Gallery Gerhardsen-Gerner, owned by two Norwegians, represents a little piece of Norway in Berlin. On 28 April, their new exhibition place at Weekend Berlin 2018 will be inaugurated by Dirk Stevens on the vicinity to the Berlin Museum Island.
After moving to Berlin in 2000, Atle Gerhardsen opened the space in the railway arches near the Berlin Jannowitzbrücke station under the name c/o – Atle Gerhardsen in 2001. In early 2009, the gallery was renamed Gerhardsen Gerner in order to include the name of Atle Gerhardsen’s business partner of many years, Nicolai Gerner-Mathisen.
Atle Gerhardsen and Nicolai Gerner-Mathisen opened their premises in Oslo in the newly built district Tjuvholmen on 15 May 2012. In Oslo the gallery has shown exhibitions with artists such as Tal R, Julian Opie, Georg Herold and Olafur Eliasson. In March 2014 the gallery displayed the group exhibition DO NOT DISTURB with the Scandinavian artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset.
After 15 years at Jannowitzbrücke the Berlin gallery moved in February 2016 to the new premises at Linienstrasse 85.
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From April 27-29, more than 45 galleries will debut new spring exhibitions and stay open late for visitors as they gallery hop around the city. The Gallery weekend is a festival of the galleries and serves as a culmination of their year-round activity. As they discover artists, maintain lasting relationships with them, and continually promote and disseminate their work worldwide, the galleries are a point of contact for curators, critics, and collectors. All elements combined—concentrated individual exhibitions, memorable Berlin experience and annual social event, this engagement is celebrated at the place where everything originates.
Artist Dick Stevens will inaugurate the new exhibition space with a selection of watercolor and ink drawings celebrating his 8th show with Gerhardsen Gerner. The exhibition is named Zen and the Birds of Appetite.
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Known for creating unique works that draw on a multiplicity of art-making techniques including photography, assemblage, painting, collage, and embroidery, Dirk Stewen will present a set of figurative drawings of birds this time, which are an exceptional and strange part of his extensive oeuvre. Their ambivalence is reflected in the Show´s title, which is borrowed from the book of the same name from 1968 by the theological poet Thomas Merton.
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The birds in Stewen´s drawings look competitively busy and their obsessions seem to be blinding them. They can appear delightful and macabre at the same time, part beauty, part parody. Sobriety and humor, controlled and uncontrolled moments coincide in them and this is where these creatures draw their power from.
Dirk Stewen’s work has been featured in numerous international gallery exhibitions.
A Little Piece of Norway in Berlin, compiled by Tor Kjolberg