Berlin Galleries Find a Way to Lure the World

Strong sales on home base are good news for German galleries as they face the soaring expense of international art fairs — booths at big fairs go for tens of thousands of dollars — and a surge (to 19 percent, from 7 percent) in the German value-added tax on sales of art.

Unlike fast-paced international art fairs elsewhere, Gallery Weekend has a more low-key and inclusive ethos. Because the organization running it is a nonprofit owned by the galleries themselves, the participation fee is deliberately kept low: This year, it’s 7,500 euros (about $9,200). That allows small and midsize galleries to enjoy the attention of art-world professionals (though galleries that take part are selected by the organizers).

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A work by Jonas Burgert at the Blain/Southern Gallery will be part of the gallery weekend. Credit Monika Skolimowska/picture-alliance, via dpa, Associated Press

“There are a lot of artists and critics and curators living in Berlin who might not really be able to afford life in most other comparable cities in the world,” said Philomene Magers, a founder of the Sprüth Magers Gallery, one of Berlin’s most prominent. “It is really important to bring an international crowd to Berlin which interacts with them.

“Obviously, the galleries profit from the same people coming,” she added, and not just financially: Gallery Weekend is “a magnet for international curators” who could later show the work of artists they see.

Encouraged in part by the event’s success, Berlin’s gallerists have in the last few years raised their game architecturally. The Esther Schipper Gallery and Blain/Southern Gallery have spaces in what was once the printing site and warehouse of Berlin’s Der Tagesspiegel newspaper.

The König Gallery is based out of the disused St. Agnes church, a striking 1960s work of Brutalist concrete in a formerly working-class area. “Nobody knew what to do with this massive space,” Mr. König said. “After a long process of negotiation, we bought it, fixed it and commissioned an architect to make it usable.”

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The König Gallery in Berlin is in the disused St. Agnes church, a 1960s work of Brutalist concrete in a formerly working-class area. Credit Monika Skolimowska/picture-alliance, via dpa, Associated Press

The Konrad Fischer Gallery (which is moving into a new warehouse space) is showing Carl Andre and Lawrence Weiner, while Sprüth Magers is putting the African-American artist Kara Walker in the spotlight. Ms. Walker is presenting a movie with shadow puppets called “Fall Frum Grace, Miss Pipi’s Blue Tale,” dealing with the oppression of African-American women in United States history.

Berlin’s relative affordability has meant that it’s witnessing fewer gallery shutdowns than cities like New York and London. Still, what is the future for an event that focuses exclusively on art galleries, considered something of a dying model in other capitals?

“If people cannot participate in art fairs anymore, they will concentrate more and more on these kinds of events that are cheap and that happen in their own gallery,” said Ms. Kruse.

Mr. König added that the event “is a model for destinations which are not financial capitals and don’t host the big auctions like London or New York.”

“The concept fits Berlin very well,” he added, “because Berlin is a city of artists more than it is a city of collectors.”

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