Kito Nedo, MAR 2024

Bird-watching has enjoyed increasing popularity in Germany. During the coronavirus years, there was an enormous surge of interest in this nerdy hobby from the USA and the UK. Just how popular bird-watching is in New York was demonstrated in February 2023, when an owl that escaped from an aviary in Central Park to live above the rooftops of Manhattan became a feathered celebrity virtually overnight. When Flaco the eagle owl died after colliding with a window in late February 2024, even the New York Times reported on the incident, and people gathered under his favorite tree in Central Park to remember him. Bird Watching, the title of Rachel Harrison’s first solo exhibition at Konrad Fischer Galerie, was presented during Gallery Weekend Berlin in 2024 and also offered a taste of the big city. Born in New York in 1966, the artist had previously shown her work in a major survey exhibition at the Astrup Fearnley Museum in Oslo in 2022/2023 and at the Whitney Museum in New York in 2019. In Berlin, she presented six new sculptures and a series of new photographs. Since the mid-1990s, the artist has consistently surprised her audience with her humor, eclecticism and artistic radicalism. Harrison’s sculptural installations combine concrete and abstract forms with found objects and references to art and cultural history, resulting in disconcertingly contemporary, sometimes beguilingly colorful arrangements. Birding offered another playful dimension to Harrison’s work in Berlin.

Candida Höfer, 2023, Foto: Roman März, Courtesy: Konrad Fischer Galerie.

Bernd & Hilla Becher, Beton, 2022, Foto: Achim Kukulies, Courtesy: Konrad Fischer Galerie.

Wolfgang Laib, 2021, Foto: Roman März, Courtesy: Konrad Fischer Galerie.

Carl Andre, 2019, Foto: Roman März, Courtesy: Konrad Fischer Galerie.

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With her gift for surprises, her predilection for radical artistic gestures and her spatial precision, Harrison aligns perfectly with the philosophy of Konrad Fischer Galerie, which can look back on almost sixty years of exhibition history. Originally founded by the artist couple Dorothee and Konrad Fischer in Düsseldorf in 1967, the gallery became highly successful as an avant-garde venue for conceptual art, minimal art and Arte Povera—and soon became a place of pilgrimage for the international art scene. Artists such as Carl Andre, Sol LeWitt, Bruce Nauman, On Kawara, Mario Merz, Hanne Darboven, Bernd & Hilla Becher, Lawrence Weiner, Richard Long, Thomas Schütte, Manfred Pernice and Gregor Schneider have all had a significant influence on the gallery’s programme. Additionally, it is an impressive feat in itself that the business has not mutated into a museum of its own achievements over the decades, but instead remains solidly connected to the present.

Nauman, 2022, Außenansicht Düsseldorf, Courtesy: Konrad Fischer Galerie.

Dorothee+Konrad Fischer + Bruce Nauman, 1989, Courtesy: Konrad Fischer Galerie.

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With locations in Berlin and Düsseldorf, the gallery is run by the family’s second generation, Berta Fischer, who is also an artist. Unlike her parents, however, Fischer, who was born in Düsseldorf in 1973, has not given up art in favor of running the gallery, instead balancing both tasks with great elegance and ease. Fischer took over the management of the gallery from her mother in 2015 and has established herself internationally as both a gallery owner and an artist. This dual role has its advantages, as Fischer explains in a phone conversation: “I am familiar with gallery work from both an artist’s and a gallerist’s perspective, and I understand all the processes involved.” Dividing her duties as an artist and gallery owner also works well because she can rely on her very good and experienced team in Düsseldorf and Berlin, Fischer adds.

Wolfgang Laib, 2021, Foto: Roman März, Courtesy: Konrad Fischer Galerie.

Susan Philipsz, Slow Fresh Fount, 2021, Foto: Roman März, Courtesy: Konrad Fischer Galerie.

Nauman, 2022, Foto: Roman März, Courtesy: Konrad Fischer Galerie.

Nauman, 2022, Foto: Roman März, Courtesy: Konrad Fischer Galerie.

Richard Long, Granite Crossing,  2019, Foto: Roman März, Courtesy: Konrad Fischer Galerie.

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Since 2018, the gallery has presented its exhibitions in the German capital in the impressive industrial architecture of a historic electrical substation. This centrally located and historically listed brick building with its distinctive window façade was originally built by BEWAG’s in-house architect Hans Heinrich Müller in 1928. Between 2016 and 2020, it was sensitively renovated by Berlin architects Heide & von Beckerath and converted into an exhibition space. The building has become one of the most impressive art venues in the capital. “Every artist immediately wants to have an exhibition here,” says Fischer, who originally discovered the building and secured it for her gallery through her perseverance and negotiating skills. “This is an interesting space for any artist due to its proportions and the variety of different perspectives.” The gallery has continued to add new artists to its programme, including the British sculptor Alice Channer, the German-Polish painter Paul Czerlitzki, the Belgian installation artist Edith Dekyndt and the Scottish sound artist Susan Philipsz. The artists and their ideas have always been at the heart of the gallery. Everything else is the result of this trust in art.

KONRAD FISCHER GALERIE
Neue Grünstraße 12, 10179 Berlin
https://www.konradfischergalerie.de/