Inside a Lantern
Super bien! is probably the only self-proclaimed ‘greenhouse for contemporary art’ anywhere in the world. An initiative of three Berlin artists, the standard DIY-store glass house is an attempt to ‘examine of the role of the gallery within contemporary culture’. Artist’s responses to the structure have so far been interesting, but hardly a probing examination of the architectural role of the gallery one might expect.
Artist Antonia Nordmann’s response, though, goes right to the substance. She transforms the nature of the glasshouse by removing the glass itself, replacing the panes with plywood scored through with a drill bit in spiralling organic forms. The resulting slits are covered with roughly torn strips of coloured material turning the structure into an inside-out lantern. Where the outside is scrappy, loosly structured and whimsical, the inside is precise and luminous.
Come nightfall and the latern reverses itself once more: a neon lamp mounted underneath the ceiling illuminates the glasshouse-lantern from the inside.
Super Bien!Schwedter Straße 232–234, Berlin-Mitte.
Viewable from the outside 24 hours a day.Viewable from the inside Wednesday to Saturday between 3 and 7pm.