The Beginning in 2001
When Circle Culture founders Dirk Staudinger & Johann Haehling von Lanzenauer passed in front of an empty shop location on the trash-romantic Mitte vibe of 2001 in Berlins Scheunenviertel they had a strong intuition, that this would be the place for new culture in Berlin: The Gipsstrasse 11
A wonderful boutique style shop location, huge windows, high ceilings, a modern interior flooring and wall design in contrast of a historical building from approximately 1900. Three little stairs from the street lead up into a perfect gallery space in Berlin. A time of a dynamic underground creative scene full of innovation in the wake of a new millennia.
The Initial Project in 2001
The idea of Circle Culture was to observe, understand and feature creative and cultural expressions in all cultures that characterize and shape our society – this thinking was epitomized in our first mailing where we collaborated with a fashion designer (Berlin 77. Industry), a graphic designer (Chris Rehberger) and a Creative Director (Hedi Slimane).
One night in 2001 at the iconic Mitte art world hang out „Cafe Bravo“ at KW (Kunstwerke Museum of Contemporary art in Auguststrasse) Dirk met a tall skinny man with shiny blue and kind of sad eyes sitting alone at the bar drinking a pure vodka out of a small water glass. The man said it’ s the most elegant way to have a drink. Indeed this enigmatic figure was artist in residence at Klaus Biesenbach’ s (Founder of KW, later director of MOMA NY and now director of Neue Nationalgalerie) Kunstwerke. This was just before the artist became globally known as Hedi Slimane, the new hyper puristic creative director of Dior, who established a new understanding of men’ s fashion by joining rock n roll culture with a formalism you will find in conceptual art. This encounter ended in a friendly relationship and inspired Circle Culture to publish an interview with Hedi on a limited t-shirt edition created in collaboration with Oliver Kroll of 77.Berlin Industries & Chris Rehberger (brother of artist Tobias Rehberger) from Double Standards.
This was the beginning of 25 years exhibition history at Circle Culture in Berlin. Later with locations at Potsdamer Strasse, Pop-ups in Los Angeles, Hong Kong and New York, participation at international art fairs in Basel, London, Vienna, Istanbul, Miami, New York and a additional permanent brick and mortar in Hamburg. The Gallery has curated more than 500 shows since then.
The Founding Years (2001 – 2004) PART I
Circle Culture started being an urban hang out for Berlin Mitte’ s young art, music and fashion avantgarde with exhibitions featuring i.e. Kaviar Gauche, Mario Lombardo, Lodown Magazine, Stamm Magazine, Mirko Borsche & Gomma Records.
You could see Oliver Kroll, the initiator of the newly born Berlin’s high end street fashion movement in the late 90ies. With his enigmatic, deconstructed and brutalist limited garments he wrote a new chapter between art and fashion for a new century. In collaboration with iconic New York City fashion and art photographer Ami Sioux, who had to flee her home town after 9/11 for emotional and health reasons, Oliver Kroll designed a wonderful sculptural vision of his iconic customised sweaters. He deconstructed heavily starched fabric shapes of his designs and installed them on metal ropes in a corner of the gallery.
Ami Sioux, a great photographic eye on Berlin’ s and New York’ s avant-garde artist life added her soft and melancholic aesthetics with the presentation of smaller photographs and the installation of a wooden mini barn as a symbol of longing for personal cocooning in challenging times.
In the following years a parade of some of the most important representatives of Urban and Street Art landed art shows at the gallery. (i.e. Futura and Kaws as part of the launch of the Street Art book called „Autograf“, Banksy in form of a Backjumps magazine collaboration, Barry McGee, ESPO, Chris Johanson, Ed Templeton as part of the Beautiful Losers group exhibition and Solo exhibitions with JR, Andre Saraiva and Shepard Fairey. )
The Founding Years (2001 – 2004) PART II
The 'Autograf' exhibtion in Berlin followed the release of the book of the same name by american photographer Peter Sutherland. This exhibition highlighted the world of graffiti and street art as a controversial art form and provocative cultural phenomenon, that inestimably influenced our entire environment from music and fashion to advertising, architecture, and graphic arts.
Collected for the first time in Autograf: New York City’s Graffiti Writers, Sutherland presented a never-before-seen chronicle of the people and places that populate New York’s famed graf scene. Featuring old-school legends COPE 2, FUTURA, STAY HIGH 149, LADY PINK and DOZE, as well as new-school writers SACE, EARSNOT, SERF, RATE, CINIK, UFO, and DSENSE, among many others, each one of the fifty-three portraits is authentically tagged by the individual writers using the same paint markers that brought them fame. Complemented by one hundred sixty landscape photographs and featuring handwritten text by legendary recluse REVS, Autograf is the only book to showcase New York City’s graffiti scene as it was created and defined by some of the most prolific artists of our time.
The Urban Fine Art Phase (2004 – 2008) part i
The next chapter will introduce you to the history of Circle Culture Gallery being Europe's first and one of the most influential Galleries embracing street and urban art, another practice on the verge of applied arts, urban culture and fine arts: Urban Fine Arts.
