Martin Margiela and Alan Charlton. Circles Under High Voltage

A large dark grey disc hangs high on the wall of the main hall, split vertically in two, and the white mesh railing of the upper gallery runs across its lower part. The grid sits over the circle like glazing bars. It is the image that stays longest after a visit to Konrad Fischer Galerie on Neue Grünstraße, where two exhibitions have run side by side since 10 September: Martin Margiela's "Martin Margiela in Berlin" and Alan Charlton's "Circle Paintings". The building is at its best where the circles meet its architecture.

The hall rises through two floors. Walls, columns and beams are white, light strips line the rough whitewashed ceiling, and the floor is concrete. On the walls hang round, single-colour panels in shades of grey from pale to almost black, at least five of them. Two are divided. The big disc up top is halved, and a very dark one on the left wall is cut into quarters by narrow joints. Those joints repeat the cross of column and beam that structures the hall, and the discs are the only curves in a room of right angles. Nothing else stands in the hall, so each circle reads as a variation on the last, one smaller, the next paler or split.

At reception lie white cards reading "CIRCLE PAINTINGS" and dark leaflets reading "MARTIN MARGIELA IN BERLIN", beside a visitors' book and a stand with a QR code "for more information on the exhibition". The posters for both shows hang on whitewashed brick. The round panels in the hall are Charlton's circle paintings. According to the gallery they differ in diameter, shade of grey and number of parts, and Charlton works only in grey. One of two Margiela posters shows a seat shell in dark moulded wood with a white pad. According to the gallery, Margiela works here with cinema seating, magazines, underwear, tiles and carpet, which he paints on, defaces or distorts.

A very similar shell hangs twice on the wall of a side room, its side tabs like mounting brackets. In front, on a white plinth, stands an old folding seat with a metal frame, wooden armrests and a white seat. They look like seats pulled from a row in a cinema or lecture hall. On the wall they become reliefs, on the plinth a sculpture, and nobody is meant to sit down. It is a dry, exact idea.

In one room, lengths of grey-brown and cream striped fabric are pinned to the wall. The edges are cut in waves and fraying, two pieces jut out on the left like sleeves, and the stripes buckle with the cloth. Cloth that could have come off an awning is treated like a dress pattern. In another room, a white board carries two round reliefs: underwear twisted into circular frames like embroidery hoops, white and stiff. These are circles too, but made of twisted cloth rather than flat, single-colour surfaces. Even the office joins in, with an octagonal mirror framed by folded layers of colour above a desk with a monitor.

The building has plenty to say for itself. Green steel stairs wind up through whitewashed brick past violet, red, green, yellow and blue panes, and a sign by the riser pipe reads "Löschwasserentnahme für Feuerwehr" ("Water outlet for the fire brigade"). On a landing, a pallet covered in white fake fur leans against a riveted green steel door: soft white against flaking green, one of the best pictures in the house. Against a green steel-and-glass wall stand three tall stacks of individually shrink-wrapped old "Paris Match" and "Jours de France" issues, one topped by "Paris-Match a vingt ans" ("Paris-Match Is Twenty"). Between the stacks hangs a yellow sign warning of high voltage in four languages, signed "Berliner Kraft- und Licht (Bewag) AG". The building was evidently once part of the power supply. The sign says nothing more about its history.

The visit is uneven. The hall convinces because circle and architecture come together without explanation. The rest has plenty of material (striped cloth, fur, underwear, seat shells) but is scattered across side rooms, an office and landings, and along the way the coherence the hall achieves so easily gets lost. You never stop noticing the building itself, its green stairs and the Bewag's yellow sign. The circles in the hall hang under high voltage, so to speak, and they can take it.

Martin Margiela, "Martin Margiela in Berlin", and Alan Charlton, "Circle Paintings", are at Konrad Fischer Galerie, Neue Grünstraße 12, Berlin, until 19 December.

Photographs: Florian Jäger, 13 September 2026.