What’s at the Chrome Heart of Hallen #4?

Large scale works have plenty of space to breathe at the Berlin festival, which makes great use of its industrial architecture.

Berlin's contemporary art world converged at Willem Hallen for Hallen #4 from 9 to 17 September with private collections, collectors, galleries and institutions all involved.

While most works from the gallery presentations were for sale, there were few gallerists and staff members overseeing the exhibition, replaced by QR codes that gave access to further information. The result is fewer bodies in the space—a former metal foundry—and an ease of movement around the works on display.

Presented by Berlin gallery carlier | gebauer, Lúcia Koch's billowing fabric work Sans Fin (2022) floats among sculptures and paintings without feeling crowded. As viewers circumnavigated the work, many crouched to peek beneath its curtain.

The openness and vastness of Wilhelm Hallen allows for large, ambitious sculptures and installations reminiscent of the works in Art Basel's Unlimited section. Jenkin van Zyl's Smothering-in-hugs (2023) is a large inflatable sculpture presented by HUA International, which resembles a heart but acts more like a lung, with plenty of room to breathe.

Sound and moving image filter through the rooms at Hallen, tying the various works together sensorially. Like breadcrumbs through the forest, the visitor is left to peek around corners and follow the echoing sounds to find the source.

Nik Nowak's Sound of the Multitude, where a sound system within a shipping container takes over a full room, provides a backing track to the exhibition. For Nowak, the building has major impacts on the work, noting that the work 'was originally designed for public spaces. The hall gives the project a certain intimacy. Listening sessions can take place here in a more protected and focused manner, which brings with it a different dynamic in the implementation of the programme.'

Much talk among new visitors to the venue surrounded the industrial nature of the space, which has been renovated just enough to retain its factory character; exposed brick, incomplete tile and steel beams.

For gallerist Mehdi Chouakri, who set up a hybrid exhibition, archive, and storage space there in 2020, there is potential for further growth.

'The originally purely industrial area will for sure change due to regulations regarding pollution and traffic. However, Wilhelm Hallen will turn into a place for production in a wider creative sense,' he said.

'My aim is to have this place as a show for art works of different scales in a responsible way, and this is in terms of energy as well as climate,' he added. —[O]