Between 1998 and 2005 Berlin was the global capital of street art. No other western capital gave so much space and freedom to express a motivated artistic self in public. Specifically the streets and walls of Berlin Mitte, Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg were full of revolting signs in form of graffities, stencils, paste ups and other techniques. Fueled by an illegal will to show art in public that is on the verge of vandalism, inspiration and beauty. To be clear, the “criminal” motivation to get out in cold Berlin nights, to be ready to take a lot of risks, just to publicize art works in the streets, on rooftops and other hard to reach locations, makes the magic of street art. As long as this energy is around you can speak about real street art.
Commissioned gentrification projects or gallery shows with street artists would rather represent the genre of Urban Art. Circle Culture Gallery was interested in a very specific perspective of the street art movement. Focusing on fine artists using the medium of the street – similar to the painter Basquiat’ s or conceptual artist Jenny Holzer’ s approach, who produced their first famous works in the streets of NYC.
The Urban Fine Art Phase (2004 – 2008) part ii
In 2004, Circle Culture invited the now world-renowned poster artist Shepard Fairey, also known as Obey, and hosted his first solo exhibition featuring paper editions in Europe, marking a pivotal moment in the gallery’s history and a new chapter in contemporary art presentation.
The Urban Fine Art Phase (2004 – 2008) part iii
André Saraiva, who began spraying his legendary character Mr. A on the streets of Paris in the 1990s, quickly became a global street art phenomenon. His iconic figures were later exhibited in a variety of formats, including canvases and sculptures.
Alongside his artistic journey, André developed the nightclub empire Le Baron, establishing venues in Paris, New York, Tokyo and Los Angeles. Community and friendship have always played a central role in his work, which also led him to create Hotel Amour and several restaurants designed as gathering places for the creative scene.
The Urban Fine Art Phase (2004 – 2008) part iv
In 2005 a young man from Paris showed up with two vintage suitcases full with hundreds of small format photos taken in the streets of Paris. The now internationally acclaimed artist JR installed the photos inside and outside the gallery as a huge wave, made paste ups with large black and white photographs and showed his most iconic motive of a young man holding a camera like a machine gun for the very first time. This stood as a critical comment on power of media during the big riots in the suburbs of Paris in 2005.
The Urban Fine Art Phase (2004 – 2008) part v
Curator and artist Aaron Rose from Los Angeles has been an anchor point to the history of the gallery. Not only that his Alleged Gallery, founded as a meeting and exhibition space for today iconic urban and street artists mid of the 90ies was a larger inspiration for the concept of Circle Culture Gallery, he also became a long standing collaborator and friend on several exhibition projects of the gallery. The first project we worked on together was the Beautiful Losers Group show, which gathered a large number of the most relevant underground creatives and artists in the US of the 90ies and beyond. The exhibition toured through different museums in the world and was later accompanied by a feature movie shown in cinemas internationally.
Participating Artists: Thomas Campbell, Cheryl Dunn, Shepard Fairey, Jo Jackson, Chris Johanson, Margaret Kilgallen, Geoff McFetridge, Barry McGee, Mike Mills, Harmony Korine, Stephen Powers, Claire E. Rojas, Deanna Templeton, Ed Templeton, Tobin Yelland, Money Mark, Mark Gonzales, Ari Marcopoulos, Kaws
The Urban Fine Art Phase (2004 – 2008) part vi
Another beautiful project effectuated in collaboration with Aaron Rose was the group Show with BARRY MC GEE, ED TEMPLETON, RAYOMD PETTIBON
In 2010 we were featured in the iconic publication ‘Beyond the Street’ from gestalten Verlag alongside the most globally relevant urban art artists, auction houses, museums galleries and collectors at the time, such as JR, Lazarides Gallery, Agnes B., Deitch Projects, Futura, Blek le Rat, Tate Modern, Os Gemeos, Jose Parla, Philipps de Pury & Company, Christie`s and Shepard Fairey
From Urban Art to Fine Art (2010 – now)
Circle Culture continuously evolved into global markets and new art segments. The street art movement in Berlin, and internationally, had begun to lose some of its momentum as a radical and authentic form of expression. What once emerged from raw, subversive energy had now evolved into a flourishing and established market, with growing interest from collectors, galleries and institutions. This shift, however, seemed to stand in contrast to the original spirit of the movement.
Art historically speaking the initial phase with its innovative and grand urban thrill and activism was finished. With artists like Katrin Fridriks, Stefan Strumbel, Maya Hayuk, XOOOOX the gallery saw artists with an urban art background raising into the more classical contemporary art markets. Circle Culture very successfully participated in art fairs in Vienna, Miami, Paris, Istanbul, London, New York. A growing number of collectors followed the development of the program and became loyal and longstanding friends of the gallery often traveling with us. We had CEO`S of global companies, pop stars, actors and movie directors joining our dinners, meeting our artists and collecting their works. It was a warm and friendly international crew atmosphere we kept cultivating until today.
