Ongoing projects

 

A Year with...

 

Since 2017, KW Institute for Contemporary Art organizes the residency format A Year with…, a program that over the course of a year offers the participating artists the opportunity to pursue activities in the fields of design, research, literature, as well as publication projects within the context of contemporary art.

 

BPA Talks & BPA Exhibitions

 

BPA// Berlin program for artists is a mentoring program that promotes exchange between emerging and established Berlin artists*. In 2020/2021 KW Institute for Contemporary Art will enter into a partnership with BPA, which will include the formats BPA Talks and BPA Exhibitions.

 

Commissions

 

Alongside its exhibition program, KW Institute for Contemporary Art is continuously pushing beyond the confines of the physical building through its commission program. These commissions are produced in order to present a different temporality and dedication to art production, in which the environment and architecture of both institutions – KW and the Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art – is challenged.

 

KUNST-WERKE BERLIN e. V. Archive

 

The archive of KUNST-WERKE BERLIN e. V. holds materials on the history of the association and its two institutions, the KW Institute for Contemporary Art and the Berlin Biennale for contemporary art, and their activities since 1991. As a VW Fellow for Archival Research, Jenny Dirksen was responsible for setting up the archive and reads the history of the association. The result is the publication KW, a story and the podcast Loose Ends in the Archive.

 

KW Production Series

 

In collaboration with the Julia Stoschek Collection and OUTSET Germany_Switzerland, the KW Production Series project is dedicated to the artistic moving image through two new productions per year. The project is inspired by the founding principles of KW Institute for Contemporary Art as a place for production, reflection and critical exchange

 

Metabolic Museum-University (MM-U)

 

As part of the Metabolic Museum-University (MM-U), KW associate curator Clémentine Deliss and a group of colleagues are investigating the conceptual potential and politics of collecting in Berlin. The generative process of MM-U and the results of their research will be presented in a publication and a comprehensive exhibition at KW in 2023.

 

Pause

 

The Pause series of KW Institute for Contemporary Art allows for an ephemeral yet deep engagement with a single artwork in order to draw and question relationships between the past, present, and future. A Pause acts as a punctuation of KW’s regular program by presenting an artwork for a short period of time in between exhibition cycles, working with this state of in-between. Pause projects are predominantly commissioned or reworked pieces that shift between or even merge the disciplines of performance, installation, video, and sonic work.

 

Pogo Bar

 

Since 2017, the Pogo Bar, which existed in the basement vault of KW Institute for Contemporary Art back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, has hosted a rotating program of performances, readings, interventions, film screenings, and talks.

 

School of Casablanca

 

From 2020 to 2022, KW Institute for Contemporary Art and Sharjah Art Foundation are pleased to collaborate with the Goethe-Institut Morocco and ThinkArt on a joint project on the School of Casablanca – a group that developed innovative mediation and exhibition strategies in Morocco in the 1960s.

 

 

 

Previous projects

 

Lichtspiele

 

Lichtspiele is KW Institute for Contemporary Art’s intimate screening and performance series presented at Pogo Bar. Curated by Mason-Leaver Yap, the monographic program presents artistic works in dialogue with artists and the audience and takes place at the beginning of each month.

 

REALTY

 

In a collaboration between KW Institute for Contemporary Art and the Paul Klee Summer Academy, REALTY has been exploring the role of contemporary art in recent cases of gentrification since 2018. The project thus poses the question of how the international playing field of art could be better utilized – without once again discussing the inadequacies of art.

 

STATISTA

 

In collaboration with ZK/U – Center for Art and Urbanism, STATISTA investigates in the vacant House of Statistics near Alexanderplatz how cooperation based on the common good can succeed in the field of urban development. In ten fields of action, the project develops artistic prototypes for an urban society based on the commons.

 

The Berlin Sessions

 

Since 2017, KW Institute for Contemporary Art has organized a series of public talks with various institutions and organizations from Berlin under the title The Berlin Sessions. The series of talks highlights the work of Berlin’s cultural practitioners from the perspective of their colleagues, establishes connections between the diverse producers, and strengthens local networks.