Berlin 11 March 2024highlight

Rozbeh Asmani

Galerie Werner Klein, Cologne

Rozbeh Asmani focuses on the colors and shapes of consumerism. Brands and products like Lidl, Bounty, Zwieback, or BMW lose their fonts and logos in his hands. They are drastically reduced to the point where they only faintly allude to the corporate giants hidden behind them. Asmani's works are distilled giants of color, retaining their recognizable essence even in this reduced form seared so deeply into the retinas of consumers. Just as the Financial Times linguistically captures the flow of money, Rozbeh Asmani captures its visual markers. He teases out the finest Bauhaus features from a financial newspaper. An aesthetic reality check, never has Lidl been so beautiful. To be seen at the stand of the Galerie Werner Klein.

Berlin 11 March 2024highlight

Farniyaz Zaker

O Gallery, Tehran 

Delicate seedlings stretch their fragile roots unsuccessfully towards the earth, suspended in the air, enclosed by broad black outlines much like an asphalted sidewalk delineates a front yard. Neatly delineated by color, bedstraw and friends can only point to their health-promoting powers on Farniyaz Zaker's paper. In their restricted collaged environment, they will soon hang their heads. With her series "Dress Code for a Cul-de-Sac," Farniyaz Zaker refers to the encounter between fragile plant and inorganic geometry, reflecting on the moment of inclusivity and exclusivity, of being part of something yet not really. She celebrates the beauty of a garden that simultaneously remains subject to its inherent nature, being merely a fragment of nature. At the O Gallery stand from Tehran, thoughts about inclusion and exclusion blossom, and rootlessness becomes a fragile subject in the imagery. 

Berlin 11 March 2024highlight

Tim Berresheim

Galerie Elisabeth & Reinhard Hauff, Stuttgart

The eye collects information and transmits it to the brain. Within this cooperation, there's a constant attempt to identify resemblances to familiar concepts and decode visual content. Tim Berresheim's works challenge this process. What is seen in his paintings is hardly clear to the eye. They are enigmatic, demand a tactile way of seeing, and then fill themselves with content that defies all logic. Textures of diverse kinds intertwine and weave together, resembling a cluster of hair, a strand of Styrofoam, modeling clay, and a strip of checkered paper, evoking school memories. Surreal objects emerge when Tim Berresheim generates and assembles fragments on the computer. In an undefinable space, the materials knot themselves, liquid metal flows, and the lines curl. One can get lost in his works, follow strands of thought that lead nowhere, and experience how liberating it can be not to fully understand something. Tim Berresheim's works are presented by the Galerie Elisabeth & Reinhard Hauff from Stuttgart.

Berlin 11 March 2024highlight

Thomas Trum

Galerie Conrads, Berlin

Sprayed, drawn, rolled, wiped — Thomas Trum focuses on the application of paint. He develops machines that transfer paint in various ways. Large, bulky carts spray the finest streams of paint onto the wall in a rotating motion of an arm, and within minutes, the image is perfect. The creation of the image was meticulously planned, the machine intricately constructed and fed with paint, which it only has to emit. An intriguing field emerges between the delicacy of forms, clarity of color, and mechanics. Ultimately, his work consistently refers back to its process of creation through its linear structure. Although it’s difficult to believe that such delicate lines originate from a milky device resembling more of a forklift than a brush. Opposites attract, and Thomas Trum provides the evidence, not in black and white, but in red, green, violet, yellow, blue on white. On view at the stand of the Galerie Conrads.

Berlin 12 March 2024highlight

Henrik Eiben and Lyonel Feininger

SCHWARZ CONTEMPORARY, Berlin
and Thole Rotermund Kunsthandel, Hamburg

Lyonel Feininger (1871 - 1956) is a known figure. Village churches, streets, geometry - within the circle of Blauer Reiter and as part of the famous artists’ group Die Brücke, he is considered a significant pioneer of Classical Modernism. Starting with caricature, Feininger increasingly found his own expression, experimented with printmaking, and evolved in the early 20th century towards sharp-edged, cubist-multiperspective drawings, focusing on the architecture of small towns.

In a sharp yet gentle aesthetic, Henrik Eiben and Lyonel Feininger extend their hands across the century that lies between them. In clear lines, areas of color that often blend strongly with each other, and follow random paths, Henrik Eiben extracts a formal and coloristic essence from Feininger’s works. For the first time at paper positions berlin, two galleries present two positions that are directly related to each other. Henrik Eiben’s perspective on Feininger highlights a shared affinity for wit and thoughtfulness. Each with their own dynamism, but a shared occasional smile.

Henrik Eiben is represented by SCHWARZ CONTEMPORARY from Berlin and Lyonel Feininger by Thole Rotermund Kunsthandel from Hamburg.

