Hotmess

HOT MESS is an exhibition series focused on Berlin creative talent, exhibiting emerging and existing talent side by side.

Sensitive to the climate crisis, the exhibition is deliberately local, inviting only Berlin-based artists, and deliberately diverse, inviting artists of diverse definitions: educated and uneducated, celebrated and uncelebrated, known and unknown.

We encourage local collectors and art lovers to invest in the Berlin art scene, thereby facilitating creativity, exchange, and creating a positive connection and community in our own city.

HOT MESS was founded by South African Yolandé Gouws in Berlin during the pandemic in 2020 as a conscious act of sustainable, long-term change amidst uncertain conditions in the cultural sector. The project is realized in partnerships with independent spaces in different states of transition, therefore hosting an imaginary unlimited potential in the city. The first edition, in 2020, took place at Prince Charles after it closed to the public as a popular club. The second edition, in 2021, was the first exhibition to take place at ‘Napoleon Komplex’ –  ex-Deutsche Bahn carriage repair halls near Ostkreuz. The third edition will be held on the 22-23 of May 2022 at the Kühlhaus Berlin, a former industrial building, now a vibrant space for contemporary art and culture.

The title of this exhibition series was inspired by the book by Donna Haraway ‘Staying with the Trouble’ where Haraway defines the times we are living in as sticky, hot compost piles that we humans have created. Haraway proposes that, to solve this mess, we need to delve deeper into it, joining in, not only with humans, but with all creatures of this earth and working with what we have.

“The task is to make kin in lines of inventive connection as a practice of learning to live and die well with each other in a thick present. Our task is to make trouble, to stir up potent responses to devastating events, as well as to settle troubled waters and rebuild quiet places. (…) Staying with the trouble does not require such a relationship to times called the future. In fact, staying with the trouble requires learning to be truly present, not as a vanishing pivot between awful or edenic pasts and apocalyptic or salvific futures, but as mortal critters entwined in myriad unfinished configurations of places, times, matters, meanings.”

Artists:

Adrian Lohmüller + Ahmet Öhgüt + Ahu Dural + Alicja Kwade + Allistair Walther + Amélié Riech + Anna Slobodnik + Artist on the Moon + Astvaldur + Baldassarre Ruspoli + Berenice Güttler + Camilla Storgaard + Carla Chan + Cheonghye Sophia + Colette Vermeulen + Daniela Macé-Rossiter + Dareos Khalili + Dora Durkesac + Dorothee Diebold + Douglas Auersperg + Fabian Anselm Orasch + Franziska Harnisch + Fred Thackeray-Vincent + Gabriel Beçak + Gabriela Lesmes López + Gawie Joubert + Graeme Smith + Gregor Hildebrandt + Pätzug / Hertweck +

Heyon Han + Jakub Kubica + Jan Kohlby + Johannes Schön + Julia Grybos & Barbora Zentková + Julian Simon + Katharina Trudzinski + Keegan Luttrell + Kristina Okan + Lexia Hachtmann + Lisa Baumgarten + Louise Rosendal + Lovro Artuković + Luca Longagnani + Maness + Manuel Rossner + Maria Sécio + Mark Walker + Mara Fortunatović + Markus Gley + Massimiliano Rossetto + Megan Black + Michelle Chen + Natalie Brück + Nicoleta Auersperg + Nils Blau Schneitz + Odey Curbelo + Oona Calx + Paul Steinmann + Philip Topolovac + Philippine d’Irumberry + Robert Terziev + Roger Eberhard + Salvatore Siliciano + Super Model Services 3D + Satoko Kako + Sebastian Körbs + Sophie Erlund + Stefanie Egedy + Stephanie Cedeño + Stephen Kent + Tine Furler + V3 + William Russell + Yolandé Gouws + Yvonne Adreini