UWE HENNEKEN: Into the Fire
In a year ablaze with Aries energy—marked by powerful transits, eclipses, and retrogrades—this conversation couldn’t be more timely. Uwe Henneken isn’t just creating; he’s living and feeling through an alchemical process, using fire both as a literal tool and a metaphor for transformation. It hit me—like a bolt—as I woke from an afternoon nap, that liminal space where intuition speaks before the mind catches up. That’s exactly how his work feels: a sudden charge of pure color, a direct transmission … Read more
Curated by GIRLS on tour
Last time we spoke with Laetitia Duveau, founder of the highly influential platform Curated by GIRLS, she had just moved to Sintra, Portugal, after years of building a powerful creative movement in Berlin. Her latest project? A spring tour across Germany with three incredible female-fronted acts blending trip-hop, pop, and electro, including her own band FreeFreeDomDom, founded in 2017. From Berlin to Sintra: Curating Community on the Road You’ve gone from Berlin’s buzzing art scene to the dreamy landscapes of … Read more
Zina Al-Shukri: An Unveiling
When I think of Zina Al-Shukri’s rich and overflowing practice, I imagine her sitting calmly with a silent smile on a massive boulder in an ancient canyon, surrounded by wind, knowing, and the desert. Rooted in an ancient lineage yet unbound by tradition, Al-Shukri’s work embodies an expansive interplay of all the elements, harmonized to evoke magic through creation. With a foundation in indigenous Babylonian heritage and a life shaped by migration and challenges, her practice consistently defies the conventions … Read more
GØNEJA ✷
unveils contemporary gates of initiation With a collection of works that encompass depictions of ancestral body rituals, magical sigils as sculptural objects, and nude embodiments of esoteric symbolism, the Berlin-based photographer and sculptor Gøneja ✷ explores the ancient practice of initiation, traversing the enigmatic terrain of Egyptian and Western mythology and divinatory practices. His new solo exhibition, “Thresholds,” presented at the Organ Kritischer Kunst gallery in Berlin, unravels the intricate power of this archaic lore and unfolds as a culmination piece, … Read more
PENNY SLINGER
How does one write about such an important and influential artist, author and feminist like Penny Slinger? A Way-sharer in the Arts and the Art of Transformation alike? A fearless and strong woman and artist whose confidence is effortless and natural, who paved paths where there were none before with her photographs, sculptures, and as an author since publishing her first book 50% The Visible Woman. in 1969. Countless have walked on the trail she left and they will without doubt continue to do … Read more
MONIKA DORNIAK
The phenomenological maps of… Paintings, living minerals, sculptures, music scores and performances are some of the formats Monika Dorniak uses to weave an elaborate web of narratives, archetypes and alchemising artworks, coexisting with her ongoing activist and community building vocation based in Berlin. Her multidisciplinary works not only blur the boundaries between mediums but also traverse curious territories within psychology, anthropology, sound and witchcraft. In her exhibition at Hošek Contemporary – ‘the ease with which [a] may be distorted under … Read more
MARTINE POPPE
Peering at the Edge of Daydream Since interviewing the Norwegian artist Martine Poppe, I have been reflecting on her answers and also her well-known cloud paintings, which I first encountered a few years ago when the Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery opened in Berlin Mitte (and which today form part of the UK Government Art Collection). Among the thoughts passing through my mind, I wondered how perception works on encountering something that first seems smooth, light, well, cloud-like and “easy”, but on … Read more
MONET CLARK
Rise of Raven Woman Mid July this year I received a message on my socials from the eco-feminist and performance artist Monet Clark: “Esther, from your content I believe you will be inspired by this…” followed by an invitation to watch her collaboration with the legendary performance artist Linda Mary Montano in which Linda interviewed Monet about her new ideas, works in progress. They were also discussing other artists including Karen Finley, Penny Slinger, Jennifer Locke and a collaborative work of Monet’s with the media art pioneer John Sanborn, … Read more
OSHANTELL MARTIN
One, Two, Free Ever since coming across the work of the visual artist and philosopher Shantell Martin, I’ve always had to think of a sticker on my fridge in my old kitchen in Berlin—a sticker that quoted a remark by the German/Swiss painter Paul Klee, whose “Paul Klee Notebooks” are considered as important to modern art as Leonardo da Vinci’s “Treatise on Painting” was for the Renaissance. The quote – “A line is a dot that went for a walk” … Read more
MICHEL LAMOLLER
Anthropogenic Mass “Anthropogenic Mass” is the title of Michel Lamoller’s upcoming exhibition at Ravestijn Gallery in Amsterdam and refers to a study conducted by the Weizman Institute based in Tel Aviv that states that we have reached the point in which all man-made things on planet earth have the same weight as all natural biomass. Let that sink in for a moment. Concrete tops the list of manmade mass. As it is used for building and infrastructure, it is the … Read more
GØNEJA ✷
and the liberating essence of alchemy Photographs and totemic sculptures merge in Gøneja ✷’s most recent solo show Mercurial, presented at the Organ Kritischer Kunst gallery in Berlin. The secretive, ancient practice of alchemy is subtly revealing itself through each piece, emerging as a contemporary interpretation of the hermetic principle As Above, So Below. Alchemy is the process of purification, freeing oneself from the limitations of a certain physical state, healing, becoming whole. Gøneja ✷’s portraits alternate between an arcane, … Read more
Kostas Valioutis
RADIUM PALACE Please tell us a bit about yourself and how you are defining your work? Or in other words, if you needed to explain what you do to someone “outside” the art world, what is the essence it comes down to in your oeuvre and why? I was born and raised in Lesvos, Greece. I studied painting at the Athens School of Fine Arts. Since then, I have been working as an art teacher in Greek public schools. In … Read more
Sarah Michelle Riisager
RADIUM PALACE Please tell us a bit about yourself and how you are defining your work? Or in other words, if you needed to explain what you do to someone “outside” the art world, what is the essence it comes down to in your oeuvre and why? I work in a borderland between reality and the virtual world. This parallel reality is something I’m attracted to but also repelled by. I see myself as a visual artist who works with … Read more
Angelos Papadopoulos
RADIUM PALACE Please tell us a bit about yourself and how you are defining your work? Or in other words, if you needed to explain what you do to someone “outside” the art world, what is the essence it comes down to in your oeuvre and why? I’m a dancer and choreographer. Plus, I use the camera as a medium to capture the body motion and create narrative yet abstract explorations of it. Not a director, but I do guide … Read more
Georgia Kotretsos
RADIUM PALACE Please tell us a bit about yourself and how you are defining your work? Or in other words, if you needed to explain what you do to someone “outside” the art world, what is the essence it comes down to in your oeuvre and why? . I am an artist, researcher and professional spectator who lives and works in Athens, Greece. I’m a looker, an observer and a gazer who seeks out opportunities and spaces for an idea … Read more
