Last Updated on September 18, 2024
Berlin Art Week 2024 Delivers Once Again
Berlin Art Week 2024 has become an unmissable event for art lovers and culture seekers. Growing larger and more dynamic each year, it’s now a staple of the Berlin art scene, attracting everyone from schmoozy investors to punk rockers, and even yuppies with kids in tow.
With coveted tote bags that are harder to come by than a VIP pass, it’s no wonder crowds flood the city. This year, the legendary Yoko Ono joins the ranks of featured artists, showcasing her conceptual billboard work that invites us to “IMAGINE PEACE” in Berlin’s public spaces, adding a powerful participatory layer to the festival.
But amidst the energy, two standout exhibitions spark conversations about the convergence of art, technology, and the human experience. I had the pleasure of experiencing Rohini Devasher’s Borrowed Light, a deeply reflective series exploring the intersection of astronomy and art, and Gretchen Andrew’s Facetune Portraits, which cleverly brings AI beauty filters into the world of traditional oil painting. Both exhibitions challenge how we see and understand the world, whether through the cosmos or the digital lens, making them two of the most inspiring highlights of Berlin Art Week 2024.
Rohini Devasher: Borrowed Light
In her first European solo exhibition, Borrowed Light, Rohini Devasher takes us on an intellectual and sensory journey where art, science, and philosophy converge. At the heart of the show is the concept of “borrowed light,” a term used in architecture to describe how spaces with abundant natural light can share it with darker, interior spaces. Through an open design, light moves between environments, transforming areas that would otherwise remain in shadow.
In this exhibition, Devasher applies the metaphor of borrowed light to explore how we use visible objects—like stars and planets—to understand what we cannot see, such as dark matter and energy.
The centerpiece of the exhibition is the series Borrowed Light, a body of work that engages with the history of astro-photography, particularly the gravitational phenomenon known as lensing, where light bends around massive celestial bodies. Much of Devasher’s work draws on the practices of early astronomers who meticulously sketched their observations by hand.
Inspired by Omar W. Nasim’s book Observing by Hand, which highlights the role of sketching in nineteenth-century astronomical observations, Devasher underscores that observation is not merely about seeing, but about recording, processing, and interpreting. This reflection on the history of how humans have documented the cosmos forms the foundation of her work, blurring the line between art and science.
Devasher’s experiences as an artist and amateur astronomer feed directly into this exhibition. During her Owner’s Cabin residency on the Pacific Ocean, she observed the Milky Way in the stunning dark skies above. Devoid of city light pollution, the stars were a luminous spectacle, and Devasher documented the night sky as it truly is—something many of us never witness due to urbanization. These observations became alternative maps of the sky, marked with unclear coordinates and signs, representing new vocabularies of mark-making. The works invite viewers to contemplate not only the light we see but also the unseen forces shaping the universe.
The exhibition’s centerpiece is Devasher’s four-channel film One Hundred Thousand Suns (2023). This film dives into the geometry of celestial bodies—the Earth, Moon, and Sun—exploring the relationship between astronomical events and the civilizational histories of their respective locations. The film incorporates over 100,000 solar images recorded across 120 years at the Kodaikanal Observatory in South India. Through this montage of images, Devasher presents the complexity of astronomical “seeing,” where the line between knowledge and mystery remains ever elusive.
Another notable work in the exhibition is Atmospheres (2015), a contemplative piece inspired by recordings Devasher collected at the Gauribidanur Radio Telescope Array near Bengaluru. The footage features mirrored images of the sky, framed by the unique structures of radio telescopes, creating a hypnotic and otherworldly view of our planet.
The imagery immediately recalls the iconic Blue Marble photograph taken by the Apollo 17 crew in 1972, a moment that transformed humanity’s perspective on Earth as a singular planetary ecosystem. In Atmospheres, Devasher offers a reversal of that famous view—showing us Earth from our own vantage point and prompting us to reconsider our relationship with the planet we inhabit.
