NEWS
NEW EXHIBITION
Momento
Maestro Emanuele Taglietti
February - April 2025
The exhibition presents Maestro Emanuele Taglietti and his extensive oeuvre. Twenty prints of oil and acrylic paintings offer an insight into his work spanning over 50 years. The selection includes architectural paintings, decorative and trompe-l’œil works, as well as set designs for the film industry, movie posters, and portraits. Additionally, the exhibition showcases examples of his creative work for the pulp comic publisher Edifumetto.
DIE SANIERUNG DER HAUSFASSADE
Liebe Gäste,
seit Ende Februar haben die Renovierungsarbeiten an unseren Gebäuden und den Nebengebäuden direkt vor unserer Haustür begonnen!
Die Besonderheit: Unser Gebäude stammt aus der DDR-Zeit der 80er Jahre und ist eines der Kulturdenkmäler in Berlin. Die Spandauer Vorstadt ist heute ein denkmalgeschütztes Gebäudeensemble.
Die Arbeiten werden voraussichtlich bis Ende September 2024 dauern! Unser Café wird trotz der Einschränkungen wie gewohnt geöffnet bleiben. Unsere Sommerterrasse kann in dieser Zeit leider nur eingeschränkt genutzt werden.
Wir entschuldigen uns für die Unannehmlichkeiten und hoffen, dass Sie trotz der Umstände den Weg zu uns finden werden.
Vielen Dank vom Kaffeemitte Team!
RECENT EXHIBITIONS
Urban Dirt | Bibo
November 2024 - January 2025
Gregor: Where are you from and what is your artistic background?
Bibo: I come from a small village in Sachsen-Anhalt and have been in Berlin since 2012. I started with stickers and worked with stencils and spray cans.
G: What brought you to the subject of club culture?
B: I was out a lot in Berlin's nightlife back then. I didn't go to all of the clubs I show in my exhibition, but I knew most of the clubs from the inside. When Corona hit, I saw how club culture in Berlin was under threat and I wanted to do something to draw attention to it and to show respect to the whole culture.
G: How do you create your models?
B: I work quite freely, without precise measures or rules. I'm less interested in creating perfect, true-to-scale reproductions and more in capturing the atmosphere and feeling. I often improvise with materials that I have to hand. The rest is cardboard, acrylic paint, wood and bookbinding glue.
G: What is it about working with miniatures that fascinates you?
B: It's about capturing memories. The miniatures allow me to preserve special places and scenes from Berlin's culture. Memories of places that perhaps no longer exist or have changed a lot. It's a somewhat nostalgic project.
G: Besides the small club doors, you also make models of Berlin walls. How did that come about?
B: Working on the topic of club culture made me realize that it's not just the clubs that are under threat, but also the art on Berlin's walls. All the graffiti, murals, stickers, tags and so on. For me, their destruction is also a destruction of the appeal of Berlin. My models are preserving the artworks that are shown on these walls. An example is Blu's work on Schlesische Straße, where he painted over his iconic image to protest against the sell-out of the city. My model shows the wall and his art work before gentrification destroyed it.
"After witnessing the changes happening in the surrounding area during the last years, we felt it was time to erase both walls. This act represented not just a reaction to the destruction of the adjacent squatter camp, but also a broader protest against the commercialization of the area, which we believed was killing the spirit of the neighbourhood."
- Blu
Schinken | Wulf Rechtacek
September & October 2024
In his exhibition "Schinken", artist Wulf Rechtacek presents a collection of his own paintings alongside prints by his father who worked and lived in the GDR (German Democratic Republic).
Wulf Rechtacek's large-format artworks, presented for the first time in this exhibition, combine technical skill with humour and playfulness. The decision to paint in a naturalistic style requires the willingness to have one's art judged according to objective criteria. Furthermore, the choice of 'GDR' as a subject is not only personal but also political - at a time when we still need bridges from East to West.
The exhibition also features a reproduction of a large relief created by Lothar Rechtacek in the 1980s for the newly constructed buildings on Weinmeisterstrasse.
This relief is a tribute to GDR design and reflects the unique architectural character of the street and the surrounding neighborhood. The so-called "Scheunenviertel" was one of the last areas in East Berlin be redeveloped after the war and it was only in the 1980s that the area was modernized with the construction of new prefabricated buildings, which included decorative elements designed by Lothar Rechtacek.
These elements are not only valuable from a historical perspective, as they represent the vision of the urban planners of the time, but they contribute to the aesthetic flair that defines Berlin Mitte. They tell the story of the city's transformation - from the capital of a communist state, still bearing the scars of war, to a vibrant centre of cultural innovation and a visual-aesthetic testing ground.
By showcasing Lothar Rechtacek's relief and celebrating the work of an important GDR artist, this exhibition highlights the collaboration between father and son and underlines the importance of preserving GDR heritage for future generations.
Gregor Hutz
Serien 1 - 4 | Gregor Hutz
July & August 2024
This exhibition is about cracks in the sealed surface of four rigid systems: Internet, advertising, health regulations and mega-publishers - when these systems run wild, things can get funny.
These spontaneously emerged free spaces show the power that is unleashed by chaos.
I collected and sorted 100 samples and brought some order to this chaos. Besides, a single image no longer proves anything. And it certainly doesn't show a trend.
