MASCHINENHAUS M0

Exhibition Project last dance
Cooperation with project space Autocenter
9 March – 11 March 2018

Taslima Ahmed, Tamina Amadyar, Alisa Berger, Niklas Binzberger, Franz Burkardt, Hadassa Emmerich, Antje Engelmann, Isabelle Fein, Flame, Ossian Fraser, Isabella Fürnkäs, Paris Giachoustidis, Manor Grunewald, Tilman Hornig, Sofia Hulten, David Jablonowski, Maria Kremeti, Felix Kultau, Paul Laffoley, Simon Laureyns, Jeewi Lee, Robert Lucander, Florian Meisenberg, Mohamed Namou, Marie Reinert, Marie Rief, Maik Schierloh, Frederic Spreckelmeyer, Stephanie Stein, Hiroki Tsukuda, Sandra Vaka, Eva Vuillemin, Shira Wachsmann, Michael White

curated by Joep van Liefland and Maik Schierloh
 

Opened by the artists Joep van Liefland and Maik Schierloh in June 2001, Autocenter was one of Berlin’s most exciting artist-run spaces. It started out as an exhibition space next to a club on Simplonstraße, where it presented exhibitions that lasted only for a single weekend. There were very simple reasons for this conceptual decision: no budget meant no exhibition attendants, no money for commissions, no assistance, and no press officer. In 2007 they relocated to the first floor of a discount grocery store in Friedrichshain, and in 2013 they moved to Leipziger Straße. Autocenter discreetly closed in 2015. During its fourteen years of activity, no less than 200 exhibitions, 800 artists, a summer academy, a number of lectures and performances, an Oktoberfest, a few concerts, two auctions, a massive hardcover book (with 350 pages covering the history of the space), and an iconic tote bag were produced with barely any institutional support.

Following the rules that Autocenter set up in the beginning, the exhibition at the KINDL – Centre for Contemporary Art will take place only for a single weekend, beginning on a Friday evening. The two organisers could have decided to show the history of their space, a kind of best-of-compilation like those released by Madonna or U2 before Christmas. Yet, true to their original philosophy, van Liefland and Schierloh decided to exhibit around thirty artists who were never shown at Autocenter. Because the Berlin art scene has changed, because younger artists are now struggling to find cheap studios and exhibition spaces, because Berlin’s true treasure lies in the number of creative people who live and produce their works in the city.