I Is love a game that only knows losers? At least that’s what British singer Amy Winehouse claimed almost 20 years ago in “Love is a Losing Game,” the last single she released published during his lifetime. It’s about the failure of love; For curator Philipp Lange, there is also an idea of self-empowerment in the song’s message, provided you accept that the heart hurts sometimes. A thought he expressed in a song named after the song Group exhibition at PSM pursued.
Some of the works tell of loneliness and injuries. Nicolás Astorga was brutal: he pierced a heart-shaped piece of coal with arrows. Others capture in images how infatuation flares up and burns out, similar to the dandelions that Katja Aufleger lit for the smartphone video “I’m angry just not sure about what” (2021).
Flaka Haliti analyzed the development and decline of long-distance relationships in more detail. “I miss you, I miss you, till I don’t miss you anymore” (2012-2014) divides love at a distance into three phases using semi-fictional text messages, read by chilled computer voices.
„Love is a Losing Game“, PSM Gallery, until February 21st, Tue.-Sat. 12 p.m. – 6 p.m., Schöneberger Ufer 61
„Found in Translation“, Under the Mango Treeuntil February 6th, Wed.-Fri. 3:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m., Sat.+Sun. 1:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m., Merseburger Str. 14
Self-love and closeness speak from other works. Even if it’s just between two heating pipes, like in one of Ziva Drvaric’s prints. Marc-Aurèle Debut presents objects reminiscent of worn mattresses inscribed with intimacy.
Lange has written a text about all of this that is definitely worth reading Brief an Amy Winehousein which he explains to her and to the visitor his concept, his search for answers “to the big questions of love” and images for “its impenetrability and its beauty, which can be found even in pain”.
Migration and identity
Also in the group exhibition “Found in Translation”, which runs until February 6th can be seen at Under the Mango Treeit’s about self-determination, but under different circumstances. All seven artists deal with migration and identity in the diaspora.
The Japanese Sugano Matsusaki, who lives in Berlin, examines words and calligraphy. Hira Khan made bras out of rice sacks, referencing the taboo nature of female underwear in Pakistan and the country’s role in the globalized textile industry.
Pegah Keshmirshekan, „Re-imagining Homeland 2“, 2025
Photo:
Pegah Keshmirshekan, Under the Mango Tree
Pegah Keshmirshekan paints “Impossible Bouquets,” floral arrangements based on 17th-century Dutch still life painting. Impossible, impossible because the flowers bloom in far away places or different times. Always integrated into her paths is the imperial crown, which comes from her native Iran, an ornamental plant popular in Europe but now threatened with extinction there.