Public Art

Work Contract is a commissioned work by Sung Tieu (b. 1987, Vietnam) and forms part of the artist’s ongoing research into the 1980 recruitment agreement between the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

In 2022, BLESS celebrates her 25th anniversary, which KW takes as an opportunity to put the focus on Desiree Heiss and Ines Kaag’s visionary products and endeavors. A Year with BLESS renegotiates many of the key issues that lie at the heart of her collaboration, creating an innovative format that seeks to connect life, work, leisure, and exercise.

On the occasion of KW’s 30th anniversary, Sissel Tolaas developed an edition of soaps carefully created from recorded and replicated smell molecules she has collected from the building of KW in Auguststraße 69, a former margarine factory. 

Berlin-based artist Richard Frater has constructed a garden full of wild flowers, succulents, and endangered local plants on the rooftop of KW’s exhibition hall. Although visible from the exhibition spaces, the garden was never perceived as a part of the institution, it existed as a non-space within the institutional compound.

In conjunction with her solo exhibition Stepping Stairs in spring 2018, the artist realized the permanent commission Stepping Stairs for the left side of KW’s façade.

In conjunction with his solo exhibition As you said at KW in spring 2017, Elliman produced a KW commission in form of an audio installation, which was heard daily at 1 and 5 pm at the courtyard of the building.

The garden installation breaks up the five existing „plant vessels“, which have been realized for the 9th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art in May 2016, and transformed them into an archipelago. Six small islands accompany the visitors through the courtyard and all the way towards the new entrance of the exhibition spaces at KW, and the Café Bravo.

For KW, Van Snick continued his investigation of the dualism of day and night and implemented a black and white color scheme onto the entrance gates of the institution.

The birch trees in the courtyard of KW are part of a “living archive” by polish artist Lukasz Surowiec, which consists of hundreds of young trees that come from the area of the former concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. On the occasion of the 7th Berlin Biennale these birch seedlings were distributed as a symbolic gesture throughout the urban area. 

The work called KUNST-WERKE (CABEÇA E CAUDA DE CAVALO), 2010 was part of a series of interventions Renata Lucas undertook during her exhibition as the recipient of the Schering Stiftung Award.

Albrecht Schäfers VERKEHRSSCHILD #6, 2007 was installed in 2008 as part of Schäfer’s exhibition at KW. The Verkehrsschilder [traffic signs] are part of a group of works in which everyday materials and objects change their inner logic, using only the original materials at hand to produce a new meaning.

The installation TEGELER WEG, 1984/2005 by Olaf Metzel was produced in the context of the 2005 exhibition ZUR VORSTELLUNG DES TERRORS: DIE RAF-AUSSTELLUNG at KW.

Above the entrance of KW’s courtyard is a trumpet-shaped loudspeaker, which intermittently broadcasts a song titled Rosa. The song is a hymn commemorating the German revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg and her partner Karl Liebknecht, which is often chanted at political demonstrations.

The CAFÉ BRAVO was designed by Dan Graham and realized with the Architect Johanne Nalbach, and opened in September 1999. The steel structure of the two mutually twisted cubes is layered with mirror polished stainless steel panels.

In her work, Andrea Zittel reveals a social boundary. The wooden wall system located in one of the typical old-fashioned apartments in Berlin creates a gateway of sorts between the manorial residential area and the former maids chambers. HYDE was build for the first Berlin Biennale and has since been on view in the front building of KW.

These sentences were installed by Joseph Kosuth for the first time in 1994, in the context of his exhibition BERLINER CHRONIK (Berlin Chronicles). In 1999/2000 it was permanently applied onto the building wall.

The work LETTER (NUMBER 1) welcomes each visitor as he or she enters KW. The text „I am aware of what you are & what you do“ was first exhibited during the 1. Berlin Biennale, which took place in 1998 at the Academy of Arts, and later came to KW.