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Lena Braun
Lena Braun (born April 4, 1961 in Wuppertal, Germany) is a Berlin-based artist, curator and author. She works as a cross-genre artist in the fields of performance and visual arts, often addressing non-normative femininity and gender expression. The art spaces that she has curated since 1988 have earned her the reputation of being a "Grand Dame" of Berlin's art scene.
Braun grew up in western Germany and came to Berlin in 1981 to study at FU Free University. In 1987, she wrote her master's thesis on the novel "The Tigress: A Strange Love Story" by Walter Serner. In 1988, she opened the first of her – to this day - 9 art spaces in Berlin. The art magazine Kunstforum International called it a "meeting place for the young, experimental art scene" and Braun soon made a name for herself as "a real diva of Berlin's cultural scene". One of her art spaces, the Boudoir in Berlin-Mitte (1991 – 1995), was honored by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York with the exhibition “Boudoir in Exile and is now considered the “First Queer Art Salon” in Berlin.
In 1993, she founded the Queen Barbie Lodge, defined as an “underground organization” for women artists. The lodge, which Braun chaired until 2009, was the female counterpart to an all-male association called Lord Jim Lodge, operated by artists like Martin Kippenberger and Albert Oehlen (among others). The Queen Barbie Lodge regularly organized exhibitions and performances ironizing sexism and championing female empowerment. The Berlin city magazine Tip wrote: “Lena Braun aka Queen Barbie is not only a curator, but also a visual artist and above all an intrepid performer. As a curator, she … mainly promotes and exhibits female artists, without being dogmatic about it.”
Alongside her curatorial projects, Lena Braun also works as a freelance author and artist. In the 1990s and 2000s, she wrote plays, acted in films and published a periodical for the Queen Barbie Lodge (36 issues, Xerox art). In 2013 she founded a literary label called Edition Fortyfour, where she publishes her novels. Braun's artistic oeuvre includes performances, collages and installations. She exhibits both in Germany and internationally.
Lena Braun has been initiating and curating art spaces in Berlin since 1988. She sees her spaces as installations, i.e. artificial environments that stage art (as opposed to showing it in a white cube). For an exhibition on "Today's Avant-Garde" at the Kindl Center for Contemporary Art in Berlin (2017) Braun created an installation that reflects her point of view: "My art spaces are campy environments that shape alternative queer lifestyles and suspend classic markers of social exclusion such as age, origin, or saleability."
The press often focuses on the ambience in which Braun presents art. The British Guardian, for example, listed her art space Barbie Deinhoff's as one of the ten best bars in Berlin. The German national weekly Die Zeit described another of her art spaces, the BOUDOIR, as a mixture of "club, gallery and art happening".
Similar comments were made by media such as Die Welt, Die tageszeitung and Tagesspiegel.
In a recent interview with the Berlin-based radio station RBB, Braun described this very mix as intentional: Her art spaces, says Braun, are social spaces meant to transcend art world elitism.
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Lena Braun
Lena Braun (born April 4, 1961 in Wuppertal, Germany) is a Berlin-based artist, curator and author. She works as a cross-genre artist in the fields of performance and visual arts, often addressing non-normative femininity and gender expression. The art spaces that she has curated since 1988 have earned her the reputation of being a "Grand Dame" of Berlin's art scene.
Braun grew up in western Germany and came to Berlin in 1981 to study at FU Free University. In 1987, she wrote her master's thesis on the novel "The Tigress: A Strange Love Story" by Walter Serner. In 1988, she opened the first of her – to this day - 9 art spaces in Berlin. The art magazine Kunstforum International called it a "meeting place for the young, experimental art scene" and Braun soon made a name for herself as "a real diva of Berlin's cultural scene". One of her art spaces, the Boudoir in Berlin-Mitte (1991 – 1995), was honored by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York with the exhibition “Boudoir in Exile and is now considered the “First Queer Art Salon” in Berlin.
In 1993, she founded the Queen Barbie Lodge, defined as an “underground organization” for women artists. The lodge, which Braun chaired until 2009, was the female counterpart to an all-male association called Lord Jim Lodge, operated by artists like Martin Kippenberger and Albert Oehlen (among others). The Queen Barbie Lodge regularly organized exhibitions and performances ironizing sexism and championing female empowerment. The Berlin city magazine Tip wrote: “Lena Braun aka Queen Barbie is not only a curator, but also a visual artist and above all an intrepid performer. As a curator, she … mainly promotes and exhibits female artists, without being dogmatic about it.”
Alongside her curatorial projects, Lena Braun also works as a freelance author and artist. In the 1990s and 2000s, she wrote plays, acted in films and published a periodical for the Queen Barbie Lodge (36 issues, Xerox art). In 2013 she founded a literary label called Edition Fortyfour, where she publishes her novels. Braun's artistic oeuvre includes performances, collages and installations. She exhibits both in Germany and internationally.
Lena Braun has been initiating and curating art spaces in Berlin since 1988. She sees her spaces as installations, i.e. artificial environments that stage art (as opposed to showing it in a white cube). For an exhibition on "Today's Avant-Garde" at the Kindl Center for Contemporary Art in Berlin (2017) Braun created an installation that reflects her point of view: "My art spaces are campy environments that shape alternative queer lifestyles and suspend classic markers of social exclusion such as age, origin, or saleability."
The press often focuses on the ambience in which Braun presents art. The British Guardian, for example, listed her art space Barbie Deinhoff's as one of the ten best bars in Berlin. The German national weekly Die Zeit described another of her art spaces, the BOUDOIR, as a mixture of "club, gallery and art happening".
Similar comments were made by media such as Die Welt, Die tageszeitung and Tagesspiegel.
In a recent interview with the Berlin-based radio station RBB, Braun described this very mix as intentional: Her art spaces, says Braun, are social spaces meant to transcend art world elitism.