BERLIN.- Gropius Bau explores the concept of crafts and handmade processes in Berlin’s contemporary art scene, taking its history as a former museum for decorative arts and educational institution as a starting point.

When Dorothy Iannone serenaded her friend Mary Harding in 1977 she sang an avowal to the city of Berlin, a place she had moved to only a year before with the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin programme and where she has lived ever since. Her line “And Berlin will always need you”, forms the title of the first exhibition presented at the Gropius Bau in 2019.

And Berlin Will Always Need You. Art, Craft and Concept Made in Berlin is a distinctly contemporary art exhibition that sheds light on artists’ practices in the city. With 2019 marking the centenary of the Bauhaus, the exhibition places art and craft on equal footing, presenting an evocative series of existing and newly commissioned works that engage with traditional methods of production, aesthetics and materiality, and examine historical artefacts and objects.

The Gropius Bau itself provides the thematic starting point to the exhibition, which takes cues from the building’s historical beginnings as a decorative arts museum and a home to archaeological and ethnological collections. Designed by architects Martin Gropius – the great uncle of Walter Gropius, who was fundamental in founding the Bauhaus in 1919 – and Heino Schmieden, Gropius Bau first opened in 1881. The Gropius Bau was the first institution of its kind in Germany to operate both as a decorative arts museum as well as an educational institution, which previously had been founded in 1867. This novel combination corresponded to the late nineteenth-century concept stating that a decorative arts collection should function as a model for contemporary crafts and industrial design. At the time of the industrial revolution, this was intended to guarantee high quality standards in order to ensure that contemporary production would remain competitive on the international market. Berlin, today a remarkable place for creative activity, served then as a geographical hub for textile production and fuelled discussions on the changing conditions of craft production in relation to mass production. This pursuit of stylistic diversity and perfection is still visible in the mosaics and majolica as well as the friezes on the Gropius Bau’s façade.

Interpretation, authorship, labour, sovereignty and power structures form a recurring undercurrent throughout And Berlin Will Always Need You. Art, Craft and Concept Made in Berlin. Transposing these varied facets onto Berlin’s dynamic contemporary art scene, the exhibition expands and redefines perceptions of art and craft, while taking into consideration the aspect of display. In Gropius Bau’s ground-floor spaces, the viewer is invited to investigate an extensive array of newly created artworks, displayed alongside pre-existing projects. The diverse presentation encompasses works such as Olaf Holzapfel’s large-scale, abstract works crocheted from hand-spun natural fibres, Leonor Antunes’ hand-crafted suspended rope, wood and leather sculptures, woven works that play with perspective and colour gradient by Willem de Rooij, a folding screen composed of found, patterned carpets by Nevin Aladağ, a 12-screen video installation by Theo Eshetu, as well as new installations by Chiharu Shiota and Haegue Yang. Multiple aspects come into focus when looking at the selection of works exhibited, ranging from the ornamental and decorative, which is reminiscent of visual motifs found in Eastern religions and Byzantine mosaics, to the history of design in Modernism and the twentieth-century, involving craftsmanship from Berlin to South America. Building on this, the exhibition highlights both industrial and increasingly apparent digital fields, while raising questions and acknowledging challenges associated with meaningful interpretation, modes of (capitalist) production, ownership and collaboration.

These diverse entanglements and juxtapositions put forward a series of complex narratives, some of which are distinctly personal, some of which are universal, while others are entirely abstract. These are interwoven between the works themselves and ultimately the exhibition as a whole, as an amalgamation that informs not only our but indeed also the artists’ engagement and associations with everyday and cultural objects. Set within the context of the Gropius Bau, And Berlin Will Always Need You. Art, Craft and Concept Made in Berlin is developed within the rich history of the institution itself, which provides an informed backdrop and an additional layer to the narratives that each of the artworks tell, through materiality, methods of production, temporal context and spatial placement. And Berlin Will Always Need You. Art, Craft and Concept Made in Berlin shows the incredible variety of artistic practices that can be found in Berlin today and demonstrates the Gropius Bau’s commitment to continue to provide a regular platform for Berlin artists.

Curated by Natasha Ginwala and Julienne Lorz. Concept by Stephanie Rosenthal.

With works by: Nevin Aladağ, Leonor Antunes, Julieta Aranda, Alice Creischer, Andreas Siekmann and the Brukman workers, Mariechen Danz, Haris Epaminonda, Theo Eshetu, Olaf Holzapfel, Dorothy Iannone, Antje Majewski und Olivier Guesselé-Garai, Willem de Rooij, Katarina Šević, Chiharu Shiota, Simon Wachsmuth and Haegue Yang.