Wasser
Invalidenstrasse 50
Until 3 February
Two dozen trim images by Indian photojournalist Pablo Bartholomew have been matched with, or against, German video artist Julian Rosenfeldt's opulent and self-deprecating travelogue, 'Lonely Planet'. Bodhi's curator, Jamila Adeli, hopes the contrast will animate a dialogue "about perceptions of India."
Bill Viola
Bill Viola
Haunch of Venison
Heidestrasse 46
T +49 30 39 47 39 63
Until 21 February
The Bill Viola exhibition at Haunch of Venison amounts to a mini-retrospective, showing work that spans from last year's six channel installation 'Small Saints', back to video from 1981 ('Hatsu-Yume (first dream)'). Scheduled to coincide with the Berlin film festival, the installations will give way to a daily program of screenings from 5 - 15 February.
Ignacio Uriarte
Ignacio Uriarte: 9 to 5
Galerie Feinkost
Bernauerstr 71-72
T +49 (0)172 1849732
Until 22 February
Uriarte works within familiar dimensions: the A4, the Excel sheet, the eight-hour work day. Taking the formal constraints of the office as his point departure, he has established himself as a sort of genius among finger-drummers and Xerox-machine exploiters. The artist began his career in business administration. This is first solo show in Germany.
Kate Gilmore
Our Great Show: works from the Jefferson Goddard Collection (Kate Gilmore, James Murray, Jeroen Nelemans, Michael Phelan, Robin Rhode, Carlos Rigau, Mika Rottenberg, Kara Walker)
Nice & Fit
Brunnenstrasse 13
T+49 30 4404 5976
An array of strong work by US-based video artists is on view courtesy of Chicago-based collector Jefferson Goddard. The show is also an argument for owning video art on the basis of the collector's own idiosyncratic reasoning. The viewing environment at Nice and Fit apparently recreates the conditions in Goddard's home. All eight pieces play at once from different crannies, no headphones are available, and ambience triumphs over attention. Goddard believes that watching all the videos all the time lets what is unique to each to make itself felt, while allowing the dynamic of the collection emerge. And: it's better than TV.
Nasan Tur
Political Iconography II: Nasan Tur, Stevanos Tsivopoulos, Jari Silomaki, Jana Gunstheimer, Alken, Greif & Hennig
Jette Rudolph
Zimmerstrasse 90-91
T+49-30-6130 3887
Until 19 February
Gallerist Jette Rudolph continues the exploration of contemporary heraldry, which she began with the fantastically successful group exhibition POIK last January. The second installment shifts focus to artists whose work is explicitly subversive, and in so doing seems to cast a much wider net. Featured: Berlin-based Nasan Tur's demonstration kit; which comes with a white banner, black spray paint and wooden poles - slogans, however, are not included.
Oscar Tuazon
Oscar Tuazon: I was a stranger
Balice Hertling at Isabella Bortolozzi
Schoenberger Ufer 61
T +49 30 26 39 49 85
Until 21 February
This month, some dozen Berlin and Paris galleries have swapped artists. A number of petrol-slicked works by American Oscar Tuazon show at Berlin's Bortolozzi, courtesy of his Paris gallery, Balice Hertling. (Yes, that's right - trading places is highly conceptual.)
Etienne Chambaud
Etienne Chambaud: A Brief History of the Twentieth Century
Galerie Lucile Corty at Sassa Truelzsch
Kurfuerstenstr. 12
T +49 163 707 707 9
Until 18 February
Young French conceptualist Etienne Chambaud made his name last year for a raft he named "L'idéalisme", and set out to sea equipped a sophisticated GPS system - to render 'The Current Position of Idealism' (2008, with collaborator Benoit Marie). His current solo exhibition features prints from negatives once rejected by the public relations folks at the Farm Securities Administration, Depression era program that employed photographers like Walker Evans.
Taryn Simon
Taryn Simon and Haim Steinbach
Galerie Almine Rech at Johann Koenig
Dessauerstr 6-7
T +49 30 26 10 30 80
Until 1 February
Simon's 'American Index of Hidden and Unfamiliar' includes images of hymenoplasty operation rooms, jury simulation centers, firework test sites, and so on - all scupulously captioned. About ten of the series are paired brilliantly with Haim Steinbach's bizarro readymades (dog toys and cereal boxes).
Suse Weber
Suse Weber: Formel:Verein
Galerie Barbara Weiss
Zimmerstr. 88-89
T +49 030 26 24 284
Until 21 February
Suse Weber's first exhibition at Weiss displays a series of sculptures inspired by the artist's research on social clubs in a small German town.
Alix Rule writes on art and politics. She has worked for In These Times and Dissent magazine, and her writing has appeared in a variety of other publications. Alix grew up in New York and studied at the University of Chicago at then at Balliol College, Oxford. After graduating she worked briefly as an organizer of low-wage workers in London, UK. Alix is interested in interior and outer space, organizing communities, "social entrepreneurship" and above all, clothing. She has recently moved to Berlin. You can contact her at alix.rule@gmail.com.
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