Due to the current upsurge of Corona cases, we are constantly adapting our program and the hygiene rules to the current requirements regarding COVID-19. Please inform yourself about the latest protective measures by visiting our digital channels immediately before your visit to the event.

Participating Artists in alphabetical order: Agnė Žaltauskaitė, Anna-Lena Wenzel, Annaleen Louwes, Anne Wölk, Anneke Hymmen & Kumi Hiroi, Arja Hop & Peter Svenson, Betty Ras, Caty Forden, Claire Bamplekou, Daniel Kiss, David Colosi, Emily Kocken, Emmanuelle Wilhelm, Eva Mattes, Eva-Fiore Kovacovsky, Florian Japp, Franziska Wicke, Frauke Boggasch, Friederike Hammann, Fritz Bornstück, Gaby Taplick, Gunilla Jähnichen, Hanna Mattes, Hannah Gieseler, Henrieke Ribbe, Hildegard Skowasch, Hristina Tasheva, Ilona Plaum, Ine Lamers, Janine Eggert, Jean-Philippe Paumier, Jessie Yingying Gong & Anne-Laure Ruffin, Joseph Miceli, Katharina Sucker, Lotte Reimann, Markus Willeke, Martina della Valle, Matthias Droste, Natacha Mankowski, Nicole Wendel, Nora Mertes, Pantelis Makkas, Patricia Morosan, Patrick Niemann, Phoebe Pryor, Rei Matsushima, René Wirths, Riley Harmon, Roman Tkachenko, Santiago Aleman, Semra Sevin, Sina Khani, Soji Shimizu, Stefan Alber, Tania Theodorou, Thomas Monses, Victoria Hohmann, Vlad Brateanu, Xiyu Tomorrow, Yasmin Alt

Dead Darlings #14 —
From Stage-fright to Limelight

After two years of lockdowns, isolation and online events, Dead Darlings are finally stepping back into the limelight on April 9th, with a real live auction and a real live audience, and to top it all off it’s all taking place in Berlin! We can’t wait to welcome our old friends and meet our new ones in person!

Date: 9 April 2022
Where: Heimathafen Theater, Berlin
Register for the Auction: here
Doors open for preview: 14:00
Auction starts sharp: 16:00 

Dead Darlings is an anonymous art auction founded in Amsterdam in 2005 as a platform to explore the complex love triangle between artist, artwork, and collector.

Our events combine elements of performance and exhibition. Our focus is on artifacts whose value is ambiguous: dead darlings. Works that for whatever reason have not yet come to light. A dead darling is something artists would not normally sell; sometimes B-sides of the artistic process, sometimes greatest hits that were just never played before!

We give these works a second chance for love and love to tell their story. Since they have been “killed”, the starting prices are very low, giving everyone the opportunity to bid for an original, often unique artwork. What we try to do as a collective is bring something “unseen” to the public sphere while challenging notions of value, demand, desirability and commerce.

Artworks are auctioned anonymously, so the buyer can focus on what they love! All participating artists are listed, but the names are not revealed in relation to the piece until after the hammer drops! Our philosophy is to feature established artists along-side upcoming and more obscure artists all mixed together. This makes things more exciting, but also, urges collectors to buy the work they connect to without knowing who made it!

Dead Darlings is an international collective, so the event will be conducted mainly in English. There will be a helpful team on the floor to walk you through the process and answer any questions. If you win an auction lot, you pay the exact bidding price, with nothing added on and take the darling home with you right away! Proceeds will go directly to the artist who made the work, or their chosen charity, with a percentage going toward production costs and our fabulous hand-made catalog. We like to reflect on why a particular work has been cast aside by the maker. For this event we asked the artists: Can this piece be placed center stage, or does it belong in the shadows? Is it an understudy or does it have the potential to be a protagonist? The wonderful theatrical backdrop of our Berlin auction inspires us to consider all those works that haven’t yet had their moment in the spot-light and to ask why.

Come to our auction and find out!

*Bring cash to pay for your auction paddles, catalogs, drinks and other fun DD merchandise! For bigger art purchases it will be possible to pay with a card. Stay tuned for our online catalogue to preview all the dead darlings going under the hammer.

Stay tuned for our online catalogue to preview all the dead darlings going under the hammer! 

You can read about this edition’s theme in our Open Call to artists here.