The Boros Collection is a 700-plus collection of contemporary artworks ranging from the 1990s to present day. Since 2008, every four years, a curated selection of the collection is exhibited and housed in a former Nazi-era bunker located in the Mitte district of Berlin. 

The bunker separates the visitor from the outside world with its lack of windows and natural sunlight, its repetitive maze-like structure of grey concrete obliges the visitor to become fully immersed in the collection on show and concentrate on the artworks presented.

The austere look of the three-metre thick walls becomes a background to the diverse contemporary artworks, from sculpture to photography to painting to installations, that are presented and changed after approximately every four years.

The collection’s founders are husband and wife Christian and Karen Boros.

Karen and Christian Boros, Photo: © Max von Gumpenberg

Christian (born 1964, Poland) is the founder of Boros, a prolific advertising and communications agency based in Berlin, after having moved from Wuppertal.

THE BOROS FOUNDATION

Photo: Boros Collection, Berlin © NOSHE

The Boros Foundation is a non-profit organisation that promotes and supports contemporary art through the presentation of the collection at the bunker exhibition space.

Visitors are accompanied through the bunker by a guide. These guides are art historians, artists and cultural scientists themselves.

The mediators ensure that the public feels at ease with each work, explaining both the context in the exhibition and other works by the artist to make the most from the artwork on show.

The Boros Collection has welcomed more than 600,000 visitors since its opening in 2008. In addition to the exhibitions in the centre of Berlin, the Boros Foundation offers another exhibition space in Charlottenhohe in Brandenburg to further support local artists.

‘BOROS COLLECTION #4’

The most recent rehang of the Boros Collection titled Boros Collection #4 opened its doors during Berlin’s Gallery Weekend in May 2022; the collection will be on show until 2026.

The collection includes works by Julian Charriere, Anna Uddenberg, Anne Imhof, Yngve Holen and sixteen other artists.

Anna Uddenberg, Rona's Revenge, 2020, Photo: Boros Collection, Berlin © NOSHE

Past reshuffling of the collection has presented names such as Olafur Eliasson, Elmgreen & Dragset, Sarah Lucas, Cerith Wyn Evans, Thomas Ruff and many others. 

‘STUDIO BERLIN’

In response to the Covid-19 pandemic bringing the art world to a standstill, the Boros Collection collaborated with Berghain, an iconic institution in Berlin’s nightlife.

From a former East German power plant to a techno haven, today the Berghain building hosts roughly 1,500 visitors over its four floors. The exhibition title was Studio Berlin, where the works of over 80 Berlin-based artists were exhibited in the various spaces of the nightclub turned temporary art gallery.

The project ran from September 2020 to August 2021, including an enforced period of closure from November to June.

The Boros Foundation stated: “The main purpose of this exhibition project is to reflect upon the current status and the shifts in art and society and to give artists in Berlin a platform for their recent artistic practice.”

Klára Hosnedlová, Untitled (from the series nest), 2020, Photo: Boros Collection, Berlin © NOSHE

HOW TO CATCH A GLIMPSE OF THE BOROS COLLECTION

It is possible to visit the collection by booking a guided tour on the Boros Collection website in advance, but availability of spaces often runs out quickly due to its popularity as a unique exhibition space.

On the occasion of certain events in Berlin’s art and culture calendars, such as Berlin Art Week and Gallery Weekend, the Boros Collection permits entry without the need to book a visit.

Having considered other spaces such as swimming pools, schools, and hospitals to house their extensive art collection, the Boros couple decided on the former wartime air raid shelter when it came available on the market in the early 2000s.

Regarding the space’s rigidity to eventually become an art gallery, Boros commented that they finally agreed on the bunker as “it was the most impossible. I am always magically drawn to problems”.

The building has been through several transformations before today’s function as an exhibition space of contemporary art.

Yngve Holen, FOD, 2021, Photo: Boros Collection, Berlin © NOSHE

THE BOROS BERLIN BUNKER’S HISTORY

The Reichsbahnbunker was originally designed by Karl Bonatz in 1942 as an air raid shelter for the nearby train station during World War II.

