SALON: MAU R

SALON: MAU R at AOA;87 in Berlin is an ambitious group show that reflects on ruptures, conviction and the end of illusion. Framing itself as an anniversary celebration of the gallery’s five years of activity, it rejects polished aesthetics and embraces friction, tension and cultural critique. Drawing its name from the German word Mauer (wall) and altering it as “MAU R,” the exhibition signals a stance: walls may be made, rebuilt or dismantled—but what matters most is how we think about them.

At its core lies the collaborative project by DŸSE, which takes the Berlin Wall as material, metaphor and archive. The work transforms the Wall into a concrete object hand-cast in a 1:10 scale, housing a cassette with “East” and “West” sides: a physical embodiment of division, sound and memory. Around forty artists have designed individual segments of this object, and these modules now stand in the gallery as both art and manifesto. The exhibition becomes a salon in the classical sense: a space for ideas, for dialogue between art, politics, music and society.

Through paintings, installations, sound work and hybrid objects, SALON: MAU R brings together foundational voices of AOA;87’s programme—artists such as Helga Schmidhuber, Holger Schmidhuber, Noriko Ambe, Onome Ekeh, Ida-Marie Corell, Margarete Adler and others. It isn’t a retrospective in the usual sense; rather, it is a conversation—between sound and silence, chaos and clarity, commitment and reflection. Visitors are invited not just to observe but to engage, to stand in the space that the gallery defines as a hub of diversity and critical art practice.