Depending on how religiously you read Berlin&I, you may recall our feature on Berlin’s bouncers last year. What was particularly striking was the range of side-pursuits they all seem to be involved in. The same applies to King Size Bar’s very own bouncer Klaus Jörres who moonlights – or is it daylights – as an artist at large in Berlin, and quite a renowned one at that. As luck would have it, Jörres just happens to be one of a group of artists exhibiting their works from tonight at Künstlerhaus Bethanien as part of the BERLIN.STATUS (1) group exhibition.

Bringing together more than 40 of Berlin’s luminaries of the fine arts, the exhibition’s aim is to take a long hard look at the “big-city phenomenon of art”. Applied to Berlin, BERLIN.STATUS (1) is an investigation into the invisible bonds between the capital and its vast scene of national and international expat artists. Drawn to Berlin by the low rent and the city’s wealth of both high and low-brow culture, the generation of lesser and well known artists exhibiting at the Künstlerhaus until the beginning of May have more in common than first meets the eye.

As curators Sven Drühl and Christoph Tannert show, they seldom use their freedom of expression to comment on their immediate surroundings. Although they may all be based in Berlin, their works predominantly refrain from citing the Berlinesque. Instead, the focus is on the personal and intellectual. As disparate as this community of expat artists may be, Drühl and Tannert argue, their works still bear a very distinct aesthetic signature. And as long as some of them still have day- or nightjobs, it’s not as if they’re completely detached from their so-called Wahlheimat (adopted home), is it? -ok

BERLIN.STATUS (1)
Künstlerhaus Bethanien
Kottbusser Straße 10
Kreuzberg

Opening reception: 12th of April, 7 pm
Exhibition: 13th of April – 6th of May 2012