- Public Art
Baker's Dozen: 13 Artists x 13 Kabinetts
Janin Walter
3 July 2026 19:00–22:00
4 July 2026 10:00–22:00
5 July 2026 10:00–19:00
13 Kabinetts. 13 Artists. One Baker's Dozen.
Originating in 13th-century England to avoid harsh penalties for selling underweight bread, a Baker’s Dozen (13 instead of 12) is both surplus and caution. Under King Henry III’s Assize of Bread and Ale law, bakers faced fines or flogging for short-weight loaves, so they added a 13th "vantage loaf" to ensure the required weight. One extra to prevent loss, penalty, or miscalculation. Just to be safe. It stands slightly outside the system to which it belongs, but also as a way to adhere to that very system.
Like boundaries themselves, Baker’s Dozen disrupts the comfort of closed systems. Twelve suggests completeness, order, symmetry—a neatly closed cycle. Thirteen, on the other hand, introduces a productive instability: it doesn’t reject the structure, it transcends it, but shows that every system already contains the potential for overflow.
Baker’s Dozen reflects perspectives on boundaries: not as fixed dividing lines, but as permeable zones where meanings glide, multiply, and rearrange themselves. The additional one functions as a conceptual borderland: neither entirely inside nor entirely outside. It disrupts the logic of equality and reveals how norms often only apply approximately. This surplus corresponds to artistic practices that don't aim for heroic transgression but occupy thresholds and work within inherited forms, subtly shifting them.
Surplus becomes a site of negotiation, care, and reinvention.
The exhibition unfolds across 13 Kabinetts in Neukölln, from the edge of Kreuzberg to the border of Tempelhof. Which Kabinett is the "extra" one—and does it even matter?
Originating in 13th-century England to avoid harsh penalties for selling underweight bread, a Baker’s Dozen (13 instead of 12) is both surplus and caution. Under King Henry III’s Assize of Bread and Ale law, bakers faced fines or flogging for short-weight loaves, so they added a 13th "vantage loaf" to ensure the required weight. One extra to prevent loss, penalty, or miscalculation. Just to be safe. It stands slightly outside the system to which it belongs, but also as a way to adhere to that very system.
Like boundaries themselves, Baker’s Dozen disrupts the comfort of closed systems. Twelve suggests completeness, order, symmetry—a neatly closed cycle. Thirteen, on the other hand, introduces a productive instability: it doesn’t reject the structure, it transcends it, but shows that every system already contains the potential for overflow.
Baker’s Dozen reflects perspectives on boundaries: not as fixed dividing lines, but as permeable zones where meanings glide, multiply, and rearrange themselves. The additional one functions as a conceptual borderland: neither entirely inside nor entirely outside. It disrupts the logic of equality and reveals how norms often only apply approximately. This surplus corresponds to artistic practices that don't aim for heroic transgression but occupy thresholds and work within inherited forms, subtly shifting them.
Surplus becomes a site of negotiation, care, and reinvention.
The exhibition unfolds across 13 Kabinetts in Neukölln, from the edge of Kreuzberg to the border of Tempelhof. Which Kabinett is the "extra" one—and does it even matter?
Biography
Janin Walter
Janin Walter lives and works in Berlin. Using mixed media like painting, video, mappings, collage in different cultural contexts, Walter merges artistic and scientific methods to explore the interactions between cities, spaces, and human bodies.
Her work engages with architecture, urban environments, and public spaces, focussing particularly on the impact of migrant and touristic spaces on their immediate surroundings, as well as the diverse cultural perceptions of architecture.
Her work engages with architecture, urban environments, and public spaces, focussing particularly on the impact of migrant and touristic spaces on their immediate surroundings, as well as the diverse cultural perceptions of architecture.
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