Fall in Berlin has always been about art and music. In 2012, the city introduces the first Berlin Art Week, a major city-wide show case and market place featuring the best in contemporary art. From the classics to the Cold War to street art, new exhibitions will open their door, and the 3rd Berlin Music Week will heat up the clubs and stages in trendy Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district.

 

Here are the highlights:

 

1. ART WEEK BERLIN

Poised to become a new highlight of the international art scene, the first Berlin Art Week is bringing the city’s major September art events under one heading, and underscores the German capital’s importance as an emerging center for high quality art. Succeeding ArtForum Berlin, Berlin Art week will present the 8th Preview Berlin Art Fair, which showcases international newcomers as well as established galleries at the historic Tempelhof Airport. Concurrently, abc – art berlin contemporary will be artist-centered, featuring more than 150 individual presentations of the most promising contemporary artists, and providing a platform for around 30 international creative organizations, including publishers, film, architecture, music and urban planning.

Numerous Berlin art institutions, including the New National Gallery, KW Institute for Contemporary Art and the Academy of the Arts, as well as local galleries, will stage special exhibitions when this major art spectacle plays out to thousands of local and international collectors and art enthusiasts. Sep 11-16, 2012, www.berlinartweek.de.

 

2. STROKE, URBAN ART FAIR

Spotlighting the designs of every day city street scapes, the STROKE URBAN ART FAIR will present the best of urban art, including graffiti, tags and tattoos, at the Postfuhramt location in Berlin. The fair deliberately sets itself apart from the traditional, commercial art market and features the diversity of urban art and culture in all its dynamic facets, forms and colors. The various events will be staged by the di?erent exhibiting galleries, projects and live performers. In 2011, some 60,000 attended this unique event. September 13-16, 2012, www.stroke-artfair.com.

 

3. BERLIN MUSIC WEEK

For the third time this fall, Berlin’s Friedrichhains-Kreuzberg district will become the epicenter of the Music Week, when musicians, DJs, producers and promoters present a week of the best and newest of today’s music scene, covering various genres and nationalities. The many live acts at the city’s best-known hotspots include The Killers, Franz Ferdinand, Kraftklub and Paul Kalkbrenner. More than 40 clubs will open their doors to partiers and night owls. September 5-9, 2012, program, event tickets and line-up information at www.berlin-music-week.de.

 

4. YADEGAR ASISI’S 360° BERLIN WALL

Artist Yadegar Asisi, well-known for his monumental 360° panorama of the ancient city of Pergamon at Berlin’s Pergamon Museum, has done it again: Starting September 22, Asisi will take Berliners and visitors back to the days before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Displayed in a cylindrical steel rotunda at Checkpoint Charlie, a 360° panorama will show an East Berlin autumn day in the 1980s, complete with ramshackle house facades, playing children, and GDR guards patrolling the border between the two German states. For Yadegar Asisi, the experience was personal: “In the Eighties, I lived in Kreuzberg at and with the Wall. The panorama bundles my experiences and tells the viewer very detailed stories.” From September 22, 2012 (press.visitberlin.de/en/article/360-berlin-wall), (www.asisi.de)

 

5. KARL FRIEDRICH SCHINKEL – ARCHITECT OF BERLIN

From the Neue Wache guardhouse on Unter den Linden, to Museum Island’s Old Museum and the Schauspielhaus theater on Gendarmenmarkt, the buildings designed by classicist architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel are among the most famous in Berlin. Schinkel, however, did not only work as an architect; he devoted himself to painting and drawing as well as designing stage sets. Well-known and lesser-known works by this universal artist will be on view at the Culture Forum from September 7, 2012 through January 6, 2013. (www.smb.museum/smb/kalender/details.php?objID=26787&typeId=10&lang=de)

 

6. ANCIENT EGYPT AT THE NEUES MUSEUM

Regarded as the most beautiful woman in Berlin, the bust of Egyptian queen Nefertiti is celebrating her 100th anniversary this year. Discovered during excavations by the German Oriental Society in Tell Amarna on December 6, 1912, the bust has been on display at the museum since 1913. In celebration of the anniversary, the Neues Museum is staging a special exhibition on the Amarna period that characterized both Nefertiti and the mysterious pharaohs Akhenaten and Tutankhamon. December 7, 2012 through April 4, 2013.

Visit Berlin, www.visitberlin.de/en