Art Residency @ Wedding

Dr. Chris­ti­na The­sing /Maurin Diet­rich

Wedding’s cul­tu­ral sce­ne is divers and very dyna­mic – just think of Ufer­hal­len, ExRo­ta­print or Statt­bad. Now, schir enables artists and cura­tors from Isra­el to live in Wed­ding at Oslo­er Stras­se for up to three months, to work the­re and to dis­co­ver Berlin’s art sce­ne. So far, all of the guests from Isra­el found one thing: That Wedding’s alter­na­ti­ve art sce­ne is par­ti­cu­lar­ly exci­ting. In Isra­el, even small gal­le­ries are often very com­mer­cial and not keen on try­ing some­thing new – that is com­ple­te­ly dif­fe­rent here. For schir it is important to move the main topics of con­ver­sa­ti­ons about and with Isra­el away from the ever-domi­na­ting sub­jects Holo­caust and con­flict in the Midd­le East. The Ger­man per­spec­ti­ve of Isra­el is as one-sided as Israel’s view of Ger­ma­ny – but art can crea­te bridges.

Frie­de­ri­ke and Gali Schir crea­ted their pro­ject schir in 2009 with bran­ches in Ber­lin, Han­no­ver and Tel Aviv. It is their goal to enable exch­an­ge and net­wor­king bet­ween artists, cura­tors, art cri­tics and lovers from Ger­ma­ny and Isra­el. To do this, they are tight­ly con­nec­ted with cul­tu­ral cen­tres, cul­tu­ral pro­jects and uni­ver­si­ties. From July, one of the most famous con­tem­po­ra­ry artists from Isra­el is living in Wed­ding: Erez Israe­li. His exhi­bi­ti­ons in Moscow, Rome, Ams­ter­dam and Munich made him famous and gave him a num­ber of awards and scholarships.

Apart from the flat at Oslo­er Stras­se, the­re are fur­ther schir resi­den­ci­es in Jeru­sa­lem and Herz­li­ya. Artists who have a gre­at inte­rest in the respec­ti­ve coun­try and aim at doing a pro­ject lin­ked with this inte­rest have good chan­ces for a resi­den­cy with schir. After their stay, the artists bring their impres­si­ons back to their home count­ries and help to fix the ske­wed per­cep­ti­on. Ano­ther focus of schir is orga­ni­zing exci­ting exhi­bi­ti­ons. During the 2012 I am a Ber­li­ner exhi­bi­ti­on, pie­ces of inter­na­tio­nal artists living in Ber­lin were shown in Tel Aviv. As Kennedy’s famous sen­tence inten­ded, the exhi­bi­ti­on made clear that anyo­ne living in Ber­lin is a Ber­li­ner in his or her very own way, inde­pen­dent from the passport.

MANAGER DR. CHRISTINA THESING AND THE INTERN MAURIN DIETRICH ANSWERED WEDDINGWEISER’S QUESTIONS IN THE SCHIR OFFICE.

Aut­hor: Julia­ne Orsenne

Trans­la­ti­on: Danie­la Hombach

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