HALLEN 07. The Foundry Stays Visible

Friday 11 September 2026, Kopenhagener Straße in Reinickendorf. The Wilhelm Hallen were an iron foundry for more than a hundred and twenty years, and it shows: a sawtooth roof with bands of glass, brick walls with soot marks, cast-iron columns, and between them the trusses of the event rig. HALLEN 07 has been running here since 5 September, staged by Wilhelm Studios, daily from 11 am to 8 pm, closed on Tuesdays, fourteen euros, seven reduced. More than fifty artists across over nine thousand square metres, with works coming through ChertLüdde, Esther Schipper and Nagel Draxler among others, plus loans from the Berlinische Galerie, the Art Collection Telekom, the Mercedes-Benz Art Collection, the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg and the Schirn. On Sunday, chamber ensembles of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester play.

In the main hall an inflatable figure in red, yellow and grey lies in front of a wall painting in green, pink and anthracite, big enough that visitors stop and photograph it. Red LED grids hang on the columns. Cut plywood parts are stacked on pallets, with chairs slotted together from them standing alongside. Neon drawings of houses stand on stands, blue, pink and red; the programme lists Christian Jankowski's neon series "Luftschlösser" among its highlights. In the middle of the aisle sits a clay pot from which a plant grows whose leaves are made of fabric, sequins and copper wire, some of them in camouflage, one in silver.

The strongest work hangs on a white partition and is black and white. Figures in protective gear stand on two armoured vehicles, and what looks like the barrel of a gun is an oversized syringe with a plunger and a needle. Two neon objects stand in front of it, one pink, one red, their light dripping onto the concrete floor. The hall takes nothing away from the drawing; it simply sets it beside everything else.

In a side wing with tall arched windows and round windows, Bocci is showing "The Overview Effect", curated by Anna Carnick, twenty positions, the same run. Hundreds of translucent loops hang from the ceiling on thin threads, lit gold from within, dense enough to look like a swarm from below while the light falls through the dust in bands. On the end wall hangs a textile work of chains, fringes and rods in green, red and sand. The title comes from what astronauts describe when they look at the Earth from outside.

Towards 7 pm the hall fills up differently. People stand with glasses around an empty grey stage set flush into the floor, with a gallery of windows above and offices behind it. Later they sit in rows along its edge and wait, and on the wall hangs a large sheet with drawn handcuffs hooked into one another. What holds the festival together on this evening is not a theme and not an argument, but a roof.

Photographs: Florian Jäger, 11 September 2026.