On behalf of the participating galleries and Audemars Piguet, we are happy to welcome you to the 13th Gallery Weekend Berlin. In a society marked by data acceleration and the omnipresence of images, you live and work in Berlin within a culture of the visible, in which the boundaries between the private and public spheres are often blurred. And while the population here diversifies, the cityscape also loses its character, abandoned to the homogenizing forces of property development, allowed free rein to convert sites of significance into generic shopping malls. John Berger links the problem of this encroaching, consumer driven nowhere to the emergence of »digital time: as indifferent as money.«

And as a summer of travelling draws to a close, you find yourself thinking about it—thinking about place and time. Every day people follow images, signs and logos, pointing to some place and time which is not their home but a chosen destination. Airport embarkment signs, terminal signs, road signs, museum and Gallery Weekend signs—images and logos everywhere. Museums are coming up with creative new ways to merchandise their collections, from artsy lingerie, Rothko calendars to Van Gogh sneakers. Some of the people are making their journeys for pleasure, others on business, many out of loss or despair. On arrival, they come to realize they are not in the place indicated by the signs they followed. The images lead us nowhere, and it feels like our presence is just distributed.