Art Forum Berlin was designed to be an international funhouse of bleeding-edge contemporary art. The 159 galleries hail from a total of 23 countries. It's still rather inexpensive to participate. Once again, Art Forum Berlin is sponsored by Bankgesellschaft Berlin . At first glance, it appears decidedly trashy.
Sculpture comes either from the scrap heap or the department store.
And pornography is everywhere. Nobody embodies the anti-esthetic better than Thomas Hirschhorn , the German artist whose works tweak refined sensibilities by presenting political content with a decidedly trashy technique. Gagosian's booth features two huge photographs of naked, red-wigged girls standing idly about in a bright white space. These riveting images are courtesy Vanessa Beecroft , and record the performance she staged in London in May to inaugurate the new Gagosian Gallery there. Certainly one of the better new works on view at Art Forum Berlin is the set of six light boxes by Oleg Kulik , the ferociously original artist who made a name for himself several years ago by cavorting for a few weeks in a cage with a giant dog.