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Der Greif Studio x The Dean Berlin
The Dean, an independent lifestyle hotel brand from Dublin, recently opened its first international property in Charlottenburg, Berlin. The hotel transforms a late 19th century building, balancing original architectural details with bold colour and avant-garde sensibility. Der Greif Studio was invited to bring an independent artistic voice to the guest rooms, featuring five emerging Berlin artists from our community.
The Concept – “Wanderers”
The works presented by Der Greif Studio reflect the rhythm of a city in motion: arriving, lingering, moving on, and telling a layered story of contemporary Berlin through light and colour. In the spirit of The Dean Berlin as a site of gentle encounter, the selection acts as a deliberate visual counterpoint to the hotel's interiors.
Five artists from the Der Greif Studio community were selected for their profound explorations of space, nature and identity, each bringing a distinct perspective on what it means to inhabit, pass through, or be shaped by the places we encounter. Many of the works explore the human figure as it drifts through landscapes, not dominating but dissolving into nature. These images of wandering through nature are also mediations on an internal search: for place, for belonging, for perspective.
The Artists:
The five Berlin artists featured each bring a distinct lens to the themes of Wanderers, from analogue processes and ecological inquiry to the quiet complexity of communal life. Their works create a thoughtful dialogue between art and the spaces guests move through.
Justus Lemm
In his series »Uncanny Valley«, Lemm examines the increasingly estranged relationship between humans and the natural world, documenting how nature is rendered artificial and strange.
Carola Lampe
Carola Lampe's series »ECHO« and »Tell me what to see« questions the invisible influence of AI and algorithms on perception, blurring the boundary between lived reality and digital construction.
Daniel Paramio
In his series »Urban Landscapes«, Paramio works with the deliberate pace of analogue photography to capture the subtle dialogue between built structures and nature as the original architect.
Monika Keiler
Monika Keiler's work »Formine« and »Unter Jägern« brings the intimacy of communal life and portraiture into the hotel's urban context, rooted in the closeness and complexity of shared existence.
Piotr Pietrus
Piotr Pietrus uses a minimal, poetic documentary language to investigate the intersection of mythology, including traces of the goddess Cybele, and contemporary ecological collapse.
Justus Lemm (based in Berlin) is a graduate of the Ostkreuzschule of Photography. His practice is grounded in an artistic-documentary approach, combining critical research and observational photography to examine the relationship between individuals, society and the environment. A recurring theme is the exploration of isolation and alienation in contemporary life.
Carola Lampe (based in Berlin) is an artist working with photography, video and installation. A graduate of Osnabrück University's Fine Arts programme, her work investigates the impact of digital technologies on society and identity, shifting between documentary and fiction to question the boundaries between reality and digital representation. Lampe has exhibited internationally and was a finalist for the PHMuseum Photography Award 2022 and a winner of the Belfast Photo Festival 2021.
Daniel Paramio (b. 1996, Madrid – based in Berlin) is a photographer and visual artist working with analogue photography and printing. His practice is rooted in slow, conceptual and documentary photography, combining portraits of queer people with landscapes and still-life images to find the extraordinary in the ordinary. Advocating for artistic creation over mass consumption, his work captures mundane and intimate moments with an emphasis on colour and pictorial composition.
Monika Keiler (b. 1979, Bavaria – based in Berlin) is a Munich-trained photographer who has assisted Martin Schoeller in New York and Arno Fischer in Berlin, and completed postgraduate studies under Ute Mahler and Robert Lyons. Since 2008 she has worked for various publications and clients, with a focus on social, environmental and political portraiture and reportage.
Piotr Pietrus (Poland – based in Berlin) is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich who completed a masterclass with Arno Fischer at the Ostkreuzschule Berlin. His documentary practice investigates the intersection of the poetic and political, with a focus on social injustice and ecological crisis. His work has been published widely including Monopol, Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin, Greenpeace Magazin, VICE and Paper Journal.