At the weekend, invited the Art Berlin Contemporary (“abc”) for the presentation of current positions in international art. On show were also works by four artists who are represented in the exhibition “secret societies”. When you ran the opening scene and interested people from around the world in droves.

Already in line for a subject dominated the Small Talk: Is the “abc” the new “Art Forum”? A question that over the course of the evening between the clinking of glasses and flashlight repeatedly came up. The Berlin art fair “Art Forum” has been canceled this year. Many visitors, no consensus with the makers of the side-events and bad timing within the international trade fair operations had led to the temporary off. Next to the main competition of the “Berlin list” and the “preview” so far as the “abc” was one – a composite of Berlin galleries, she organized this year for the fourth time you will run the “Art Forum” is likely to rank. The atmosphere crackled at the Opening accordingly. But the event in the former Berlin postal station Gleisdreieck was impressive and convinced even the skeptics.

This centrally located venue in the city proved to be a good choice. Architect Jan Ulmer ran through two of the huge historic halls a four-meter high wall with works by 130 artists. They all devoted themselves to the “About Painting”. As the title already had, not only paintings were on display, but also video works, photographs and installations, which dealt with the Urgenre of art. Rita Kersting and Marc Glöde presented a difficult curatorial task, they finally chose a topic widely interpretable. In fact, it was almost all work directly related to painting,

In the introduction to the catalog of “abc” Kersting writes: “In 2011, the painting may be seen for the first time again as an equivalent genre between the various disciplines of art, neither the queen nor as Cinderella.”

All the participants seem to agree that sales are not in the foreground. It is precisely in this year’s overall theme of the painting – and the artistic genre that is most likely to sell. With the title “about painting,” but also all other genera are discussed, so that a few video works, photographs, installations and sculptures can be found: A picturesque aspect can always be found.

Natural light floods through the glass roofs of the two single-storey buildings, which offer built-in by movable walls and cabinets isolated space for 130 artists. A curved white stripes on the paved floor, part of Ceal Floyer’s work, “Taking a Line for a Walk” from 2008 (at the Galerie Esther Schipper, Berlin), connects the two rooms of the exhibition. On the topic painting can be in front of the piecemeal screens with Sergej Jensen (Galerie Neu, Berlin) to think, before Ulla von Brandenburg’s beautiful “Forest (Orange),” whose contours were cut woodcut from a screen (Galerie Art: Concept, Paris, together with the co-operative gallery, Hamburg), and also at Sara Sizer, which creates its images by removing, by the natural canvas color or chemically bleached fibers extracted (with Andrae Kaufmann, Berlin, 3000 and 6000 euros).