Exhibitions
“Art is longing. You never arrive, but you keep going in the hope that you will..”
Anselm Kiefer
Space; physical and temporal, is all that is needed to be a platform for Art. Lobe Block, with our 7m high ceiling, characteristic concrete walls, floor-to-ceiling glass and clever rigging system, has space in abundance. Nature leans in through the tall glass wall, providing fresh air and the mental space to experiment freely. All art actions, from master’s students to up-and-coming collectives to internationally renowned artists’ are seamlessly integrated with the natural world in a way that makes all art global.
The Lobe Block was built by Curator Olivia Reynolds, whose previous Art Project Space, Lobe, ran for 5 years in Wedding. A space that connected artists from London and Berlin, inviting them to make new work together in an old shop: these collaborations were celebrated by a show and artist’s talk held over a communal dinner. The name of the block Lo– (London) Be (Berlin) comes from this history. Collaboration is still a major theme of the Art identity of Lobe Block, as well as hosting exhibitions from outside Galleries and Art groups, we are busy allowing experimental Art to happen in our outside and inside spaces with our own SCULPLOBE.
Sculplobe e.V. is a non-profit art association founded in 2021 by a group of artists and curators in order to facilitate art projects in and around the building Lobe Block in Berlin.
Sculplobe e.V. aims to create a forum for conversations between contemporary global art, the urban environment and nature. Participating artists are encouraged to make new work for each show that engages artistically and socially with the local environment.
Vernissage and finissage catering, artist’s talks, collector’s dinners and gallery events are all connected and nourished through shared plant-based meals by Lobe Canteen. We are what we eat and we are linked to each other by our own organic natures, Lobe Canteen celebrates this earthly inheritance and recognises the responsibility of stewardship that comes with it. Lobe Block has ambitions for Art meals and events that pulls art together with the topic of what we eat, after all Art begins somewhere in the physical chemistry of our bodies and permeates all boundaries, including skin. This idea was explored in Sculplobe’s first group exhibition PORÖS, which conceived of bodies, objects, territories and buildings as porous entities and posed the question; if every identity is therefore unstable, what other ways can exist to interpret and inhabit the world?
In the near future, Sculplobe hopes to extend these themes through on-site residencies, group exhibitions and salons where ideas can flourish. In Summer we meet beneath the shadows of fruit trees in the garden and in the long Winter months we sustain ourselves with regular community dinners of homemade pizza.
Request for exhibitionWebsite Text_18.03.23
Lobe Block has hosted several exhibitions and art projects
Hot Little Pool
Vol. 1, 2022
Curated by Victoria Pidust, Volo Bevza, Katja Andreae. With: Emma Adler, Malte Bartsch, Arno Beck, Volo Bevza, Johannes Bosisio, Billie Clarken, Anna Ehrenstein, Lukas Glinkowski, Rute Merk, Metahaven, Katja Novitskova, Emma Pidre, Victoria Pidust, Manuel Resch & Maximilian Maria Willeit, Aaron Scheer, Marta Vovk
Angels on Horseback, 2022
Curated by Claire Koron Elat and Shelly Reich. With: Ed Aktins, Hannah Sophie Dunkelberg, Robert Gründler, Kristina Nagel, Jon Rafman, Gerhard Richter, Bunny Rogers, Chlöe Saï Breil-Dupont, Laura Schawelka, Maximilian Schröder, Tobias Spichtig, Lukas Städler, Jordan Wolfson and He Xiangyu.
2022 Sculplobe Residency with Manon Awst
Sponsored by Wales Arts International and Sculplobe e.V
Welsh artist Manon Awst was invited to spend a week in the Lobe Block neighborhood to respond to the architecture and local environment. Her work, which explored ecological narratives and individual actions, culminated in a presentation of new work on the roof of Lobe. She added local materials from the neighborhood to reflect the building’s proximity to various activities such as an indoor climbing gym and Humboldthain.
2021 Porous, Sculplobe e.V.
outdoor sculpture exhibition, funded by Draussenstadt.