Borrowed Light challenges us to reflect on the impermanence of light, time, and our own perceptions of the universe. Devasher bridges the past and present, reminding us that humanity’s quest to understand the cosmos has been ongoing for millennia, but as our tools evolve, so too does our way of seeing. Her work asks us to borrow light not just from the stars but from our deeper understanding of the mysteries they illuminate.
Gretchen Andrew: Facetune Portraits
Meanwhile, at HOLON, Gretchen Andrew’s Facetune Portraits delivers a striking commentary on AI’s influence on our perception of beauty. Known for blending generative art with oil painting, Gretchen takes the digital algorithms behind social media beauty filters and translates them into the physical realm. But from the viewer’s perspective, the works are even more intriguing.
At first glance, her pieces seem to be printed photographs of Berlin-based influencers, yet something feels off. The portraits have layers of paint applied on top, though it’s unclear why the paint has been added or how it fits with the underlying images.
Upon closer inspection, you realize these painted interventions aren’t random—they are, in fact, the physical manifestation of AI-based beauty filters. These filters, familiar from apps like Instagram, TikTok, or Zoom, have been reimagined as robotic paintbrush strokes, correcting the portraits according to the algorithm’s standards of perfection.
Gretchen uses custom-built robots to apply these “improvements” to the portraits, blurring the line between technology and traditional portraiture. The results are captivating, not only because of the way they transform the images, but because they force viewers to grapple with deeper questions about identity. How much of ourselves are we willing to edit, adjust, or ‘correct’ to meet AI’s standards of beauty?
Facetune Portraits shines a light on the tension between our natural state and constructed ideals, making us question how much control we’re relinquishing to technology in our quest for a more appealing image. It also challenges us to reflect on how we see ourselves in the mirror, versus how we present ourselves through digital lenses. In an age where beauty filters can alter the smallest imperfections, Gretchen’s work asks: are we shaping the technology, or is it shaping us?
Conclusion
Berlin Art Week 2024 reaffirmed its position as a vital space for artistic innovation, with each year pushing boundaries and redefining what we consider art and its role in contemporary society. While the coveted tote bags may have slipped through my fingers, what truly stands out are the profound ideas and experiences that linger long after the crowds disperse. This year’s highlights—Rohini Devasher’s Borrowed Light and Gretchen Andrew’s Facetune Portraits—weren’t just visually striking; they were deeply thought-provoking and relevant to the world we live in today.
Devasher’s exploration of light, time, and our cosmic connections reminded us that, much like the universe itself, there are always new layers of meaning waiting to be discovered. Her work is a beautiful intersection of history, science, and art, a testament to how the ancient human pursuit of understanding the cosmos still resonates with us today. Borrowed Light urges us to consider what lies beyond the visible, using astronomy as a metaphor for introspection and deeper perception, both of ourselves and the universe.
On the other hand, Gretchen Andrew’s Facetune Portraits pushed us to confront the realities of modern life, where technology and artificial intelligence shape our self-perception in ways we barely realize. The series reveals the tension between natural beauty and digitally constructed ideals, reminding us of the powerful influence AI now holds over our sense of identity. Andrew’s fusion of generative art and traditional painting techniques is more than just a clever concept—it’s a critical commentary on how much of our authentic selves we are willing to trade for digital perfection.
Together, these exhibitions reflect a key theme at Berlin Art Week 2024: the convergence of art and technology, and the existential questions that arise when these two realms meet. Devasher and Andrew force us to look inward and outward at the same time—questioning both our place in the universe and our relationship with the increasingly digitized world around us. Their works are more than just showcases of skill and creativity; they serve as catalysts for reflection, challenging us to reexamine the ways in which we perceive ourselves, our surroundings, and our connection to the greater whole.
In the end, even without the tote bag, the intellectual and emotional souvenirs from Berlin Art Week 2024 are far more valuable. The week was a reminder that, as art continues to evolve alongside technology, it remains a powerful tool for sparking conversations about who we are, where we come from, and where we might be headed. And in a world that is increasingly defined by the artificial, the borrowed light of artists like Devasher and Andrew helps us navigate the shadows and see our world with greater clarity and depth.
