Times Art Center Berlin

06/11/2021

Molecular Love (Mestizo) Act 3 by Mercedes Azpilicueta

Times Art Center Berlin presents the performance video of "Molecular Love (Mestizo) Act 3" by the artist Mercedes Azpilicueta on the occasion of the exhibition Más Allá, el Mar Canta (Beyond, the Sea Sings) – Diasporic Intimacies and Labor.

Molecular Love is a long-term project by the Argentinian artist that began in 2016 at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. It traces an evolving score written by the artist and materialized into a performative installation. Since the beginning (Act 1), the score has been fed by several shifting collaborations and rehearsals with dancers and singers. The third act of Molecular Love (a Mestizo act) continues to define and shape its multiple body fed by migrating organic matter, taking the work of Argentinian philosopher Maria Lugones (1944-2020) on multiplicity and mestizaje as a starting point.

02/11/2021

Trailer: "Molecular Love (Mestizo) Act 3" by Mercedes Azpilicueta

"Molecular Love" is a long-term project by the Argentinian artist Mercedes Azpilicueta that began in 2016 at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. It traces an evolving score written by the artist and materialized into a performative installation. Since the beginning (Act 1), the score has been fed by several shifting collaborations and rehearsals with dancers and singers. The third act of Molecular Love (a Mestizo act) continues to define and shape its multiple body fed by migrating organic matter, taking the work of Argentinian philosopher Maria Lugones (1944-2020) on multiplicity and mestizaje as a starting point.

👉🏻 Don't forget to join us for the last performance of "Molecular Love" this week on Saturday at 5pm!

Trailer from "Molecular Love" on our opening day, video: Tom Janson

Performers: Deva Schubert and Nagao Akemi "Molecular Love" is a long-term project by Argentinian artist Mercedes Azpilicueta that began in 2016 at the…

30/10/2021

In Conversation: Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa and Pablo José Ramírez

On the occasion of the exhibition Más Allá, el Mar Canta (Beyond, the Sea Sings), Times Art Center Berlin presents a conversation between curator and cultural theorist Pablo José Ramírez and Guatemalan artist Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa about his work Chiperrec (2021), currently on view in the show. The talk explores Ramírez-Figueroa’s research into overlapping historical narratives surrounding the history of Chinese tea in Guatemala, and the archival evidence and speculation that informed this new artistic commission and his practice at large.

29/10/2021

Tune in tomorrow at 1 pm on our channels to watch the artist talk with Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa and Pablo José Ramirez about the newly commissioned work "Chiperrec" in our exhibition!

Tune in tomorrow at 1 pm on our channels to watch the artist talk with Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa and Pablo José Ramirez about the newly commissioned work "Chiperrec" in our exhibition!

12/10/2021

Don't miss the facebook live talk tonight (7.30pm EST) about the Trinidadian painter Sybil Atteck with researcher Keith Atteck and artist Christopher Cozier, who are also part of our exhibition "Más Allá, el Mar Canta"!

30/09/2021

Diaspora - Dahinter das Meer

"[Der Kurator] Pablo José Ramirez nimmt nun Orte der Gemeinschaft von Migrat:innen in den Blick und möchte das heilende, kreative Potenzial eines Miteinanders erkennbar machen, das aus der Entwurzelung und Fremdheit entsteht. „Wenn wir über Diasporas als Intimitäten nachdenken, als Zugehörigkeit, geht es darum, die lebendige politische Dimension von transkulturellen Begegnungen anzuerkennen“, erklärt der Kurator."

Thank you der Freitag for this wonderful article (in German!), now also online, for "Más Allá, el Mar Canta" 💕

In einer chinesischen Kunstinstitution in Berlin-Mitte werden wenig bekannte Migrationsgeschichten erzählt

22/09/2021

On the opening day of "Más Allá, el Mar Canta,” we were bewitched by the live performance of “Molecular Love”–a long-term project by Argentinian artist Mercedes Azpilicueta that began in 2016.

It traces an evolving score written by the artist and materialized into a performative installation. Since the beginning (Act 1), the score has been fed by several shifting collaborations and rehearsals with dancers and singers. The second act evolved as a textile and performative installation.

The third act of "Molecular Love (a Mestizo act)" continues to define and shape its multiple body fed by migrating organic matter, taking the work of Argentinian philosopher Maria Lugones (1944-2020) on multiplicity and mestizaje as a starting point this time.

The exhibition space of Times Art Center Berlin is inhabited by a group of bodies in constant interaction with moving costumes, decor, video and sounds, visual scores, and wall texts.

These fleeing bodies shape reciprocal and affective relationships, yolking and conjugating together across scale, speed, synchronicities, and complexities.

Curated by Pablo José Ramirez

Performance with Deva Schubert and Nagao Akemi.

Coordinated by Angeliki Tzortzakaki

Photos by Yozy Yu Zhang

21/09/2021

Thank you all for visiting us during the tremendous Berlin Art Week!

After months of preparation, we were thrilled to open our new exhibition “Más Allá, el Mar Canta (Beyond, the Sea Sings): Diasporic Intimacies and Labor” on September 15.

