MishMash group, Wind Faces, 2013. Fabric, wind. (Photo: V. Dudchenko).

XL Projects Berlin maintains its format in the new location: artists’ workshops plus short-term curated exhibitions four times a year. Only previously, while in the prestigious Prenzlauerberg district, it all had to be squeezed into one room, and now there are two workrooms plus a communal space for shows.

The place is called Backsteinboot (‘brick boat’), it’s part of a former munitions factory on the Eiswerder island in Berlin’s Spandau district. By some miracle, these red industrial buildings dating back to the early 20th century were not bombed to smithereens during World War II. Some 2,000 people were brought in and out by ferry, then, daily. Now, of course, the area is being gentrified; the island, offering a view of the historical citadel, is now linked by bridges to both banks of the Havel River. Run by the non-profit organization Raum für Kunst, Backsterinboot is being repurposed as a cluster of artists’ workshops. Raves are also being held there; movie production offices occupy some of the spaces. The atmosphere is trendy and vibing.

For XL Projects Berlin, it all means that exhibitions reclaim their normal (significant) scale. It is the third address and the third inaugural show within one and a half years of its history, and already by tradition, a group one. Seat warming. No big concept beneath. Space appropriation by three large-format artistic statements that have to settle in somehow in these new surroundings and start ‘talking’ to each other. But in a sense, each one is quintessential to the respective artists’ oeuvre.

Next Stop Spandau installation view, 2025. (Photo: V. Subbotin).

Wind Faces (2013) by MishMash (Misha Leykin, Masha Sumnina) is a recurring air sculpture. The group states: ‘The physiognomy of winds appears at one or other spot, all over the world, wriggling under different winds.’ MishMash definitely comprises the newer strand of Moscow romantic conceptualism, the art movement that began in the mid-1970s, gaining influence and weight in the near absence of contacts with the Western art scene, and has reverberated through generations to this day. Only in many cases, the high-brow duo goes full-throttle baroque, joyfully undermining their implied heritage and refusing to be categorized. Regarding the group, curator Elena Selina writes: “Their artistic language is based on playing with complex meanings, obvious and not-so-obvious comparisons, and revealing/exposing the arcane in the everyday and mundane. Thus, Wind Faces is both fabric concealing scaffolding and giant patterns of human faces inflated by the movement of air.” Conceived as public art, the blowing, ghostly representations have been shown previously both outdoors and indoors, currently acting as both enticing and unsettling in the overall twilight of the show’s space.

Bluesoup group, Sodden Creeper, 2019. Video. Next Stop Spandau installation view, 2025. (Photo: V. Subbotin.)

Bluesoup group (Daniil Lebedev, Alexey Dobrov, Alexander Lobanov) is a collective focused on very distinct video installations. Their 25-year history has brought them a fair share of museum shows and critical acclaim, but now the three founding members are based in different cities and produce new work only once every several years. This show offers two pieces: Cascade (2016) and Sodden Creeper (2019). The first one represents imperial steps being slowly and inexorably flooded with something resembling mercury, all in the direction of the viewer, who is also drowned in the music by James Welburn (drones) and Nico Lippolis (drums). It is deceivably easy to describe, only you need to be present in the viewing room to feel the triumphant anguish, a premonition of certain doom, transfixed and unable to run. In the second piece, an arch of a grey sluggish body slowly creeps along to the sweet, delicate music of the 1940s under the endless grey rain. As in many of their other works, this looped eternity of feeling is the group’s signature gesture. They catch an emotion and make it last. Narrative is replaced by contemplation. Or, as the curator places it: “The phenomenon of Bluesoup lies in this combination – artists grasp/reveal a common problem, but it is practically impossible to describe it unambiguously; it can only be sensed on a subconscious level.”

ZIP group, Waiting, 2025. Wood, metal. Next Stop Spandau installation view, 2025. (Photo: V. Subbotin).

ZIP (Stepan and Vasily Subbotin, Evgeny Rimkevich) is another example of a distributed collective. Elena Selina formulates: “ZIP group is the obvious heir to the avant-garde traditions of the 1920s, with all the characteristics of the poetics that this entails: group work in the context of a unified ideological direction, left-wing discourse, and an understanding of the created object as a symbolic metaphor with the obligatory possibility of its practical use.” Working predominantly with wood and metal, they construct large-scale installations. This newest site-specific piece, called Waiting, represents a bus stop that is also a predator’s maw. It has a welded-together bench inside; one can pass the time in relative comfort there. But the group warns it’s “…waiting in a risky place, like a shelter, but not exactly safe…” As with the other large-format installations of the group, this one will be disassembled after the show ends, and the materials will be reused for further projects. One such ongoing development by ZIP is called Garden, a communal outdoor space located in Wedding, where the Subbotin brothers reside. So, the wooden planks may become flower beds or benches and tables for free-to-all drawing classes in the next season, or they may be reinstated as parts of artworks proper; there’s no real dividing line.

ZIP group, Waiting, 2025, detail. Wood, metal. Next Stop Spandau installation view, 2025. (Photo: V. Subbotin).

In its 18-month history, the XL Project Berlin now repeats the life of post-wall Berlin in fast-forward. With rent prices growing, the natural next step is to move out, spread shoulders, and get bigger spaces for less rent. Avoid cramped art competing for attention in smallish showrooms, and do bigger shows within like-minded communities.

Spandau in general and Eiswerder in particular sound like a different town for a Berliner. But actually, it’s a beautiful 45-minute bicycle ride away, along canals and parks. Or a not-so-beautiful ride by train and bus.

Next Stop Spandau installation view, 2025. (Photo: V. Subbotin).

The exhibition will run until November 22, with the finissage on the same day at 17.00, including: a program of Bluesoup video works; a discussion with the group’s Alexey Dobrov; eating a part of MishMash’s installation (jars of pickles are being used as weights for the wind sculpture) while sitting inside ZIP’s work. You may meet raccoons and foxes along the way to the island: they are locals there.