HR Giger & Mire Lee inside the Schinkel Pavillon

We live in a globalized world, traditions and customs are not exempt from this. A particularly good example is Halloween, which has become a fixed part of the "spooky season" in the month of October in Germany. Halloween is otherwise traditionally celebrated extensively with much devotion throughout the month of October, especially in the U.S., with its climax on Halloween night on October 31. In fact, Halloween or Samhain has its roots in the ancient Celtic world and that brings us back to Central Europe. Samhain is a Gaelic festival that marks the end of the harvest season and the beginning of the "darker half" of the year. At Samhain, it is was/is believed that the veil between the physical and spiritual worlds is thinnest and thus spirits can more easily "cross over" to us, hence "the spooky season."

This is not confirmed, of course, but I'm pretty sure that the current seductive-dystopian exhibition at the Schinkel Pavillon, with works by the Swiss master of horror HR Giger (1940-2014) and works by the South Korean artist Mire Lee (*1988), not coincidentally falls in October.

Esther Harrison

Autorin Kunst Berlin