ICON IN MOTION — PRESENTING JOSEPHINE BAKE AS A WOMAN IN FULL
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The striking Mies van der Rohe designed Neue National Gallery in Berlin is the perfect backdrop for the exhibit JOSEPHINE BAKER ICON IN MOTION now until May 1st.
Her influence on artists, both as muse and inspiration, are clear through her images painted by Henri Matisse; Josephine Baker sleeping by Le Corbusier; and sculpture by Sèbastien Tarnari but more important are her influences on Black contemporary artists. Faith Ringgold’s quilt Joe Baker Birthday and Simone Leigh’s Slipcover ,porcelain, steel and plastic slipcover, are both part of the exhibition.
Covering her time as a performer, actress, fashion icon, mother, soldier, spy and civil rights activist, this exhibition is as comprehensive a look at her life and times as we should demand for this icon. Baker has been mythologized, fetishized and certainly exists as the stuff of fantasy, but this exhibit seeks to offer an inclusive, updated and at times more challenging thought on Baker in the collective imagination of a multi-cultural and neocolonial world.
Also at the Neue were 100 Works for Berlin by Gerhard Richter offering a riot of colorful abstracts that also sought to explore the question of the extent to which art is still possible at all after the Holocaust and the terror of the regime of National Socialism. The works are drawn from the artist’s work spanning more than six decades.
GALLERY WEEKEND IN BERLIN
Pigment International was able to time the trip to Berlin for Icons in Motion to coincide with Gallery Weekend in Berlin on April 26th. Anchored by our newfound Black gallery owner Roger Washington of Ronewa Art Projects and was presented in partnership with O Gallery in Tehran. The show, Nature’s Renewal features the work of six Tehran-based Iranian artists and was curated by Orkideh Daroodi, each artist offers a unique perspective on nature and the environments that surround us.
The artists are Serminaz Barseghian, Aylar Dastgiri, Armin Ebrahimi, Raha Khosroshahi, Maryam Mohry and Razieh Sedighian.
This is Ronewa Art Projects and O Gallery second collaborative exhibition. Pigment International met Washington when he and his wife Christine traveled to Chicago for spring art week, where the two visited our booth at The Other Art Fair. Christine’s position in the diplomatic corps has taken the couple across the world from Thailand to their current posting in Morocco. This is the second gallery Washington has opened in Berlin.
The neighborhood is home to some of the most exclusive galleries in the city and has been rapidly gentrifying since Covid. We took in work at Galerie Judin and Galerie Max Hetzler. Among the neighborhood’s premier landmarks is the Wintergarten Theatre, a large variety theatre in Berlin-Mitte. It opened in 1887 and was destroyed by bombs during the Second World War.