August 15th–September 19th 2021
Fadi Aljabour, David Edward Allen, Hannes Brunner, Anton Burdakov, Sunah Choi, Christoph Draeger, Kasia Fudakowski, Ingo Gerken, Sujatro Ghosh, Lise Harlev, Marie von Heyl, Daniel Hölzl, Christin Kaiser, Shila Khatami, Anton Roland Laub, Antonia Low, Katharina Ludwig, Paul McDevitt, Ulrike Mohr, Christl Mudrak, Victorine Müller, Florian Neufeldt, Olaf Nicolai, Victoria Pidust, Lucy Powell, David Rickard, Fette Sans, Max Schulze, Aiko Shimotsuma, Tommy Støckel, Halveig Villand, Ella Ziegler & Michaela Zimmer
„The new frontier is your epidermis“ writes Paul B. Preciado in his Art Forum essay Learning From The Virus and thereby points to the fact that the borders and outlines of countries, buildings and yes, bodies, are not set in stone but continuously drawn and redrawn. The permeability of the skin, Preciado seems to suggest, is not merely a biological fact, but also serves as an architectural and geographical metaphor. Conceiving of bodies, objects, territories and buildings as porous entities, however, poses the question whether the subject/object divide that we have grown so accustomed to is conceptually still feasible. Are there other ways to make sense of the world, conceptually and/or aesthetically as well as socially?
The exhibition PORÖS at Lobe Block picks up on these threads to bring together artworks, performances and interventions under the umbrella term porosity. The outdoor areas of the building become the site for installations and events that metaphorically, aesthetically or conceptually engage with the concepts of porosity and permeability.
PORÖS will be the first public event of sculplobe e.V., a non-profit association founded in 2021 by a group of artists, architects and curators in order to facilitate art projects in and around the building Lobe Block in Berlin. Sculplobe e.V. aims to create a forum for conversations between contemporary global art and the neighbourhood Wedding. Participating artists are encouraged to engage artistically and socially with the local environment.
2021 Room for A View
Daniel Hölzl with Hannes Brunner
2020 SOCIAL SCULPTURE vs CHALLENGED PUBLIC SPACES
June 27 – July 20 2020
Weissensee University of Art Berlin at Lobe Block, Böttgerstrasse 16, 13557 Berlin
Organizers: Hannes Brunner, Ulrike Mohr, and Olivia Reynolds Tutor: Marié Nobematsu-Le Gassic
with:
Fadi Aljabour, Friedrich Andreoni, Dorna Dibaj, Nikolas Eckl, Katya Quel Elizarova, Ivanna Heredia, Daniel Hölzl, Tomer Houlmann, Gabriela Lesmes, Marié Nobematsu-Le Gassic, Yunosuke Ozawa, Belen Resnikowski, Susanne Weber-Lehrfeld
How do we develop a social sculpture if discussions are just digital? We increasingly see our own faces fixed as images, through teleconferencing. This was the main mode of communication during the semester of 2020 and the organization of this intervention. In their book Mille Plateau, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari have dedicated a chapter to the “creation of the face”, in which they set the face as a schema apart from the idea that the “visualization” of the most diverse phenomena of the natural and technical environment is a project of making similarities and anthropomorphization. In response, some interventions were created as a sort of flowing dramaturgy.
Notes about the artwork:
At the public entrance of Lobe Block, above a small bust of Albert Einstein, a suspended plumb bob (Tomer Houlmann) aroused curiosity about how an idea can haunt a theorist when it becomes a reality beyond their control. Large golden footprints made of acrylic and soil with a length of 97 cm each adorned the pavement outside, Fadi Aljabour’s work “Missing God” referred to similar footprints in Ain Dara temple, Syria which traditionally describe the physical presence of god. Nearby, one could hear a whisper without melody, a white noise – the tactful rhythm of the Italian resistance song Bella Ciao (Friedrich Andreoni). With the removal of the human voice from the track, a feeling of longing, one familiar to everyone who experienced the isolation of lockdown, takes hold of the soul.
Further details available at: (https://kh-berlin.de/projekte/projekt-detail/3168)
ZEITFENSTER: December 11 2020
Text from performance (credit Daniel Hölzl):
“Two suspended vertical grids that counter the horizontal floor slabs and match the size of the building’s windows. Nearly 8,000 threaded elements that resemble polystyrene packing chips are hung as two chain-like curtains. When the actual chips––made of 100% biodegradable nontoxic material––touch a film of water, the installation slowly begins to dissolve itself. .2020, Berlin, Bio-Cornstarch-Packing-Chips, water, aluminium, stainless steel wire rope, 160 x 300 x 5 cm each.”