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“Más Allá, el Mar Canta" explores narratives of migration from China to Central America and the Caribbean as a starting point to consider systems of kinship and ontologies of intimacy. The artists’ work in the exhibition speaks from the conundrum of diasporic subjectivities, powered by either personal explorations or by collective motifs whose common ground is the always poignant reminder that there is no political imagination without community. The artworks in the exhibition are a unique testimony of an alchemic procedure that invokes agency from within the ruins of coloniality.

Curated by Pablo José Ramírez

Photos by Yozy Yu Zhang

18/09/2021

Come visit us in person this Berlin Art Week until Sunday from 11-7pm, and then again from Tuesday til Saturday during our regular opening hours! For more insights into our show "Más Allá, el Mar Canta", check out our Online Publication for the exhibition: publications.timesartcenter.org/en/publication/mas-alla-el-mar-canta ✨✨✨

16/09/2021

Más Allá, el Mar Canta (Beyond, the Sea Sings) | Diasporic Intimacies and Labor

"Más Allá, el Mar Canta" ("Beyond, the Sea Sings") at Times Art Center Berlin explores the Chinese diaspora in Central America and the Caribbean as a starting point to consider systems of kinship and ontologies of encounter.

Within historical recounts of colonialism, narratives of diasporic intimacies are registered as minor events or as private conundrums, obliterating their existence as creative forces that sustained the reproduction of communal life-forms and cultures of resilience. Alongside the violence of colonial labor, people first found one another and lived together. The exhibition Más Allá, el Mar Canta, curated by Pablo José Ramírez, borrows its name and takes inspiration from the book by the Afro-Chinese Cuban writer Regino Pedroso. With this work, Pedroso won the Cuban Poetry Prize in 1939, earning him acclaim as a truly unique voice of Latin American literature. The artists presented in the exhibition give voice to a collective memory of diasporic subjectivities, invoking traces of colonial spectralities.

09/09/2021

From today, you can book your opening time slot to join us on our opening next Wednesday, from 4 til 8 pm!

Pablo José Ramírez will give a curator’s tour at 4.30 pm, followed by a performance of the work “Molecular Love (Mestizo) Act 3” by Mercedes Azpilicueta at 5 pm. Both events have limited registration: https://www.timesartcenter.org/visit-us/

Image: works by Mercedes Azpilicueta, Andrea Chung, Christopher Cozier, Colectivo Hapa, Richard Fung, Peng Zuqiang.

15/07/2021

"In Eastleigh in Nairobi, I came upon a crossing filled with stagnant water from broken sewage pipes, and I decided to “step into” the situation. It is about confronting the location, intervening, creating a halt in the busyness of daily life and transforming the place for a moment into a creative space. This flings open the entryway to a different dimension of being. For a while the daily stories, struggles, and worries of the astonished viewers are cleared away. A new context opens up, in which each person can become differently aware of their surroundings, their movements, themselves, and others around them. This “technique” functions especially well in such an environment, in which contemporary art up to now does not play a great role. It can create an unexpected and possibly transformative experience for those who witness the action. I pick up impulses from the people and the specific surroundings and allow that to be communicated with my voice and movements."
- Mwangi Hutter

Eastleigh Crossing, 2009, Single-channel video, sound, 7 min 48 sec, courtesy of the artist and galerie burster

"In Eastleigh in Nairobi, I came upon a crossing filled with stagnant water from broken sewage pipes, and I decided to “step into” the situation. It is about confronting the location, intervening, creating a halt in the busyness of daily life and transforming the place for a moment into a creative space. This flings open the entryway to a different dimension of being. For a while the daily stories, struggles, and worries of the astonished viewers are cleared away. A new context opens up, in which each person can become differently aware of their surroundings, their movements, themselves, and others around them. This “technique” functions especially well in such an environment, in which contemporary art up to now does not play a great role. It can create an unexpected and possibly transformative experience for those who witness the action. I pick up impulses from the people and the specific surroundings and allow that to be communicated with my voice and movements."
- Mwangi Hutter

Eastleigh Crossing, 2009, Single-channel video, sound, 7 min 48 sec, courtesy of the artist and galerie burster

15/07/2021

Sun Haili’s original performance titled "Face Washing" took place in June 2004 in Paris—during the artist’s “self-exile” from the East—when he felt the urge to wash his face in the Seine River. From then on, no matter which country, city or area he passes through—from politically sensitive areas, mythical lakes, to the Atlantic Ocean or the South China Sea—Sun recorded his “dialogue” with the local waters in photographs and videos.
The concept of the Sun Haili's series "Face-Washing" gradually grew with artist's experience and has since become a lifelong behaviour. Through the artist's individual experience of scrubbing the texture of his skin, his work conveys a sense of unease, pain, and exile: an underlying inner fear and the never-ending escape.⠀
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Sun Haili, Face Washing – My Life-long Performance, 2004-ongoing, series of 12 photographs, black-and-white, each 30 × 20 cm, courtesy of the artist. Angst, Keine Angst, installation view at Times Art Center, 2021. Foto: Jens Ziehe, Berlin.

