#berlincolombo-arts-exchange

#berlincolombo-arts-exchange

Ruinart has invited internationally renowned artists to artistically interpret the Maison since 2008, with this year's collaboration featuring Tadashi Kawamata's unique vision.

The after-hours special showcase was first tested in January 2024 on the sidelines of the Africa Cup of Nations football tournament hosted and won by Cote d'Ivoire.

The German economy's post-pandemic rebound has lagged behind other E.U. countries, and that stagnation has also been reflected in its art market.

The Featured section highlights projects in newly discovered locations, opening the city's art landscape to diverse, experimental and site-specific approaches.

Pornceptual challenges mainstream perceptions of pornography, reframing it as inclusive, artistic, intimate, and respectful rather than exploitative or taboo. Its events, from Berlin to international stages, bring a sex-positive, body-inclusive ethos to nightlife. Strict consent practices, no-photo policies, and spaces designed for authentic self-expression create a rare kind of freedom - one that allows visitors to explore identity, desire, and intimacy without judgment.

Dörte Eißfeldt's photography is grounded in the experience of seeing: a relational seeing that holds in view not only the self and the world, but also the photographic object itself, which can act as a vital intermediary between the two. Making us encounter gentler close-ups of a neck pressed into sheets of silver, nebulated, spectral hands and snowballs that seem to glow far beyond the print's surface, her largely self-taught photographic practice probes phenomenological questions of appearance, perception and form.

The Limited Space' series is built around the idea of a figure that has outgrown its space. Through exaggerated proportions and sculptural silhouettes, the body appears too large for the environment that continues to constrain it. Architectural elements and imposed barriers function as abstract limits, pressing against the figure and revealing tension through scale, weight, and posture rather than narrative.

The evening, spearheaded by directors Sam Bardouil and Till Fellrath alongside patrons Monique Burger and Christine Würfel-Strauss, arrived at a fraught moment for Berlin, whose cultural scene faces funding cuts of roughly €130 million.

Communities make museums and museums make communities. Part of the establishment of M+ was a public consultation where people were asked what kind of museums they wanted. The recommendation was not to build lots of little museums, but to create a big museum that was cross-disciplinary, unburdened by labels like "modern" or "contemporary". It was to be a museum plus more, and that was how we became M+.

This year's Art SG, which closed last month, featured an intriguing debut: South Asian Insights, a modest pavilion dedicated to contemporary art from the region. Part of the TVS Initiative for Indian and South Asian Contemporary Art, it was backed by India's TVS Motor Company, one of the world's largest two-wheel manufacturers, which has its global headquarters in Singapore. Eight galleries-five from India-were each given a wall to showcase art.

"The idea is that intention is not the whole story," says Selene Yap, a co-curator of the Biennale. "Systems can generate a certain kind of afterlife, and there are side effects." While the waterfall impresses, it also has consequences, she adds. The work uncovers how Singapore imports hydropower through transnational infrastructure, including the Vajiralongkorn Dam, whose construction has displaced Thailand's indigenous Karen hill tribe, forcing many to live in floating homes on the reservoir.

Goliath and the curator Ingrid Masondo were to present a new iteration of the three-part, video-based project Elegy -a project begun in 2015 that has centred on femicide and the murder of LGBTQI+ people in South Africa. The version planned for the Biennale also addressed violence against women in Namibia and Gaza, and it was the new Gaza-related section that caused the controversy.

Monia Ben Hamouda's work weaves calligraphy, material transformation and ancestral memory into sculptures and installations that oscillate between language and form. In conversation, we traced the conceptual and sensory threads of her practice, unfolding through key works that reflect on heritage, embodiment and translation. Using materials such as iron, stone and pigment, her installations become sites where history is not only referenced but physically felt.