Memory Is a Strange Bell
Artists: Ipek Burçak, Nadja Buttendorf, Markus Draper, Martin Eberle, Noi Fuhrer, Olga Monina, Shaun Motsi, Leonie Nagel, Ania Nowak, Niclas Riepshoff, Max Schaffer, Alina Schmuch, Antje Taubert, Sergio Zevallos Curators: Lidiya Anastasova, Antje Weitzel Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.) and Künstlerhaus Bethanien jointly present works by the recipients of the Berlin Senate’s 2025 visual arts work […]
This is not a Dance Film
In This is not a Dance Film, the dancer and photographer become mutually active participants in a choreography where the act of filming itself becomes the driving force. The dancer responds to the camera, and the camera responds to the body – a loop of movement, gaze, and control emerges. At first, the roles seem […]
16 Dreams of Me
The exhibition 16 Dreams of Me introduces a multilayered, dreamlike space in which personal memory, collective trauma, and political reality are inextricably intertwined. Dream is presented not as a retreat, but as a state of confrontation—a space in which inner images, social conditioning, and political violence converge. The interactive installation 16 Dreams of Me, which […]
Substitute for a Sunset
Upon entering Andreas Brunner’s exhibition Substitute for a Sunset, one’s gaze is drawn to a former illuminated sign, mounted high and completely stripped of its original content. Transparent panel, bare aluminum, exposed electronics. A cold circular light glows evenly, without image, without text, without address. What normally captures attention and promises meaning appears here as […]
Skinny Cat
In Malthe Møhr’s video Sja Mægre, memory is (in) a body and structured to the rhythm of a steady beat. Acting as a filmic metronome kept entirely out of sight, this beat—dumb yet precise—dictates the tempo of the artist’s dialectical storytelling: two screens offering distinct dimensions of the same unfolding narrative. For the film’s characters, […]
Sweet Sweet Sun
The protocols of cruising for gay sex—such as those that take place most evenings in the woodland in Hasenheide Park, a short walk from the Bethanien studios—have more than a little in common with the rites in the life of an artist travelling between international residencies. Each approach—to the object of desire or, more prosaically, […]
Entropy
The theme of this year’s LABA fellowship is Entropy. Over the last several months, Jewish and Muslim artists came together each week in a shared studio in the Künstlerhaus Bethanien. With the guidance of instructors from both faiths, the group approached the concept of entropy from scientific, theological, and philosophical perspectives, connecting it with their […]
The broom, the spoon and her shoes
In her exhibition The broom, the spoon and her shoes, at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Myriam Jacob-Allard braids cultural, personal, and film-historical references into an arresting reflection on matrilineal inheritance, transformation, and the experience of time. The central work is Les Immortelles, a collage film in four chapters, formally ranging between symbolism and abstraction. Wraith-like objects emerge […]
From the Boat Drifting Past a Forest of Stars
A window, looking out or in, playfully fitted with a white lace curtain, framed by pastel colors, the profile of a lyre, the musical instrument of classical Greece, cropped on one side, while on the other the frame runs into a dark curling form, recalling a piece of heavy fabric. This multi-layered little artwork, somewhere […]
Make the World
“Anyone can break up a showing of an enemy propaganda film by putting two or three dozen large moths in a paper bag. Take the bag to the movies with you, put it on the floor in an empty section of the theater as you go in and leave it open. The moths will fly […]