Catherine Bolduc’s installations invite visitors to experience fantastic, playful spaces in which the banal is frequently stylised, transforming it into something miraculous. Striking mirror effects, coloured light, flashing stroboscopes or just the sheer accumulation and illumination of glittering baubles create wonderful, ephemeral fantasy worlds so fragile that they evade physical assimilation.
In Studio 3, Catherine Bolduc has created an expansive installation with flashes of light that seep from a hidden core, perceptible through the perforated wall of the apparently closed-in space. The tiny holes blink enticingly like imitations of mysterious stellar constellations in a dark night sky. But the flashing of stroboscopes becomes intolerable when one approaches closer and the sound – reminiscent of thunder – from the inside prevents viewers from immersing themselves in this alluring fantasy world, causing it to collapse instead like a house of cards. For the first time, Bolduc has integrated a video projection into her work: it shows the artist making various attempts - all doomed to failure - to overcome earth’s gravity or to penetrate the fog that conceals the passionately longed-for ‘somewhere else’.
Catherine Bolduc holds a fellowship from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the Ministère des Relations internationales du Québec in the context of our International Studio Programme.

Catherine Bolduc – My life without gravity
28th March – 13th April 2008, Studio 3
Opening: Thursday, 27th March 2008, from 7 pm

Søren Lose’s current artistic practice concerns topics such as architecture, symbolism, power and myths. The basis of his work is found documentary material, which he presents in new aesthetic and conceptual contexts. “Abendland” (Occident) is a project concerning the history of Berlin, a place where diverse epochs and political systems are mirrored in the city’s architectural appearance everywhere: bullet-ridden facades from the Second World War, prefabricated GDR buildings, Nazi architecture, communist memorials or post-modern office blocks.
Entering Søren Lose’s space-consuming installation in Studio 2, one is immediately struck by the model of a neo-Classical, white facade at the back of the room; it seems to be half sunken into the floor, and only when one looks more carefully is it recognisable as an entrance portal to the “New Reich Chancellery” built for Hitler by Albert Speer – of which, however, no trace remains in today’s city. By focusing attention on the building as a model in a public place, Søren Lose poses the question of whether a dark chapter in history can be ‘wiped out’ without trace simply by removing its symbols; calling for critical discussion, he also appeals to each of us to handle his own personal history with more awareness.
Søren Lose holds a fellowship from the BERLINAUT programme of the Royal Danish Embassy Berlin in the context of our International Studio Programme.

Søren Lose – Abendland
28th March – 13th April 2008, Studio 2
Opening: Thursday, 27th March 2008, from 7 pm Wed – Sun, 2 – 7 pm

"Daydreams & Dark Sides" presents works by:
ATAK (Georg Barber), Tilo Baumgärtel, Thomas Helbig, Andreas Hofer, Britta Lumer, Bernhard Martin, Sophia Schama, Markus Selg, Ruprecht von Kaufmann, and Ralf Ziervogel

The exhibition "Daydreams & Dark Sides" pays witness to our indefinable age – transitory moments as the counterpart to a reduction of art to simple functions and platforms of discourse that deliberate over the merely superficial.
Every person probably has his dreams, every night, but they evaporate with his first look into the mirror next morning. The exhibition searches for those obsessive experiences between night and day, for dark inner images and scorching daydreams. The dream has always played a great part in the work of many artists, although it is rarely found in a directly narrated form. Their works celebrate the material texture of dreams in painting, drawing and sculpture until it becomes a dream in its turn; in other words – it becomes a riddle, a mystery.
"Daydreams & Dark Sides" is presented as the reverse of (perhaps also a background, underground, counter position to) the Berlin Biennial 2008; rich in subtle, surprising insights, it appears as a textbook of emotions, deceptions and transformations. The participating artists aim to resist the commonplace, asserting a select personal language in the field of total communication.

"Daydreams & Dark Sides" is being realised with kind support from the Governing Mayor of Berlin, Senate Offices – Cultural Affairs.

Daydreams & Dark Sides
6th – 30th April 2008, Studio 1
Opening: Saturday, 5th April 2008, from 7 pm

PAVILION & BB3: Temporary Structures
Presentation and live talk on the BUCHAREST BIENNIAL and its organisers, PAVILION magazine.
Participants: Razvan Ion (RO), Eugen Radescu (RO), Felix Vogel (DE), Christoph Tannert (DE).
An event in cooperation with the Rumanian Cultural Institute Berlin

Saturday, 5th April 2008, 5 – 7 pm, Clubraum (free admission)

OPEN STUDIOS of the artists of the International Studio Programme:
Jungju An (ROK), Daniel Barroca (P), Catherine Bolduc (CA-Québec), Libia Castro & Ólafur Ólafsson (ES/IS), Markus Degerman (S), Haris Epaminonda (CY), Anouk Kruithof (NL), Nathalie Latham (Australia), Pia Lindman (FIN), An Te Liu (CA), Søren Lose (DK), Ives Maes (BE), Christian Niccoli (I- South Tirol), Martin Skauen (Norway), Sophia Tabatazde (Georgia), Luca Trevisani (Italy) and Ming Wong (SING).

Saturday, 5th April 2008, 7 – 10 pm (1st+2nd floors)