But the fifth series shows a trend. Even several trends! Trends to confuse, amuse and amaze us. Record covers from my oldest collection. You can look at them like in a mirror to see the zeitgeist. The good-looking young reader of this text may look astonishingly funny in 40 years' time - not to think of the pictures from my own youth. It made me think...
Woman Portrait Gallery V.2
April & May 2024
Woman portraits by:
Alex Zika / Altea Federico / Casa De Balneario / Dared / Eva Contreras / Liliana Rasmussen / Lou Held / Lucille Guder / Macarena Cox / Martin Krusche / Paul Rosenbauer / Pongsuang Choop / Sunny Strange / Tony Federico / Vassilis Konstantinou
STOP LOOK GO | Alexander Sokolov / Eric Götz / Filipe Nascimento
February & March 2024
We would be happy if we could inspire you with the pictures and interviews. You are very welcome to visit Kaffeemitte until the end of March to see the prints in large format. We hope to encourage some deceleration in hectic, sometimes restless times.
TADAA! This is our coffee cult | Zora Jurenkova
December 2023
"Our multi-cultural guests inspired me to create this photo project. Coffee house culture is not dead. From the 17th century until today, coffee houses have been places of discussion and gathering, where ideas were born and revolutions were prepared... Our coffee culture is also evolving, but we also maintain the tradition. People meet, debate and mingle. They put their intellectual energy in ideas, opinions and debates. KAFFEEMITTE provides the space. In a typical Berlin café, the guests and the staff are truly diverse, the walls are decorated with art works and visitors from all over the world are individually styled and radiate freedom and love.This is what our world needs.
This is really good coffee!"
Zora's exhibition has a benefit
The photos can be bought for 50 euros each and the money goes into a fund to finance further exhibitions by young artists.
Read more:
98 Hektar | Marion Dieterle
From 19 October 2023
At the vernissage (October 19 / 6pm - 9pm) the artist will do a live performance at Kaffeemitte and connect to the story of her paintings.15 canvases that were created in the last two years in the artist's current home: Umbria, Italy. After 20 years as a dancer in Germany, Marion Dieterle moved to the Italian countryside with her family in 2021 - a new beginning. And the changed working and living environment have also led to a change in her medium. Instead of dance, a discipline for which the immediate presence of several people is crucial, painting and sculpture are now the mediums with which the artist works. The exhibition tells of a new beginning and search for artistic means of expression. Accompanying the paintings and the performance, we have interviewed Marion Dieterle about the process of her emigration.
Exhibition teaser:
UNSER UMGANG MIT CORONA
Liebe Gäste,
wir tun alles was uns möglich ist, um Euch, sowie unser Team vor Corona zu schützen. Über die Hygiene-Vorgaben der WHO hinaus scheuen wir keine Mühen und keinen Aufwand um alle gesund durch diese Krise zu führen.
Unsere Maßnahmen:
Während der Arbeit im KAFFEEMITTE tragen alle Beschäftigten stets eine medizinische Maske und desinfizieren regelmäßig alle zugänglichen Bereiche, Türklinken, Griffe und Oberflächen.
Alle nutzen regelmäßig das Angebot für kostenlose Tests bei einer offiziellen Teststelle. Zusätzlich bieten wir allen Beschäftigten zweimal in der Woche ebenfalls einen Schnelltest an.
Bei dem jedem Hinweis auf eine Infektion bei einem Team-Mitglied, wird die Arbeit erst wieder aufgenommen wenn keinerlei Verdacht mehr besteht.
Wir achten stets auf die Einhaltung aller Regeln wie Abstand, Maske tragen, Händedesifektion und ausreichende Raumbelüftung.
Wir wünschen euch und eurem Familen, euren Lieben und Bekannten, dass ihr die Krise gesund und unbeschadet übersteht.
Außerdem an dieser Stelle auch ein lautes Dankeschön an euch alle!
Danke an alle die uns trotz der extremen Einschränkungen weiterhin immer wieder besuchen kommen und die Stimmung oben halten.
Danke dass Ihr so ausnahmslos die uns auferlegten Regeln wie Abstand einhalten, Hände desinfizieren und Maske korrekt tragen einhaltet, und uns dabei so oft noch hinter der Gesichtsbedeckung ein Lächeln schenkt!
Danke von Herzen!
UNTERSCHRIFTENSAMMLUNG IM KAFFEEMITTE
Deutsche Wohnen enteignen
Unterschreibe jetzt im KAFFEEMITTE
Einen Monat nach Beginn der zweiten Sammelphase am 26. Februar hat die Initiative Deutsche Wohnen & Co. enteignen 47’342 Unterschriften gesammelt und der Landeswahlleitung übergeben.
“Dieser Zwischenstand zeigt, dass wir einen großen und stetig wachsenden Rückhalt in der Bevölkerung haben”, sagt Mark Schrolle, Aktivist für die Initiative. “Wir freuen uns, dass wir in einem Monat fast 50’000 Unterschriften sammeln konnten. Das verdanken wir den über 1000 Aktiven, die in allen Bezirken Corona und schlechtem Wetter zum Trotz unermüdlich Unterschriften sammeln. Wir sind gut aufgestellt und sind sehr optimistisch für die kommenden Wochen,” ergänzt Jenny Stupka, Sprecherin der Initiative. Die Initiative wird noch bis zum 25.06.2021 weiter Unterschriften sammeln, so auch auch bei der Demonstration gegen Verdrängung und Mietenwahnsinn bis zum Housing Action Day.