The current coronavirus regulations mean only a limited number of people can be admitted to the exhibition at one time. Book free time slot tickets for your visit here. These tickets guarantee admission during your preferred time window. Fifty people can be admitted without a time slot ticket per time slot – simply go to the main entrance. You will need to provide your contact details before you enter the foyer. Your details are collected to assist the health authorities with contact tracing in the event of an infection. A face mask must be worn in the foyer at all times, except when you are sitting in the catering area.
Please call +49 (0)30-2326 2326 in advance if you are a wheelchair user or unable to climb stairs. Our service team will then admit you to the building via the wheelchair entrance around the corner on Johannisstraße.
Definition of a “time slot”: You may enter the exhibition at any time during your booked time slot – even shortly before your time slot ends – and also remain in the exhibition after your time slot ends. Each ticket admits one person and is person-specific (due to the contact tracing requirements). Please provide the real names of all visitors when booking.
In October 2019, Sven Marquardt photographed members of the Palast’s international dance ensemble just after a performance as well as after rehearsals. In some of the pictures, the posture and expression show that the subject is still on an adrenaline high, whereas others reveal more intimate moments. Less than half a year after the photo shoot, the artists portrayed were deprived of their stage and essentially became ‘stageless’ when all performances between 11 March 2020 and 1 January 2021 were cancelled due the coronavirus pandemic.
The Palast stands for glamour and elegance – at least it normally does. This exhibition is literally a huge intervention in our foyer, our lives, our future as a show theatre. Hence you’ll find bare, paint-splattered scaffolding, traces of the ongoing building work, and powerful photographs printed on construction fence tarpaulins illuminated with construction lights. These raw, improvised aesthetics do not merely give the impression of a construction site – we really are one: the theatre’s ventilation system is currently being refurbished (due to be completed by December). The tapestry of sounds audible in the exhibition may lead some to think that the sounds of construction work are part of the installation. When you stand on the huge stairs in the foyer featuring metre-high video projections, you will almost feel as if you are in an abandoned grand hotel. In all its intensity, there is something comforting about this massive artistic intervention by curator Felix Hoffmann (C/O Berlin) and Sven Marquardt: it is all temporary, we’ll be back.
For those eager for a sneak preview: this ZDF television report provides some interesting insights.
Raw, improvised aesthetics: bare scaffolding, vivid images printed on construction fence tarpaulins
Valeria shot by Sven Marquardt
One can see that the exhibition is a huge intervention in our foyer, our lives, our future as a show theatre
Christine shot by Sven Marquardt
Marcello shot by Sven Marquardt
Hanna shot by Sven Marquardt
The exhibition publication costs €20 and is only available in the Palast foyer
90 photographs by Sven Marquardt on 120 pages
Sven Marquardt in front of his photo of Christine
In the huge stairwell you almost feel as if you are in an abandoned grand hotel | Photo: Steven Lüdtke
Reviews
The hallmarks of the Berghain magnifico are discernible at first glance: most of the close-ups and portraits are in black and white; in some, the lighting means they deliberately remain blurry. The dancers are freed from their stage sparkle and appear like dark figures of the night.
The Palast foyer has been transformed into a temporary gallery; the ensemble performs without its stage. 68 large-scale photos are showcased in a quietness that has its own magic and emotional impact.
The portraits are evocative because you know that exactly what the artists love – performing, being on stage, the adrenaline – have not been possible for months.
As expected with Marquardt, the outcome is not a series of classic portraits, but rather intense mises en scènes.
His transformations reveal many an ode to beauty and, what beautiful bewilderment, at the same time the pain of loneliness following such exhilaration. Emptiness, fears, melancholy.
The fact that almost 70 pictures are now being displayed in the foyer under the telling title of ‘STAGELESS’, i.e. without a stage, could hardly be more fitting at this time.
This person seeker who resembles a prince of darkness yet has the soul of a peace dove brings momentary joy to the currently unemployed ensemble.
Sven Marquardt shows an unprettified take on the transition from the dramatic, mask-like stage character to the dancers’ tense, tired faces after the show.
Sven Marquardt (b. 1962) has made a name for himself internationally as the photographic chronicler of identities and curator of clubgoers on Berlin’s techno scene. His work is reminiscent of the fashion photographs by Sibylle Bergemann and Ute Mahler for the East German magazine Sibylle and the renowned work by Peter Lindbergh. And yet it still develops its own unique visual language. The photo series was created in collaboration with Klaus Stockhausen, who is Fashion Director at ZEITmagazin, and curated by Felix Hoffmann from C/O Berlin. The exhibition comprises around 70 black and white portraits, which are displayed on large-scale screens and in projections. A publication will also be released to accompany the exhibition.
