Berlin Art Week 2022: Art and Money Under the Same Roof at Uferhallen

The 2022 Berlin Art Week centered on the Uferhallen complex in the Wedding district, a former public transport depot spanning 38,000 square meters. The exhibition "On Equal Terms," curated by Anna Lena Seiser, investigates the mechanisms of pricing cultural and artistic values. It revisits a 2011 initiative where 120 artists were invited to sell works as shares (about 3,000 total) to secure long-term presence in the area. The property changed hands multiple times, eventually prompting the Berlin Senate and the district to intervene. The campaign ended with the return of the artworks but succeeded in preserving the industrial site as a cultural hub and artists' studios. The show includes photographs, documents, and texts documenting this history. Benedikt Braun's "Jackpot" (2010) features hundreds of one-cent coins on two conveyor belts, critiquing capitalist promises of infinite productivity. Concurrent events include C/O Berlin's "Queerness in Photography," Haus am Lützowplatz's "ÜberLeben. Fragen an die Zukunft" on climate crisis, and Leila Hekmat's "Female Remedy" at Haus am Waldsee. Site-specific works by Rosa Barba, Maria Eichhorn, Herta Müller, and Karin Sander were shown in collaboration with the Berlin Art Week festival. The collective exhibition critiques artworks as commodities and addresses gentrification pressures on Berlin artists, who are forced to cede creative spaces for ambitious redevelopment projects.