Berlin 11 March 2024highlight

Mariella Mosler

Drawing Room, Hamburg

Collages resembling miniature wallpapers. At a distance, Mariella Mosler's poppy patterns appear fresh and decorative, yet upon closer inspection, the detailed image unfolds. Figures and forms become specific, emerging from the thicket of layers. A herd of the Venus of Willendorf hides behind moss-covered branches, proudly displaying its historical curves in semi-visibility. One could call it a collaged peep show. On the edge, almost lost next to the prominent femininity, an eggplant. A timid reference to its pop-cultural use in the field of emoji masculinity? Past and present collide in Mariella Mosler's collages, offering plenty of room for interpretation despite their density. Two bats flutter by and act as a hyphen between times: They have been on Earth for 50 million years and are still here. Mariella Mosler plays with the tides—and the paper. Her works are exhibited by the Drawing Room from Hamburg.

Berlin 11 March 2024highlight

Enne Hähnle

Intershop, Leipzig

Enne Hähnle draws, even though she works sculpturally. She has dedicated herself to the line, the fiber, the loop, the inscription, every form and texture that the line can assume. Similar to how her hairy sculpture "besty beast beasty boy" conquers the space, the shaggy line of the series "habenodersein" conquers her sheet of paper. The ink rises up, along a mirror axis the word "Doom" becomes "Mood" – does a sense of doom spread? If so, only subtly. The dark moments in Enne Hähnle's works are not pessimistic; they are subtle hints of the uncanny. Her drawings are exhibited by the Galerie Intershop from Leipzig.

Berlin 11 March 2024highlight

Esther Hagenmaier

Smudajescheck, Munich

The world is full of edges and corners, a fact that's likely apparent to everyone. However, Esther Hagenmaier's work brings them into clarity in a way that may not have been visible to many before. Her photographs reveal where they hide: on building walls and roofs, in rooms, and where the light only partially reaches. Cut out and thus detached from their context, the photographed edge becomes independent, becomes pure form, composition, surface, space, or body. A peacefully inorganic utopia of angles. Hagenmaier's works exude a tranquility, a clarity that increasingly fades from everyday life. They motivate one to pause briefly and to discover a fine niche even in the perceived dreariness of urban complexes. Esther Hagenmaier's works are presented by the Smudajescheck Galerie from Munich.

Berlin 11 March 2024highlight

Leon Polk Smith

Galerie Hoffmann, Friedberg

Fans of Mondrian will also love Leon Polk Smith, as he admired Mondrian himself. One could say: a full circle moment. Besides circles, however, other geometric shapes are the protagonists of his works—and the primary colors play with them.They disrupt circles, inviting triangles, edges, and squares into their midst. Contrasts of shape and color are at their highest and in these moments of vibrant color that their allure is at its peak. Green and red shout at each other, a fiery confrontation that generates an extremely attractive warmth. Leon Polk Smith is considered a central figure of Hard-Edge painting, and even today, the artist who passed away in 1996 can still display his clear edges in Berlin, as shown by the Galerie Hoffmann.

Looking back at paper positions berlin 2023

"High quality, flooded with light, affordable for average earners and with a genuinely warm atmosphere: "Paper Positions", the spring spin-off of the Berlin art fair "Positions Berlin" and with appearances in five European cities, is one of the more cheerful art fairs." - tip Berlin

With over 16,000 visitors, the art fair paper positions and the participating galleries can draw a positive conclusion from the seventh edition of the fair in Berlin. For four days, visitors were able to go on a paper discovery tour, expand their collections or purchase their first works in the atrium of Deutsche Telekom Hauptstadtrepräsentanz. On Thursday evening, Galerie Malte Uekermann Kunsthandel received the LEUE&NILL Award for Jens Hanke's solo presentation; artists Ursula Sax (Semjon Contemporary), Gisoo Kim (mianki.Gallery), Amparo Sard (Galerie Anita Beckers), Brian Dettmer (Galerie Commeter) and Taniguchi Kenichiro (Mikiko Sato Gallery) were honoured with the PAPER ART AWARD.

paper positions award 2023

The winner of the paper positions award 2023 is Katharina Hinsberg (Galerie Werner Klein) The award is realised by POSITIONS Berlin and supported by Kaiserwetter.

The works by Katharina Hinsberg presented by Galerie Werner Klein (Cologne) are captivating in their lightness and daintiness. Hinsberg delicately outlines the paper with a red pencil and meticulously cuts along the lines with a scalpel. Her wafer-thin paper frameworks hang delicately from thin needles. In their playful and subtle manner, Hinsberg’s works leave an impression on the viewer that not only encourages a sensitive interaction with them, but also promotes greater sensitivity.