Art is a form of expression that comes from a person’s experience and imagination and turns it into a visual medium (E.g., painting), or an intangible skill (E.g., singing). Gilbert BrÜNing is a film director from Berlin, Germany who released a documentary called ‘7 years art from Berlin “BrückenKunst” 2019’ (German title: 7 Jahre Kunst aus Berlin “BrückenKunst” 2019). The documentary showcases collective art works from local and international artists.
BrückenKunst is a series of events held in Berlin where a group of artists come together to create an art exhibition and promote their work to the mainstream audience. At the time of this filming in 2019, the event has been going on for seven years, with each year growing with many artistic endeavors, from music and theatre performances, art installations, graffiti, and large-format murals.
Since BrückenKunst’s inauguration, Gilbert spent the entire seven years filming each time he learned that the group organized an art exhibition, hence the title’s name. The style of the documentary contains a plethora of short films put together into a 20-minute showcase. The filming style cater to the artist lovers and tourists as the filmmaker tries to capture as much footage as possible to recognize every contributor to each event.
There are brief interviews to artists and art lovers who attend these events, spoken in German with English subtitles. Gilbert stated that his goal is to acknowledge the “unknown artists” by using his art form of creating a film documentary, and presenting their work through film festivals around the world. It is evident that Gilbert has a passion for creating films, and is also an art lover himself.
His friendly demeanor in meeting people is a great combination for the purpose of documenting these exhibitions and making this a light-hearted way to validate these artists. He has every good intention to help raise awareness for the artists’ hard work who are trying to make a living for themselves, and also have them share their personal stories from their forms of expression.
He understands that it is often a difficult challenge for artists to achieve recognition from the world for their hard work. Just like any exhibition, most of them are usually showcasing for a few days of the year in local streets. The chances of getting exposure becomes limited to only the tourists passing by a festival, and many of the artists gets noticed for a few minutes before they move on to the next installation.
It is pretty common for the hard-working artists who work even harder to find any opportunity to promote their work to the public. These artists choose to express their work in art form because they love it. The old expression goes that if you love what you do, you never have to work a day in your life. Gone are the days of the idea of a starving artist as many opportunities are created to support each other in promoting their work. That is what makes an artist very special because they create a sense of community and get to be who they really are by expressing themselves.
These art exhibitions are meant for anyone who wants to escape from their routine life and embrace an artists’ imagination. There are incredible backstories behind their artwork and why they created it. That is why art exists, as it provides a deep human connection and also brings joy to many busy lives where most of them are working 8-hour day jobs and want an avenue to destress after work.
As one would say, it is all about the journey, not the destination. ‘7 years art from Berlin “BrückenKunst” 2019’ is a great documentary for the artists’ events and is continuing to grow in Berlin. They have an incredible adventure ahead of them, and more artists are coming together to support this initiative. It is a win-win formula for the artists, tourists, and even for the city of Berlin. Their contributions bring out the vibrant Berlin streets and ultimately brings more tourists over to see the artists’ work. And with Gilbert’s own initiative to document BrückenKunst, hopefully this would inspire others to do the same to help validate the exhibition and cement the artists’ legacies for years to come.
© 2022. UniversalCinema Mag.