Bulloch & Grommek. Art Club Berlin
‘Art club berlin’, it was a model exhibition founded on the premise that exhibitions are places of communication, operates as a travelling club, with changing locations and no permanent display. The provision of information, communication and relaxation is here viewed as a service, and the interdisciplinary reciprocity of art and theory as programmatic. Constant features, presented in changing constellations, were a videotheque with the latest work by video artists from Germany and abroad, music presented by DJs, talk shows, publications and new magazines by artists. Founded in 1997 by the curators Kathrin Becker and Klara Wallner as an international forum for video work, ‘art club berlin’ was first presented in 1997, at the art forum berlin and, the following year, in Vienna, Barcelona and Berlin again. The first ‘art club berlin’ was the work of Angela Bulloch; the music was provided by MEGO (A), Pickadelic (D) and rastermusic/noton: archiv für ton und nichtton (D).
On the one hand, up to 83 different videos were shown on five television monitors, which could be watched from the fabric and polystyrene sculpture chairs by the artist Angela Bulloch.
On the other hand, the exhibition also included two luminous photographs by the artist Joachim Grommek, two washing machine doors representing “two eyes looking at the viewer”.
The Berlin in Barcelona festival brought a series of dance, literary, musical and other creations, mainly by young people from the German city who for several months invaded the Catalan capital.
Angela Bulloch (1966, –) studied at Goldsmiths, University of London but lives and works in Berlin. In 1997, Bulloch was nominated for the Turner Prize and in 2005, for the Berlin-based Preis der Nationalgalerie für junge Kunst. In 2011, she received the Vattenfall Contemporary Art Prize, Berlin, as well as the Art Prize of the city of Wolfsburg. Her work spans many media, manifesting her interest in systems, patterns and rules, as well as her preoccupation with the history of shapes and human interaction. Bulloch is widely recognised for her ‘Pixel Boxes’, sculptural units that bring together the minimalist cube with a programmable light system capable of producing over sixteen million colour permutations.
Joachim Grommek (1957, –) studied Master of Arts of Free Art & Film at HBK Braunschweig, Germany. Grommek has mainly shown in German and European institutions and galleries since 1987, among them important solo shows like “never know” at Wilhelm-Hack-Museum and “Malerei 300” at the Städtische Galerie Wolfsburg. His geometric-abstract, illusionary work in perfection lays varies the topic of authentic image and copy like the ancient Trompe-l’œils, always asking for a second look. Grommek’s work though is reflecting art history and prominent artists like Kasimir Malewitsch, Piet Mondrian, Blinky Palermo or Robert Ryman.
