Art Critic's New Year Resolution: Avoid Art Fairs, Explore Berlin's Emerging Artist-Run Spaces

An art critic reflects on the challenge of staying engaged with contemporary art as one ages, noting the tendency to settle into familiar routines and avoid newer, emerging spaces. The critic recalls a conversation with a fifty-something artist who avoids art fairs in favor of artist-run spaces, citing KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin as an example of an artist-founded institution. The critic observes that older artists often stop attending exhibitions by younger peers, fearing obsolescence, while younger artists' work can be dismissed as derivative. A personal experience in Berlin's Wedding district involved quickly categorizing works as post-minimalism or imitations, missing potential innovation. The critic acknowledges the difficulty of evaluating art in unlit, appointment-only spaces like a gallery in Weissensee that appears on tastemakers' lists. Calvin Tomkins, at ninety-four, is highlighted as an example of sustained engagement with contemporary art. The critic resolves for 2021 to focus on peripheral, off-space exhibitions in Berlin rather than art fairs, noting that lockdowns have currently closed these spaces. The piece emphasizes that art is an evolving language that can be unlearned without active effort to explore diverse strata of the art world.