Pogo Bar, 2024; photo: KW Institute for Contemporary Art.
Elizabete Balčus, 2023; photo: Ričards Ozols.
Elin McCready, 2025; photo: Silke Briel.
Lauryn Youden, 2023; photo: KW Institute for Contemporary Art.

Pogo Bar

The Pogo Bar is a monthly experimental format for live and time-based arts at KW, showcasing emerging Berlin-based artists. Taking place on the third Thursday of each month during the exhibition program, the series offers a stage a platform for works in progress, excerpts of existing pieces, screenings, and dialogue-based formats across performance, sound, video, and spoken word.

Sunny Pfalzer, 2023; photo: Amit Elkaya.

Located in the basement of KW, Pogo Bar takes its name from the original bar and party venue that existed in the same space during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Since then, the space has served multiple purposes—including exhibition venue, bar, and event location. The name was reintroduced as a curatorial series in 2017 and, since 2025, has focused specifically on Berlin-based artists.

The Pogo Bar occasionally moves into KW’s courtyard, its studio, and attic space, and during the Berlin Biennial becomes part of city-wide collaborations with partners like Klosterruine Berlin or Tropez at Sommerbad Humboldthain.

The program is currently curated by Linda Franken, Assistant Curator, and Lara Scherrieble, Curatorial Assistant. Former curators are Sofie Krogh Christensen, Léon Kruijswijk, Katherine C. M. Adams, Nikolas Brummer, Kathrin Bentele, Cathrin Mayer, Maurin Dietrich and Mason Leaver-Yap.