Berlin Art Link

28/05/2025

On June 3, Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz presents Constanza Macras’ theatre piece ‘Back to the Present.’ Premiering in 2003 in the abandoned Jandorf department store in Mitte before touring the world, ‘Back to the Present’ returns after more than 20 years, performed by original cast member Jill Emerson who is surrounded by all new performers.

Set in the casting of a new reality show, Macras’ characters lean into personality archetypes as they imagine trying to win over a mass audience. Fetishized objects of former relationships accumulate like debris under a mountain of rubble. ‘Back to the Present’ considers where you go when you don’t want to deal with the past or the future.

For more information on the performance and to buy tickets:

Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz

27/05/2025

✨ TICKET GIVEAWAY ✨⁠
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On May 31, E-WERK Luckenwalde presents ‘The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish, part 6: Love and Lament,’ a symposium festival that considers expressions of the Earth’s life forms. Across visual art, literature, spirituality, biology, and technology, the program explores how the traditional cycles of collapse and renewal are being challenged and interrupted for a world in change. The symposium is co-curated by Filipa Ramos and Lucia Pietroiusti in collaboration with Schering Stiftung, and speakers include Asad Raza, Antoine Bertin, Alejandra Pombo Su, and Giles Round.

‘Love Is the Message, The Message Is Death’ by Arthur Jafa also opens at E-WERK Luckenwalde on May 31, consisting of images focused on the lives of BIPOC people set against the backdrop of systemic racism and white supremacism.
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We have 2 x 2 tickets to give away for the symposium on May 31 from 12–8pm, which will also grant access to the Arthur Jafa exhibition. To enter the ticket giveaway, follow Berlin Art Link on Facebook, like this post and tag a friend in the comments. The winners will be drawn at 10am on Friday, May 30 and contacted via DM.⁠
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To read more about the symposium:

The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish, part 6: Love and LamentCo-curated by Lucia Pietroiusti and Filipa Ramos in collaboration with Schering Stiftung31 May

27/05/2025

Ballhaus Ost presents ‘Sportfest’ from May 31 to June 21, inviting audiences to rethink the connections between bodily performance and political practice.

For three weeks, Ballhaus Ost is reimagined an experimental arena where bodies move, exert themselves, compete and, most importantly, collaborate. Together with performers, researchers and interdisciplinary artists, the collaborative aim looks to turn physical exertion into a critical tool. The program includes everything from performance ‘On Horses – Sports Edition’ by Eva Hintermaier and Simon Kalus which stages a surreal dialogue between two performers and a life-sized, wooden horse, to FLINTA+ self-defense classes ‘Self Defence. No Offence’.

Join for the opening reception and fight night on Saturday May 31 at 7pm, and see their full program:

Preview of the upcoming ‘Sportfest—Festival with Training, Performance, Installations, Discourse and Tournaments’ at Ballhaus Ost

27/05/2025

Berlin Art Week is accepting applications for its 2025 edition, taking place September 10 to 14, 2025.

The Featured Section welcomes proposals that push the boundaries of exhibition-making and public engagement. The Gallery Award is open to Berlin Galleries that have been established for 3–15 years for outstanding curatorial concepts presented during BAW 2025.

Apply by May 31 and June 30 respectively and read our article for more information:

Berlin Art Week 2025 invites submissions for the VBKI Prize and Featured section, open to galleries, collectives and artists working in Berlin.

27/05/2025

Kaari Upson’s major retrospective ‘Dollhouse’ opens today at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk.

Probing the porous boundaries between self and other, the psychologically charged works take the image of a dollhouse as the mind’s eerie inner architecture. Her most iconic works, including the long-running ‘Larry Project,’ are attempts to unfurl a subconscious archive of buried fantasies and projections. Through ghostly replicas of suburban architecture and disquieting video works, Upson unearthed the latent anxieties of American life, returning again and again to the domestic stage of collective delusion and desire.

This exhibition is included in our Worldwide Exhibition Top Picks for May 2025. To read our full selection of exhibitions from around the globe:

International exhibition openings in May at MoMA, Louisiana Museum, Mudam Luxembourg, WIELS and more

26/05/2025

“The kitschiness of some everyday objects can ambiguously accommodate both flat narratives and ones loaded with meaning.”

Georgian-American artist Ketuta Alexi-Meskhishvili presents the exhibition ‘there, but not’ at Kunstverein Braunschweig. The works use the tulip as a starting point, the flower emerging as a symbol of dissent following the tragic events of April 9th, 1989, when dozens were killed in the streets of Tbilisi following an anti-Soviet protest, the area later covered in tulips in memoriam.

Navigating the significance of symbolism, Gabriela Acha writes on kaleidoscopic aspects, mass-produced serviette motifs, and the cyclical logic of life and history in her review.

