Berlin Art Week 2021

In one week’s time, the Berlin Art Week will once again turn the capital into an international meeting place for art from 15 to 19 September 2021. In this anniversary year, ‘Explore Berlin Art Week’ will be presented for the first time alongside the partner programme as an extensive educational programme for visitors of all generations: On the grounds in front of the Kindl Centre for Contemporary Art in Berlin-Neukölln, a temporary meeting place, the ‘BAW Garden’, is being created, which will inspire with workshops, talks and artistic actions and encourage exchange and participation. There will also be a varied tour programme – visitors can explore exciting places on foot, by bike or by bus, take a look behind the scenes and talk to gallery owners.

Berlin Art Week is once again made possible with funding from the Senate Department for Culture and Europe and the Senate Department for Economics, Energy and Operations and sponsored by Gasag AG. Senator for Culture Dr. Klaus Lederer: “The Berlin Art Week is an asset for Berlin! It brings together almost all the players in Berlin’s art world, from artists to galleries to project spaces, from fairs to museums. Every year it provides an opportunity to discover Berlin as a city of art in a special way, and is an explicit invitation to everyone. To all Berliners as well as all guests, art lovers and the simply curious. That is why we are supporting and promoting new mediation and participation offers in particular this year. I am looking forward to the most exciting week in Berlin’s art calendar!

Senator for Economic Affairs Ramona Pop: “The Berlin Art Week draws national and international attention to Berlin as an art and creative metropolis. Berlin Art Week is the highlight of Berlin’s art calendar and shows every year anew how important the interplay between culture and the creative industries is for the capital. The Senate Department for Economic Affairs has been a natural supporter of Berlin Art Week from the very beginning. Congratulations on the round birthday and I am sure that we will celebrate many more anniversaries in Berlin.”

Partners of Berlin Art Week 2021

Participating museums and exhibition venues include: Akademie der Künste, Berliner Festspiele/The New Infinity, Berlinische Galerie, Brücke-Museum, Gropius Bau, Haus am Lützowplatz, Haus am Waldsee, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, HAU Hebbel am Ufer, ifa-Galerie Berlin, Kindl-Zentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Nationalgalerie-Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Hamburger Bahnhof-Museum für Gegenwart-Berlin, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n. b.k.), nGbK/neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst, PalaisPopulaire, Savvy Contemporary, Schinkel Pavillon, Times Art Center Berlin.

With its new series *Discoveries, the Gallery Weekend is a partner of the Berlin Art Week and thus focuses on new discoveries: Artists who have not yet had an exhibition in the participating galleries are presented to a wider public for the first time. In addition to the Positions Berlin Art Fair, which this year opens its doors the week before Berlin Art Week with over 110 galleries from 16 countries, Misa Discoveries in St. Agnes is also part of Berlin Art Week. Three nominated Berlin galleries-Efremidis, Alexander Levy, Dorothée Nilsson Gallery-are also in the running for the VBKI Prize Berlin Galleries, which will also be awarded during the Berlin Art Week.

In addition, 10 private collections will provide exclusive insights into their collections: EAM Collection, Fluentum, haubrok foundation, Julia Stoschek Collection Berlin, Kienzle Art Foundation, Miettinen Collection | Salon Dahlmann, Museum Frieder Burda | Salon Berlin, Sammlung Ivo Wessel, Seibert Collection, The Feuerle Collection. In addition, the 10 winners of the Prize for Artistic Project Spaces and Initiatives, which will be awarded for the tenth time in 2021 by the Senate Department for Culture and Europe, will be presented. The award winners who will present their projects at Berlin Art Week are: ABA Air Berlin Alexanderplatz, Club der polnischen Versager, Coven Berlin, Creamcake, diffract | zentrum für theoretische peripherie, Directors Lounge, Liebig12, NOrthEurope / WestGermany, Spoiler Aktionsraum, U144 Untergrundmuseum.

Programme selection of the Berlin Art Week 2021 at a glance

Wednesday, 15.09.
The Berlin Art Week starts right at the beginning with numerous exhibition openings in the major institutions: The Akademie der Künste is showing the group exhibition ‘Nothingtoseeness’ with international artists such as Rosa Barba, Olafur Eliasson, Katharina Grosse, Hans Haacke, Bridget Riley and James Turrell. At the Hamburger Bahnhof-Museum für Gegenwart-Berlin, the exhibition of the nominees for the National Gallery Prize 2021 opens with Lamin Fofana, Calla Henkel and Max Pitegoff, Sandra Mujinga and Sung Tieu. The PalaisPopulaire will present this year’s ‘Artists of the Year’ art prize, which will go to three winners for the first time with Maxwell Alexandre, Conny Maier and Zhang Xu Zhan, and will also inaugurate the new outdoor sculpture ‘Kitty Fountain’ by artist Tom Sachs. Furthermore, the ifa Gallery Berlin will have its opening day on this day with the group exhibition ‘Pallay Pampa. Andine Kreuzungen’, in which the artists show alternative ways of dealing with the social and natural environment, the nGbk with ‘…oder kann das weg?’, a case study on the post-reunification period that examines artistic references to social realities of the post-1990 era, the Haus am Lützowplatz with Clemens Krauss’ exhibition ‘Massen | Masses’ and the Times Art Center Berlin with the group exhibition ‘Más Allá, el Mar Canta’ on the theme of the Chinese diaspora in Central America and the Caribbean. The n.b.k. opens an extensive retrospective of the Fluxus artist Tomas Schmit with an all-day performance programme together with the Kupferstichkabinett, as well as the solo presentations of Shilpa Gupta, Barbara Kruger and Rosemarie Trockel. At the House of World Cultures, artist and musician Nicholas Bussmann invites visitors to participate in his multi-layered experimental arrangements.

