Kicking Off usartberlin.org

Things Have been busy here in Berlin!

A small group of us Ami's have gathered together to create a networking support group called USARTBERLIN and have found empathetic moral support from our US Embassy based in Berlin. It's been some 6 plus or more months now and it will continue to be challenging to work together and expand and enrich the Berlin creative community. 

We now have  a website (both private and public) at usartberlin.org where we can dialogue and allow the public at large a possibility to connect with the membership and the groups activities and events. You can of course follow us on facebook.

Our first event was a presentation by one of our members, the gallerist Alexandra Rockelman who delivered a presentation in her Berlin space called &Galerie OPEN by Alexandra Rockelman. Her presentation included that of an invited gallery curator as well as a junior curator exhibition summer project she hosts every year in her gallery. 

Our most recent events included a private exhibition tour by one of the Getty's senior curators and art scholars Glenn Phillips for the first day of the Martin Gropius Bau in Mitte.

Kate Hers, our usartberlin "Initiatorin", recently posted about it on her very active blog estherkaprojekt.blogspot.de

This week we are having several more events (private AND public) with workshops held by American curator Kathy Rae Huffman. Her "Art survival" workshops where she discusses strategies artists (particularly those working with "media" must consider. 

But this weekend will prove to be the most challenging event for me and my co-organizer , artist Elana Katz Elana-Katz.com, as we have invited Kathy Rae Huffman and two very engaged director/curators in the creative Berlin community, Valerie Smith of the Haus der Kulturen der Welt HKW.de, Berlin and Annette Rupp of the Villa Aurora Villa-Aurora.org, Berlin/Los Angeles, to speak on the topic of "Cultural exchange(s)"- Cultural Exchanges in Art: Patterns, Trends, Value, and Limitations.

As a member of the well known and respected Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst NGBK.de I was able to use my personal network to propose this important round table discussion to be given and hosted at the NGBK. Director Katja Hübner, curator Frank Wagner and the NGBK board approved our last minute proposal only 2 weeks ago and it's been a mad rush by me and Elana to get it off the ground (whilst doing all the other events and *our own art practices). we have been getting a steady flow of informal RSVPs and I am a tad worried the event may be packed.