Galerie Crystal Ball

1.11. – 29.11.2015
Exhibition opening on Sun. 1. November at 4 p.m.

Lothar Lambert will be a guest at Galerie Crystal Ball and Pension Berlin in November. We are very much looking forward to it! Lothar Lambert’s painterly work is as extensive as his cinematic work. The artist’s particular interest here is also given to portraits and images of people, which he produces in a fast-paced, intensive way of working in close succession. A sensitively responsive gesture, the artist creates an intutive and expressive painting with a spontaneous stroke. From a wealthy collection, we exclusively show a selection of paper works and paintings on canvas in the gallery, as well as four films by the artist in the Pension Berlin, with which we work together for this presentation. On Thursdays, the films are shown in the program of the Pension Berlin, which is a few meters from the exhibition space, in the presence of the director.

“King of the Berlin Underground”, “Warhol von der Spree”, “poor man’s Fassbinder”, the labels are just as numerous as his films at the Berlinale, seventeen from a total of almost forty films so far. And he still films them, the hardships, especially the sexual ones, and the small stories of life on the fringes of society, the others, the transvestites, the migrants, the prostitutes, the madmen in the West Berlin biotope.

Lothar Lambert’s films are trash culture, but they also show us the great stories of love, life, freedom that grows in secret – naked and blunt. In the Salon-Kino, on Thursdays at 7 p.m. in the Pension Berlin at Schönleinstraße 33, Kreuzberg:

25.9. – 15.10.2015

Art Weak is presenting a free collection of art from the archive of the last eight years. Art Weak is starting just after the Art Week Berlin has closed. With Art Weak, Crystal Ball gallery points out its position in relation to other gallery spaces. Again financial weakness, a smaller space or shortage of manpower is no disclusion from „official“ art. There is no barrier to present strong and innovative art as the establisment wants to let you know. The in- and exclusion strategies of the capitalistic art system is getting more and more  transparent and odious. To accept the procedere and maintain to this immoral regiment of rules is not a noble aim for us as many others. The spaces are forming a new movement, where they freely name themselves art or project space or „Off“ spaces. To even use the word gallery is in discredit. ( Even big established gallery spaces are now ironically starting so called project spaces to take part in this movement. ) If this is barely a moderate gesture shall be on the viewers opinion. But even in this network Crystal Ball is different by saying : „We are not Off, We are here! Not Underground, not Mainstream, not any other drawer. We are not willing to accept the categories of a leading authority. We take our responsibility, work on the gallery concept and present art.

Vernissage on 17. July 2015 at 7 p.m.
Finissage with cake and music on Sun. 9. August, 2-7 p.m.

Christoph Hegemann’s sculptural work has a rare diversity and ambiguous aura. In his work, the figure is in its primary state and at the same time also a memory. The synthesis of these essentially contradictory aspects constitute a unique position. The sujets of the individual characters and words are poetic, idiosyncratic and thoughtfully circumscribed. Since the Ninetees Christoph Hegemann works with the Verlorene Form. The means of control in the creation process in which you mold an original negative in the soil, and the figures are poured directly in the sand, is also working with the dichotomy of chance. Density and consistency of soil, parts of plants, earthen fragments and sediments come into play and create a unique enigmatic form. The aesthetic sensibility of the earthen material, which appears as an exterior form, molded by aging and erosion, gives the object a gentle mythical presence, which points to something past and invisible.

Vernissage with performance of the artists at Fr. 17th. April 2015 at 7 p.m.

T

he two artists from Bremen thematise with Mare Liberum, a principle originally from the 17th century, for the free use of the oceans also their personal artistic sense of freedom as a metaphor. In modern times, even the great indomitable seas, although at first on a cartographic level, are put to fragmentation and division into zones of possession and regulations. How does it stand there with the artistic freedom in a time of so-called past contemporary art? Both artists of the exhibition duo refer to it differently but open an interaction. Tom Gefkens playful works combine art historical quotes with certain forms of presentation and materials to associatively image objects. The often painted images, with wellknown female nudes, are fragments of shattered wooden crates. The pictures of the exhibtion seems to have been shipwrecked already in Gefken work and the “contemporary accident” is clearly obvious like an evolutionary relict preserved behind glass. Rainer Weber works in his sculptures with a fundamental equation of the materials and the motivic goal of a purposeless form. Concrete artifacts such as films, reinforcement and construction waste as cement, metal and plastic are put in together and Weber synthesizes unreasonable objects. The work has an aura of autonomy and ease that is based in their anti-functional strategy. In Mare Liberum a liberal aura of art after the “accident of the contemporary” appears.
At the opening of the exhibition, the artists will customize the visitors on request exclusive ballpoint pen tattoos.