Thursday, 16.09.
This year’s 10 winners of the artistic project spaces and initiatives award open their doors to the public from today and present exhibition openings, performances and special events. The interdisciplinary platform Creamcake, for example, is showing the four-part video series ‘Cast-Off’ by Alice Z Jones and Dis Fig at c/o Kunstpunkt Berlin, which, among other things, explores potential healing practices through art and music, and at Spoiler Aktionsraum the group exhibition ‘Future Past Perfect’ opens, which transcends the boundaries of the exhibition space with site-specific interventions, sculptural fragments and performances. In the evening, the performance ‘Still Not Still’ by Ligia Lewis can be seen at HAU Hebbel am Ufer, the exhibition ‘Enigma#59: Roman’ by the artist Bili Bidjocka opens at Savvy Contemporary and the exhibition ‘Drawing as Continuum’ by the artist Tony Cragg opens at Haus am Waldsee. Furthermore, the gallery alexander levy, which is nominated for the VBKI Prize Berlin Galleries, shows the video installation ‘frame of reference I & II’ by the Taiwanese artist Su Yu Hsin.

Friday, 17.09.
Starting today, around 50 galleries open their doors to visitors as part of the Gallery Weekend *Discoveries and show art with a focus on new discoveries. In addition, the openings of the solo exhibitions by Alicja Kwade at Berlinische Galerie and Thea Djordjadze at Gropius Bau will take place. At HAU3, the performance ‘karadeniz’ by the artist caner teker can be seen in the evening, dedicated to the theatricality of wedding practices from Turkey, and at the Zeiss Großplanetarium, the Berliner Festspiele will host its programme series ‘The New Infinity’, which explores planetariums as galleries of the future, with world premieres by Actress & Actual Objects, Florence To & Bendik Giske & Bridget Ferrill, and Lucas Gutierrez & Robert Lippok, among others. The Schinkel Pavillon opens the exhibition ‘HR Giger & Mire Lee’, combining iconic sculptures, paintings and drawings by Alien creator HR Giger with kinetic installations by South Korean artist Mire Lee. As part of the Friday Night Positions, the Berlin galleries participating in the Positions Berlin Art Fair will also open their gallery spaces to visitors.

Saturday/Sunday, 18.09.—19.09.
The weekend begins on Saturday with the start of the celebratory weekend for the 30th anniversary of Kunst-Werke Berlin e.V., the supporting association of KW Institute for Contemporary Art, with a two-day programme of events and performances that includes lots of live music as well as workshops and guided tours. In addition, the all-day exhibition openings of Alexandra Bircken and Tanja Doll will take place at the Kindl Centre for Contemporary Art. The nGbK opens the exhibition ‘Neues Deutschland’ with Akinbode Akinbiyi and Elske Rosenfeld at the station urbaner kulturen in Hellersdorf. The exhibition of this year’s winners of the ‘ars viva 2022’ art prize with Tamina Amadyar, Lewis Hammond and Mooni Perry opens at the Brücke Museum. In the evening, the VBKI Prize Berlin Galleries will be awarded at the Bertelsmann Representative Office.

Over the weekend, the 10 private collections will also be an attractive point of contact: many of them will open their private rooms exclusively to visitors for Berlin Art Week and offer guided tours of their collections. In Fahrbereitschaft in Lichtenberg, for example, the haubrok foundation invites you to the exhibition opening of Judith Hopf from today and Fluentum shows the group exhibition ‘Time Without End’, which is dedicated to the textures of time, history and moving images.

BAW Garden

Together with the artist Sol Calero, a permanent meeting point for Berlin Art Week was created for the ‘BAW Garden’, where there are various daily activities that integrate and expand the programme of the partners: Workshops, talks, art and music invite visitors of all generations to come by and meet local artists and neighbours, or to relax at the end of the festival days. All events in the ‘BAW Garten’ take place in the open air and are free of charge. To participate in the events, you need a 3G certificate (vaccinated, recovered, tested).

Those who are not on site during the art week or would like to delve deeper into the Berlin Art Week programme should take a look at the digital ‘Journal’: In an interplay of outlook and retrospect, various contributions focus on the past, present and future of the ‘art city Berlin’. In addition, interviews, essays and photo spreads provide access to the content of this year’s programme and the actors of the partner network. During Berlin Art Week, the live and on-demand platform ‘Playlist’ also features audio and video formats that complement the programme.

To the full programme of ›Explore Berlin Art Week‹

To the programm of Berlin Art Week 2021

Read the journal on Berlin Art Week