AARON ROSE: SURRENDER

SURRENDER

The Works of Aaron Rose: Special Showcase in Berlin & Hamburg

As part of a special showcase dedicated to the work and history of Los Angeles based artist Aaron Rose, Circle Culture presents a curated selection of his works in both Berlin and Hamburg.

In Berlin, the presentation is accompanied by a custom wall piece by curator Johann Alexis von Haehling, reflecting Rose’s distinctive visual language and the long standing collaboration between artist and gallery since 2003.

In Hamburg, the exhibition offers a focused look into the evolution of Aaron Rose’s visual language and cultural impact. A selection of works, including the Zoetrope Studies (the very first one being created for the cover of Francis Ford Coppolas Magazine: Zoetrope All-Story), illustrates how his ideas have developed over time across drawing, film, writing, and curatorial practice. Artworks, films, and archival material highlight his deep engagement with independent culture, experimentation and everyday creativity.

This special showcase brings together past and present works, allowing visitors to experience Aaron Rose’s creative world side by side in two cities. Moving between art, community, and storytelling, his voice remains relevant, influential, and vital today.

Works by Aaron Rose are currently on view in Berlin and Hamburg. Viewings are by appointment, or please contact lilith.jandrig@circleculture-gallery.com for more information.

IN THE WORLD OF AARON ROSE

Exhibition Text by Johann Alexis von Haehling

Los Angeles, 2003 – I thought I was prepared, but I wasn’t. Since my teenage years I had been immersed in skateboarding, punk rock, hip-hop and the urban subcultures of the 1980s and 90s. And now, coming from the grey Berlin winter, I found myself in the Hollywood Hills, standing in front of a typical California house. Aaron Rose’s house – a place who’ s owner embodied the American subcultures that would later shape global urban culture.

A friendly “hi”, a man in a hat, an open garden gate – and we began to talk. Dirk Staudinger and I had come to interview Aaron for a German magazine, yet within minutes it was clear that we shared the same cultural code. The same bands, the same references, the same attitude. Although I grew up in the Black Forest and Aaron in the heart of my teenage dream world, California, we shared – thanks to one of the first global youth movements – almost identical frameworks. An American soft power, expressed effortlessly. Dirk had to leave for an interview with Robert Greene and suddenly I had time – space for quiet conversation and portraits. This first encounter changed my life.

The man I would later describe as “the President of the American Underground,” who was connected to all the film, music, skate and fashion heroes of my youth, sat with me and shared values that felt like home. My small-town complex appeared and disappeared at the same moment. From that day on, Aaron made me feel part of his circle – a connection that has grown into a close friendship over the last twenty years. In the front yard he climbed onto the roof of his 1956 Mercedes-Benz for a portrait. Click – iconic. Another image in front of his deep-red door, holding a Super-8 camera marked with a sticker: ALLEGED. The name of his legendary Lower East Side gallery, where he gathered America’s artistic and media avant-garde in the 1990s.

He worked with a remarkably diverse group: Ed Templeton, Harmony Korine, Jim Jarmusch, Chloë Sevigny, Kim Gordon – and many others.

In 2005 we brought Beautiful Losers to our gallery on Gipsstrasse in Berlin – a global exhibition inspired by Leonard Cohen’s novel of the same name. It gathered key figures of American subcultures, later evolving into a museum tour, an internationally acclaimed feature documentary and a limited artist edition box. Aaron flew in from Los Angeles. Berlin in 2005 was raw, disruptive, globally magnetic – perfect for him. Beautiful Losers brought works by Chris Johanson, Clare Rojas, KAWS, Phil Frost, Shepard Fairey, Geoff McFetridge, Mark Gonzales and Cheryl Dunn.

Here you can find the full documentary about the Beautiful Losers movement directed by Aaron Rose. A unique insight into the American creative underground and must watch!

More collaborations followed: exhibitions with Barry McGee, Raymond Pettibon and Ed Templeton.

And a major solo presentation of the now undervalued yet highly influential Sister Corita Kent – a religious sister, activist and artist whose impact, is said, reached as far as Andy Warhol. From the 1960s to the 80s she created peace- focused performances, graphic works inspired by advertising, and radical cardboard installations. At Circle Culture Berlin’ s Galleries in Gipsstrasse and Potsdamer Strasse we rebuilt her box structures, painted walls, shaped the exhibition – and Aaron produced a documentary with Corita’s closest friends, which was on display. You can find said documentary here – another favorite of ours!

Every part of Aaron’s practice – curator, designer, writer, filmmaker, creative director – is marked by an intuitive interdisciplinarity and a radiant, playful positivity. I learned from him not through instruction but through presence: his aesthetics, his laughter, his colors, his choices. His world blends sun, mind, hope, cosmos, humor and vulnerability – a universe where the inner monsters smile back at the end of the day.

His recent works at Circle Culture – paintings on paper and canvas, vibrating and enigmatic – celebrate that energy. They remind us to live well, to stay connected to cosmic formulas. His sculptures, shifting between object and figure, evoke for me, Oskar Schlemmer’s Triadic Ballet – a choreography of form, balance and play. A table, a lamp, a body, a bar – transitional states. The series draws on inspiration from Latin American artist Marisol Escobar, yet reveals Aaron’s own method clearly: boundaries exist only to be crossed.

He once said: “Skateboarding is nothing but dancing ballet on the streets.”

It captures his worldview – everything flows, everything overlaps, everything breaks stiff conventions. Like Schlemmer, Aaron works beyond institutional borders – merging stage, subculture, art, music and design into one resonant field. His belief lies in art and in its power to transcend. One can benefit from that. It is a blessing.