Hamburger Bahnhof On Tour: six concerts and performances with Annika Kahrs and Saâdane Afif. With the monthly event series “Hamburger Bahnhof On Tour”, the museum is placing a special emphasis on networking with Berlin cultural players for its 30th anniversary: from February to July 2026, the Hamburger Bahnhof, in cooperation with Freunde Guter Musik Berlin e.V., is organizing six concerts and performances by the Berlin artists Annika Kahrs and Saâdane Afif at the Museum of Musical Instruments SIM, the Berlin Museum of Medical History, the Evangelical Church of the Holy Spirit, the Red Salon of the Volksbühne at Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, KM28 and the canteen at Berghain.
Image above: Annika Kahrs, Strings, 2010, HD video, color, sound, 8:20 min., video still image © Courtesy of the artist and Produzentengalerie Hamburg
From February to April 2026, a program will take place as part of the exhibition “Annika Kahrs. OFF SCORE”, providing an overview of her performances from the past 16 years. Kahrs’ performances question musical structures as well as factors of music production, performance practice and listening habits, and challenge virtuosity and traditional formats.
The exhibition at Hamburger Bahnhof, running until May 3, 2026, showcases the most comprehensive selection of her works to date at the intersection of art and music. To kick off the “Hamburger Bahnhof on Tour” series on February 19, 2026, Kahr’s film “Completely Invalid, Just an Attempt” (2024) will be screened at the Museum of Musical Instruments, where it will be available to view free of charge until March 1, 2026.
From May to July 2026, three additional evenings of performances will take place alongside the exhibition “Saâdane Afif. Five Preludes,” directly related to the works shown in the museum. Afif’s works, with their diverse references to 20th-century art history, initiate a process of viewing and interpretation, involving both participants and viewers.
He invites female artists and writers to create poetic commentaries on his works in their respective languages. These so-called “lyrics” are part of the exhibition, which runs until September 13, 2026, and form the starting point for the performances: on three evenings, a selection of the “lyrics” written for the exhibited works will be interpreted by female musicians and performers from diverse backgrounds.
PROGRAM
Tickets for the concerts: 15 / 12 Euros
Advance booking: reservix.de (from the end of January 2026)
Annika Kahrs: OFF SCORE LIVE
Thursday, 19. February 2026
SIM Museum of Musical Instruments
Ben-Gurion-Straße 1, 10785 Berlin
6 p.m. – Opening of the video installation “Completely Invalid, Just an Attempt” (2024)
Curt-Sachs-Saal, free admission
The film “Completely Invalid, Just an Attempt” takes Anton Bruckner’s (1824–1896) Symphony No. 0 as its starting point – a work that the Austrian composer himself described as “invalid.” Annika Kahrs uses this so-called zeroth symphony as a material and conceptual foundation to examine processes of discarding, revising, and reinventing.
Five musicians perform Bruckner’s Symphony No. 0 in a concert hall. During the performance, the original score is altered, having been previously erased, overwritten, or supplemented by hand by young people from various locations within the world of music reception and production. In this way, classical interpretation and contemporary forms of composition intertwine to create a new piece of music. The film runs until March 1, 2026; admission is free.
8 pm
Strings, 2010, string quartet
Alone Together, 2016, 4 performers, Kaleidoskop Soloists Ensemble
In “Strings” and “Alone Together,” Kahrs explores the structure of a classical quartet, pushing its boundaries. In “Strings,” a string quartet is deliberately thrown off-beat by having the musicians exchange instruments and positions after each movement. In “Alone Together,” a vocal quartet deconstructs a three-minute jazz classic into a 30-minute performance through temporal expansion and spatial separation—a study of synchronicity, autonomy, and collective failure, from which something new emerges.
Wednesday, 18. March 2026, 7 pm
Berlin Museum of Medical History at the Charité, Lecture Hall Ruins
Virchowweg 16, 10117 Berlin
Score of Symptoms, 2026 (World Premiere)
7 performers, Kaleidoskop Soloists Ensemble
In her new performance “Score of Symptoms,” created for the soloists’ ensemble Kaleidoskop, Kahrs explores illness and healing as existential states. The performance venue, the impressive ruined lecture hall in Berlin’s Museum of Medical History, becomes a symbol of wounding and transformation. Kahrs understands healing not as a return to the previous state, but as an individual, transformative process that is expressed here performatively through sound, gesture, and physicality.
Wednesday, 15. April 2026, 8 pm
Evangelical Church of the Holy Spirit
Perleberger Straße 36, 10559 Berlin
The Lord loves changes, it’s one of his greatest delusions, 2018
Piper Choir and Organ, Alexander Moosbrugger – Organ
In the performance “the lord loves changes, it’s one of his greatest delusions,” Kahrs combines organ playing with a whistling choir that deconstructs the musical material to the point of exhaustion. Based on the work “Gay Guerrilla” (1979) by the American composer Julius Eastman, which is built upon the hymn “Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott” (pre-1529) by Martin Luther, a multifaceted commentary on change, resistance, and the symbolic power of musical quotations unfolds. The performance, originally conceived as a video work, is taking place live in a church for the first time—a place itself charged with sacred and political history.
Saâdane Afif: FIVE PRELUDES LIVE
Thursday, 28. May 2026, 8 pm
Red Salon of the Volksbühne at Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz
Linienstrasse 227, 10178 Berlin
The Fountain Archives & Anthology of Black Humor
For many years, Saâdane Afif researched the reception history of Marcel Duchamp’s readymade “Fountain” and explored it in her work “The Fountain Archives.” Ten of the resulting lyrics were set to music by Berlin-based composer and musician Augustin Maurs. They are performed with flutes and voice specially composed by Afif for these pieces.
The second part of the program presents a selection of lyrics written for the work “Anthologie de l’humour noir”, which reflect on themes such as transience or the museum as a guarantor of the preservation of art.
Tuesday, 23. June 2026, 8 pm
KM28
Karl-Marx-Strasse 28, 12043 Berlin
The Old & Melancholic Beat Live
Afif commissioned his first lyrics in 2004 for the four works in his exhibition “Melancholic Beat” at the Museum Folkwang. These four texts, along with the twelve lyrics written in 2025 for the work complex “The Old,” will be performed. The performance “Melancholic Beat Live” is a commission from the Museum Folkwang as part of the exhibition “Saâdane Afif. Affiches / Plakate,” Museum Folkwang, Essen (March 13–October 4, 2026).
Tuesday, 7. July 2026, 8 pm
Canteen at Berghain
At Wriezener Bahnhof, 10243 Berlin
2000 millimètres d’infinis possibles & Live
In the two-part program, the lyrics to the works “2000 millimètres d’infinis possibles” and “Live” will be performed by musicians working in the fields of improvised and experimental music.
WHEN?
Exhibition: Thursday 19. February – Tuesday 7. July 2026
WHEN?
HAMBURGER BAHNHOF –
NATIONALGALERIE DER GEGENWART
Invalidenstraße 50
10557 Berlin
