Sven Marquardt – Rudel
Berlin-based photographer Sven Marquardt, also known as bouncer at the famous techno club Berghain in Berlin, presents his photographs for the first time in Lebanon. The exhibition and installation opened on Thursday March 15 in D Beirut Warehouse in Karantina and runs until Sunday, March 18.
Sven Marquardt’s portraits – in black and white – document former East Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg scene and the Berlin techno scene of the 1980s onwards. The exhibition opened in the presence of the artist on Thursday March 15 in D Beirut Warehouse in Karantina. For the first time Sven Marquardt’s large-scale photo exhibition “Rudel” is shown along with the audiovisual installation “Black Box”.
“It is an adventure to be here” said Sven Marquardt after spending a few days in Lebanon and preparing his exhibition. “Beirut is very inspirational and it is great to discover places like this old warehouse where we are setting up the exhibition.”
“Rudel” is an exhibition that consists of large-scale portraits, which combine formal severity and clear imagery with bleak impermanence. They impress through interaction of ease, severity and the dramatic art of monochrome contrasting. The ever-changing metropolis of Berlin has shaped Marquardt’s sensibility for striking characters, his sense for the unusual in humanity and his artistic subject.
“Black Box” is an audiovisual installation, which combines Sven Marquardt’s black-and-white portraits with the rough, dark and intense techno sound of Marcel Dettmann, a German producer and DJ at the techno club Berghain. The two artists met for the first time at the legendary Ostgut club in the late 1990s but it was only in 2014 that they decided to combine their artistic talents and created Black Box.
Sven Marquardt started his photographic career in the beginning of the 1980s as part of the emerging Punk, New Wave and Art scene in the Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood of East-Berlin. After the fall of the Berlin Wall he immersed himself in the city’s rising night club scene. Soon he became a known face particularly for his work as bouncer at the famous techno club Berghain.
Around the exhibition and installation several events will take place that throw further light upon the cultural landscape of modern Berlin. On Friday, March 16, the exhibition and installation is open from 4:30pm till 10:30pm. At 7pm an artist talk will take place. Sven Marquardt will discuss his photographs with Christoph Reuter, reporter at the German newspaper “Der Spiegel”. On Saturday, March 17, the opening hours are from 4:30pm till 10:30pm and the music scene takes center stage. Marcus Rüssel, CEO and founder of Europe’s largest online booking platform “gigmit” will give a workshop titled “Export your music and touring in Germany” and in the evening a party with Berghain DJ Etapp Kyle will start at Reunion at Grand Factory.
The event is a joint project of Goethe-Institut Libanon and The Grand Factory.