Startbahn und Sprungbrett

The tenth Positions Berlin Art Fair discovers young political art from Mexico but also benefits from the British joie de vivre of David Hockney. Mexican modernism around the left-wing artist couples Frida Kahlo/Diego Rivera and the immigrant comrade's Tina Modotti/Edward Weston still has a mythical aura around it today. But what about today's art scene? Insights into current events can be found at the tenth edition of the POSITIONS Art Fair. In the anniversary year, the number of galleries will increase from 88 to 100 participants from 20 countries. Four of the recruits come from Mexico City. It is no coincidence that Galería Enrique Guerrero, CAM Galería, Lagos, and Proyectos Monclova are moving into the hangars of the former Tempelhof Airport, as the partnership between Berlin and Mexico City is also celebrating its 30th anniversary. Many Mexican artists seem to continue to value the tension with their country's revolutionary past as a source of inspiration. Like Néstor Jiménez, whose works are on display at the Proyectos Monclova gallery. The painter of blood-red radiant figures deals with the selling out of socialist ideas. When his vulnerable colossi bend over or bathe, their movements always contain gestures of violence and exploitation. Other motifs are reminiscent of constructivist painting and reflect the conflict between the common good and the individualistic pursuit of happiness. The politically charged works cost between $5,000 and $10,000. The body of the woman who escapes from a cinema seat in a painting by Jinhee Kim is illuminated entirely in blue. Other characters lounge in the bathtub or stare into space in three-dimensional space. They seem to have no idea how they ended up on these stages controlled by an invisible director, while dramatic colors and classical shapes make their passivity seem all the more bizarre. The new addition ThisWeekendRoom from Seoul rightly relies on the potential of an artist who knows how to translate the influence of Fernando Botero or Tamara de Lempicka into her very own sublanguage. Microchips and swimming pools. The Chemistry Gallery likes it less playful. The people of Prague dedicate their bunk to the painter Jakub Švéda, who combines mysterious texts with technological symbols. Other works move on the border between sculptural relief and object. In them, too, one finds symbols of the technology-and-consumer society: cans, microchips, electrical circuits, and plastic objects with an unidentifiable purpose, altogether resembling a disturbing system that sends warning messages about an over-technological world. The David Hockney system, with its pools, tiles, bungalows, diving boards, and water movements, on the other hand, has a very relaxing effect. The Berlin Brusberg Gallery boasts rare lithographs from the late 1970s to early 1980s. Delicate lines indicate wind movements on the water, the grass around the swimming pool still has the hot summer days ahead of it, and the diving board casts dark shadows into the depths. A scene that the enthusiastic swimmer is known to have taken up again and again. The Bamberg Gallery AOA;87 has recently also opened a branch in Berlin. In her solo show at Positions, she relies on the Berlin street art icon XOOOOX, a pioneer of the stencil technique who likes to spray his elegant models and figures onto weathered facades or old signs. His works have long been loved not only by graffiti fans but also by art collectors.

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