Lecture:
Post-Wall Arcadia –On Dan Graham and Café Bravo
with Raoul Zöllner
11 December 24, 7 pm
In English
Venue: Café Bravo
Registration here
Information on accessibility can be found below.
Visualisation of Café Bravo, permanent installation based on designs by Dan Graham, realised in cooperation with Johanne Nalbach, Nalbach + Nalbach Gesellschaft von Architekten mbH in the inner courtyard of KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, 1998. photo: unknown
30 years ago, on a December evening in 1994, Dan Graham presented a lecture in Berlin at the Hochschule der Künste Berlin (today UdK Berlin). The lecture inspired the development of his first sculpture in which visitors could sit down and have a coffee — Café Bravo. This functional sculpture, featuring reflective stainless steel panels and two-way mirror glasses, marked a new phase in the early history of KW Institute for Contemporary Art. Since then, it has become one of KW’s most iconic commissions.
Café Bravo mirrors both the institutionalization of KW Institute for Contemporary Art and the rapid transformation of Berlin during the paradigm-shifting 1990s. Its architecture draws on commercial typologies that became markers of a dysfunctional city striving for professionalization: corporate atriums and generic shopping malls.
The lecture Post-Wall Arcadia by Raoul Zoellner is a tribute to Dan Graham (1942-2022) and his Café Bravo, which he realized with architect Johanne Nalbach. As an extension of KW, unboxed, the presentation offers new insights into the archive of KW Institute for Contemporary Art. Excerpts from the video documentation of Dan Graham’s 1994 lecture will be interwoven with historical fragments of the 1990s and reflections that Dan Graham shared in further essays.
Raoul Zoellner, who grew up in Berlin and studied at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam, is the director of the Boros Foundation. He explores new forms of guided tours and developed the mediation formats KW, a hike, and KW, unboxed for KW Institute for Contemporary Art.
Information on Accessibility
Venue:
Café Bravo is located in the courtyard of KW. There are no steps to access the courtyard, but it is paved with cobblestones in some areas. The rest rooms are accessible via stairs and an elevator. Please send us an e-mail in advance to reservation@kw-berlin.de so that we can reserve the elevator for you.
Recording:
The event will be recorded in audio form.
Time:
Entrance starts at 7 pm.
If necessary, we can offer you an earlier entrance from 6.45 pm so that you can familiarize yourself with the surroundings and choose your seat. Please register for this via reservation@kw-berlin.de.
The event might start with a delay.
Late entrance is possible.
The duration of the event is approximately 60 minutes.
The event is held without breaks.
Seating:
Seating (chairs with backrests) will be provided.
Sensory stimuli:
The event space is darkened.
Event Type:
The event is planned to be sensory friendly. This means that care is taken to reduce strong sensory stimuli in order to create a place that is as comfortable as possible for everyone. Loud noises and intense lighting effects are avoided.
Language:
The event will be mainly held in English.
There is no translation.
Content notes:
The event addresses or contains representations of: war.
Assistance:
There is free admission for assisting persons.
Service dogs can be brought along to the event.
Contact persons:
If you have any further questions regarding accessibility, please send an e-mail to reservation@kw-berlin.de.
If you have any questions on-site or need support, please approach the entrance staff.