With 120 rooms spread over five floors, the bunker could take in as many as 3,000 people.

Immediately after the war, the large rooms were occupied by the Red Army where they would house prisoners of war.

By 1957, at the time the bunker was located in East Germany (GDR), due to its thick walls and cool temperature, imported tropical fruits from Cuba were kept in storage in the bunker, earning the name “banana bunker”.

After the Berlin Wall’s falling and the German Reunification, the structure became federal property.

Between 1992 and 1995, the bunker morphed into a club venue where it would host techno and gabber DJs and fetish parties. Closed for several years, it was later bought by Boros with the intention of transforming it into a gallery and a private home for his family on the top floor.

Renovation work was then executed by Casper Mueller Kneer Architects between 2003 and 2007.

The finalised project presented a gallery space measuring 3,000sqm and a 500sqm roof extension as living quarters for the Boros family.

Even though work has been done on the building, bringing the structure into the 21st century, several features have been preserved as a reminder of the bunker’s long history: bullet holes in the facade, a cut-out delivery entrance in the wall for imported goods and even remnants of the short-lived rave scene that once occupied the bunker.

Cyprien Gaillard, Lesser Koa Moorhen, 2013, Photo: Boros Collection, Berlin © NOSHE

ARTISTS CURRENTLY ON SHOW AT THE BOROS BERLIN BUNKER

The latest rehang of the Boros Collection brings together a range of names in contemporary art, from the social criticism of Paulo Nazareth to the symbolic figures of Bunny Rogers.

The following are several names from the newest selection. 

Julian Charriere’s (1987, Switzerland) work focuses on the relationship between man, the natural environment, and cultural history.

Charriere brings together performance, sculpture, and photography to present the finalities of his research, often conducted in remote locations, from volcanoes to deserted landscapes.

For the project I Am Afraid, I Must Ask You To Leave, Charriere collaborated with artist Julius Von Bismarck.

They create a fake news video of explosions with a false landscape made to resemble the sculptural rock formations of Utah, instead, they are pieces of coloured concrete – a reflection on cultural heritage, destruction and propagandist videos.

Anne Imhof (1978, Germany) won the Golden Lion award in 2017 for the performance Faust at the German Pavilion during the Venice Biennale.

The piece invoked feelings of unease as large Dobermann dogs guarded the Pavilion’s entrances, the floor replaced by glass, and performers placed around the structure move in a jerked manner, above and below the observer.

An innovative figure in durational performance art, Imhof intersects other mediums of video, and sculpture, confronting and questioning the power dynamics between artist and viewer.

He Xiangyu (1986, China) is a conceptual artist, whose Cola Project (2009-2011) consisted of boiling down sixty thousand bottles of Coca-Cola to its destroyed desiccated state.

He Xiangyu, Asian Boy, 2019-2020, Photo: Boros Collection, Berlin © NOSHE

At first working alone, later employing migrant workers to assist in the project, Xiangyu boiled down a total of 127 tons of the popular soft drink, a symbol of Western capitalism. The final presentation is a black crystalline residue which fills rooms or placed in a glass casing. 

Other artists currently on show are Alicja Kwade, Jean-Marie, Thomas Eggerer, Cyprien Gaillard, Ximena Garrido-Lecca, Yngve Holen, Klára Hosnedlova, Victor Man, Kris Martin, Nick Mauss, Jonathan Monk, Adrian Morris, Berenice Olmedo, Amalia Pica, Michael Sailstorfer, Wilhelm Sasnal, Pieter Schoolwerth, Julius Von Bismarck and Eric Wesley.

Cover Credit: Bunny Rogers, Photo: Boros Collection, Berlin © NOSHE

Writer | Glesni Trefor Williams

Glesni Trefor Williams is a Bologna-based art journalist/translator from North Wales, who focuses her writing on contemporary art and interlinked exhibition spaces. She has written for Lampoon, Spinosa Magazine, and is an arts contributor on BBC Wales radio. @glesniw

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