Read the full article:

Gabriela Acha reviews the solo exhibition of Ketuta Alexi-Meskhishvili at Kunstverein Braunschweig

26/05/2025

This week in Berlin, exciting openings, events, and performances include ‘Sportfest – Festival with Training, Performance, Installations, Discourse and Tournaments’ at Ballhaus Ost featuring work by Jackie Rydz, Norwin Tharayil, and Toni Jessen amongst others, Yotam Peled & the Free Radicals’ performance ‘FISTS TO FLOWERS’ at Dock 11, performances ‘Eunuchs’ by Irmãs Brasil and ‘The Myth: last day’ by Netti Nüganen at Sophiensæle as part of international performance festival ‘Making Life in the Ruins’, program of lectures, conversations, performances, a DJ Set, and installation ‘AI (Ancestral Immediacies): The Collective Brain’ at HKW, exhibition by Arthur Jafa ‘Love is the Message, The Message is Death’, as well as symposium ‘The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish, part 6: Love and Lament’ at E-WERK Luckenwalde.

See the full list of events:

Berlin Art Link shares our favorite picks for art openings in Berlin, including DOCK 11, E-WERK Luckenwalde, HKW, and more

23/05/2025

✨ TICKET GIVEAWAY ✨⁠
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Over May 31 and June 1 weekend, Barcelona-based group La Veronal presents ‘Totentanz – Morgen ist die Frage’ at International DANCE Festival München.

Understanding death as an exorcism against fear, the performance intertwines the boundaries between this world and the hereafter. Engaging in a bizarre ritual, performers express the emotional spectrum of mortality with fragmented gestures and extreme postures against the soundtrack of techno beats. The piece is choreographed and directed by Marcos Morau.

We have 1 x 2 tickets to give away for the performance of ‘Totentanz’ on June 1st at 7pm. To enter the ticket giveaway, follow Berlin Art Link on Facebook, like this post and tag a friend in the comments. The winners will be drawn at 2pm on Tuesday, May 27 and contacted via DM.⁠
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To read more about the performance:

The Dance of Death, also known as "Danse Macabre", is one of the most iconic motifs of the Middle Ages. Death is often portrayed as a skeletal figure who comes to claim the lives of the living. The Dance with the Death symbolizes a kind of exorcism against fear – a carnivalesque act of vitality ...

23/05/2025

“Dark humor, in particular, is not just a panacea that makes you survive pain, but is something that allows the thinking body to keep working.”

Zasha Colah is the curator of the 13th Berlin Biennale, this edition themed under the title ‘passing the fugitive on.’ Opening June 13, the biennale encompasses over 60 artists and 170 works, making reference to “art’s ability to define its own laws in the face of lawful violence in unjust systems and to assert itself even under conditions of persecution and militarization” in Colah’s words.

As part of our feature topic Legality, Alison Hugill interviews Colah, discussing using humour to remain whole, the pedestal of art history, and survival instincts. Read the full interview:

Alison Hugill interviews 13th Berlin Biennale curator Zasha Colah about the concept of fugitivity underpinning the exhibition

23/05/2025

This weekend in Berlin, our selection of must-see openings and events include the opening of Julian Rosefeldt’s exhibition ‘Nothing is Original’ tonight at C/O Berlin offering a rare glimpse behind the scenes of the artist’s image production presenting works from over thirty years of his career, Nina Könnemann’s exhibition ‘BLOCKEN / Further Reductions’ at Haus Am Waldsee interested in the way people interact in public space, focusing on marginal spaces, everyday behaviors, and subcultural dynamics opening tomorrow evening, and listening experience ‘Sonic Creatures [Amazon Rainforest]’ by Francisco López on Reethaus on Sunday afternoon, a 6-hour sound installation following an archetypal day in the Amazon rainforest.

See the full list of events:

Berlin Art Link shares our favorite picks for art openings in Berlin, including C/O Berlin, Sophiensæle, TD, Klemm’s, Kühlhaus, Hošek Contemporary, and more

20/05/2025

“A blue butterfly, its wings bruised and tattered, rests on a reflective puddle at the show’s entrance. The ground smells of fragrant earth: damp, aromatic and almost cloyingly alive. Giant hand-woven tapestries of flax and h**p, some nine meters tall, hang from the trusses.”

The vaulted central hall of Hamburger Bahnhof is home to Klára Hosnedlová’s largest institutional solo exhibition to date ‘embrace.’ Drawing on the material legacies of socialist Moravia and Cold War architecture, the major installation gestures toward histories of control, division and erasure through the language of vast tactile tapestries and resin pools trapping butterfly wings.

Johanna Siegler writes on intergenerational, somatic remembering and the lively possibility of play and transformation in her review. Read the article:

19/05/2025

This week in Berlin, must-see openings, performances, and events include ‘Lygia Clark: Retrospective’ at Neue Nationalgalerie, Julian Rosefeldt’s exhibition ‘Nothing is Original’ at C/O Berlin, Zuzanna Bartoszek’s exhibition ‘Film Noir’ at Klemm’s Downstairs, ‘BBA Prizes 2025: 10 Year Anniversary Exhibition’ at Kühlhaus Berlin featuring work by René Riis, Asafe Ghalib, Moritz Thoma, and Esther Garrison, Enad Marouf’s performance ‘And Now It Is Night’ at Sophiensæle, and Malte Schlösser’s performance ‘IN:KON:SIS:TEN:ZEN’ at TD.

See the full list of events:

Berlin Art Link shares our favorite picks for art openings in Berlin, including C/O Berlin, Sophiensæle, TD, Klemm’s, Kühlhaus, Hošek Contemporary, and more