Berlin Art Calendar

OOW Art is our excursion into the world of collecting, supporting artists and hosting in Berlin. Otherwise we design architecture: oow.berlin.

Invitations to private views, openings, closing events and readings reach us all the time. We collect them in a calendar to subscribe to – it updates automatically, subscribing once is enough.

ZEITmagazin invited Esra Gülmen to design the cover of its issue no. 33. The result is the work “Phoenixes – From Ashes to Dawn”.

The cover image is a mosaic of thousands of coloured squares. From a distance one makes out a row of figures holding hands – the Turkish halay, a line dance. Towards the bottom the bodies dissolve into red, orange and yellow until the dance turns into flames. For Gülmen the halay is both a personal memory and a collective image: growing up with strict rules of gender, she experienced the circle as one of the few spaces in which that order was suspended for the length of a dance. On the cover she widens this feeling – to everyone whose bodies and identities are censored, controlled or pushed to the margins. What remains are figures rising from their own ashes.

Gülmen expressly dedicates the work to those women who “continue to exist in spite of everything”.

Esra Gülmen, born in Istanbul in 1986, lives and works in Berlin. Her works are held in the collections of the Kunstpalast Düsseldorf and the OK Linz, among others. Together with Galerie Andreae, a limited fine-art edition of “Phoenixes – From Ashes to Dawn” will appear in late summer.

To the article in ZEITmagazin · Instagram: @esra_gulmen, @zeitmagazin · Portrait: Burak Studio

Our first solo show at the office: lily-pollen paintings, works on canvas, ceramic vases, cyanotypes and lenticular prints, with the finest view over Berlin. Private view, meet-the-artist and closing event as a sundowner, supported by Siller Contemporary.

For Gallery Weekend Berlin, together with Katharina Bosch, we invited guests to a reception at the office – with a crémant pyramid, filled at sunset. An evening for friends and collectors to open the art weekend.

To open Gallery Weekend Berlin 2024 we invited guests to a reception with the title-giving champagne pyramid. Philip Topolovac showed his edition “Pfeiler”, accompanied by a guide curated by OOW with tips for the weekend.

For the second edition we gave the artist Tim Plamper, as curator, almost free rein. “Mental Hot Spot” brought together 16 positions which – analogous to architectural landmarks – open up mental spaces and explore new approaches to the perception of reality.

The first OOW Art exhibition brought together eight positions on the theme of “Life In a Digital Age”, from painting to sculpture. Curated by Katharina Arndt, it grew out of an open call to artist friends and made the architecture office an exhibition space for the first time.

We show events and works first on @art.oow.berlin.

+49 (0)30 7675 811 00