14/07/2021

"Plant grafting is a horticultural technique used for connecting fragments of genetically different plants into a single living body. To successfully establish themselves onto each other the grafted plants need to pause their immune response and interrupt a delineation between self and other. Jacques Derrida calls such moments “autoimmunity”, when the mechanisms preserving a selfsame self are suspended. An immunity, which is directed against itself, functions as a “weak force,” a force that turns on and disables force or power, compromises the integrity and identity of sovereign forms and opens them up to an indeterminate future.⠀
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While the practice of plant grafting interweaves human and plant agencies, the weak force of autoimmunity is not evenly distributed. A typical goal of grafting is to preserve a desirable plant variety through copying. Such human need to repeat things and assert a degree of control over varieties is only possible due to the plastic forces of plants, who are able to suspend their systems of identity-preservation and enhome bodies of strangers."
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- Mikhail Lylov⠀
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For the full video, head to his artist page in Chapter III: https://angst-keine-angst.timesartcenter.org/en/chapter/3/fmo9w14c/mikhail-lylov

"Plant grafting is a horticultural technique used for connecting fragments of genetically different plants into a single living body. To successfully establish themselves onto each other the grafted plants need to pause their immune response and interrupt a delineation between self and other. Jacques Derrida calls such moments “autoimmunity”, when the mechanisms preserving a selfsame self are suspended. An immunity, which is directed against itself, functions as a “weak force,” a force that turns on and disables force or power, compromises the integrity and identity of sovereign forms and opens them up to an indeterminate future.⠀
⠀
While the practice of plant grafting interweaves human and plant agencies, the weak force of autoimmunity is not evenly distributed. A typical goal of grafting is to preserve a desirable plant variety through copying. Such human need to repeat things and assert a degree of control over varieties is only possible due to the plastic forces of plants, who are able to suspend their systems of identity-preservation and enhome bodies of strangers."
⠀
- Mikhail Lylov⠀
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For the full video, head to his artist page in Chapter III: https://angst-keine-angst.timesartcenter.org/en/chapter/3/fmo9w14c/mikhail-lylov

14/07/2021

Do you want to work with us this summer & fall? We are looking for interns at Times Art Center Berlin, starting from the end of July 2021! You should have a strong interest in contemporary art and be eager to learn about all aspects of exhibition making in a non-profit exhibition space. Join our multicultural and creative working environment and assist in all aspects of day-to-day management of our art space.
We are looking for candidates with strong proficiency in German & English (and Chinese is a plus!), and a background in administrative work and art history or cultural studies.
More info: https://www.timesartcenter.org/work-with-us/
We look forward to hearing from you!

13/07/2021

"House of Uncertainties" by Dorothee Albrecht is an ambivalent space that embraces a variety of contradictory impulses. It can be used as an area of investigation, testing new ways of living the crisis, or dwelling uncertainties. To unfold the House, we start with performative dwellings in the exhibition space. The empty space of the Times Art Center Berlin can be seen as an allegory of interruption, emptiness, silence, living on the edge of an abyss. How can we make a new start, a new beginning? How can we readjust our priorities, to focus on seemingly simple things? How can interde-pendencies be examined? How can we open up a many-voiced, civilian space and a place for potentialities, experiments and conviviality?⠀
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Image: Angst, Keine Angst, installation view at Times Art Center, 2021 with the works: Dorothee Albrecht, House of Uncertainties; Elke Marhöfer, Andrea; Mikhail Lylov, Dividual series. Angst, Keine Angst, installation view at Times Art Center, 2021. Foto: Jens Ziehe, Berlin.

"House of Uncertainties" by Dorothee Albrecht is an ambivalent space that embraces a variety of contradictory impulses. It can be used as an area of investigation, testing new ways of living the crisis, or dwelling uncertainties. To unfold the House, we start with performative dwellings in the exhibition space. The empty space of the Times Art Center Berlin can be seen as an allegory of interruption, emptiness, silence, living on the edge of an abyss. How can we make a new start, a new beginning? How can we readjust our priorities, to focus on seemingly simple things? How can interde-pendencies be examined? How can we open up a many-voiced, civilian space and a place for potentialities, experiments and conviviality?⠀
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Image: Angst, Keine Angst, installation view at Times Art Center, 2021 with the works: Dorothee Albrecht, House of Uncertainties; Elke Marhöfer, Andrea; Mikhail Lylov, Dividual series. Angst, Keine Angst, installation view at Times Art Center, 2021. Foto: Jens Ziehe, Berlin.

25/06/2021

Our Chapter III: "Potentialities - Growing Out of Damaged Grounds" is open, and the online screening of selected works is online: https://angst-keine-angst.timesartcenter.org/en/event/screening-chapter-3

For a visit, don't forget to book your time slot in advance on our website. We look forward to seeing you!

Our Chapter III: "Potentialities - Growing Out of Damaged Grounds" is open, and the online screening of selected works is online: https://angst-keine-angst.timesartcenter.org/en/event/screening-chapter-3

For a visit, don't forget to book your time slot in advance on our website. We look forward to seeing you!