Berlin Art Week 2021 Announces Its Jubilee Program

Aug. 10, 2021

The upcoming Berlin Art Week hits a festive ten-year mark, returning in full force to venues across Berlin with an enticing program of exhibitions, performances, talks, workshops and other opportunities to come together and experience art. The jubilee edition is a serious one, lending a view into the practices of a vast number of artists, many of whom are bringing today’s most relevant issues to the fore. We combed through the program to present you with a selection of shows and accompanying events to attend from September 15th to 19th.

n.b.k. is about to become one of the most art-crowded venues of this year’s Berlin Art Week, with several exhibitions running parallel. Not to be missed are the exhibitions of works by Shilpa Gupta, Barbara Kruger and Rosemarie Trockel. The latter will be the first in the new ‘n.b.k. Billboard’ series installing works semi-annually on an outdoor surface at the intersection of Friedrichstrasse and Torstrasse. Another highlight is the exhibition dedicated to the legacy of the Fluxus and actionist artist Tomas Schmit, with a program of interpretations and performances by Peter Brötzmann, Nina Canell, Harun Farocki and others.

Gropius Bau will present an extensive exhibition of Thea Djordjadze’s work in dialogue with its historical spaces, along with a site-specific installation by Emeka Ogboh in the atrium.

An exhibition of the artists nominated for the Preis der Nationalgalerie 2021—Lamin Fofana, Calla Henkel & Max Pitegoff, Sandra Mujinga and Sung Tieu—will take place at Hamburger Bahnhof. Simultaneously, the video installation ‘Fat to Ashes’ by the 2019 prize winner Pauline Curnier Jardin will be on display, accompanied by a publication. At HKW, Jardin will give an artist talk as part of the group exhibition ‘Illiberal Arts,’ which will also feature Johanna Hedva, Anne Imhof, Karrabing Film Collective, Kandis Williams and many other artists and writers, with the intention to examine the reality of the post-1989 liberal capitalist world as violently illiberal. HKW’s program will also intersect with that of Savvy Contemporary. Together they will present a continuation of the traveling project ‘Vulnerable Archives,’ which engages in strategies of alternative history writing, dissent, self-organization and practical solidarity.

‘Beyond, the Sea Sings,’ a group exhibition at Times Art Center with works by Sybil Atteck, Andrea Chung, Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa, David Zink Yi, and others, will shine a light on the Chinese diaspora in Central America and the Caribbean while tracing colonial spectralities and considering systems of kinship. On this occasion, Mercedes Azpilicueta will bring her long-term performance project ‘Molecular Love’ to Berlin and involve a local choreographer and performers for this iteration.

At Coven Berlin’s temporary space on Schlegelstrasse, an immersive performance format titled ‘Somabog’ invites visitors to occupy a bed, relax to a guided meditation and ponder on colonized body practices and rhythms of reproductive labor. It will feature two additional events on Sunday: a lecture and interactive ritual by Daddypuss Rex on the body’s transformative power as viewed by the Ancient Egyptians and the Yoruba people, and DJ Minq’s deep-listening workshop invoking the practice of Pauline Oliveiros.

The complete program of exhibitions and events is available on Berlin Art Week’s website. Now for the second year, it will be supplemented by journal entries such as interviews, essays and photo spreads related to the featured shows, artists and curators. Stay tuned!