A 37 90 89 – The Invention of the Neo-Avant-Garde / Geta Brătescu / Ceal Floyer

A 37 90 89 – The Invention of the Neo-Avant-Garde
September 27, 2018–January 27, 2019
Opening: Wednesday, September 26, 6pm

Curators: Marius Babias, Florian Waldvogel

Artists: Santiago Álvarez, Carl Andre, Stan Brakhage, Robert Breer, Marcel Broodthaers, Daniel Buren, James Lee Byars, Henning Christiansen, Ursula Christiansen, Johannes Cladders, Jef Cornelis, Hanne Darboven, Julio García Espinosa, Jean Genet, Octavio Getino / Fernando Solanas, Maria Gilissen, Addi Køpcke / Robin Page / Tomas Schmit, David Lamelas, LIDL Sport / Peter Duerr / Christian Göldenboog / Jörg Immendorff / Horst Kugel / Florian Lechenperg / Chris Reinecke / Horst Scholz, José Massip, Lutz Mommartz, Panamarenko, A. R. Penck, Ben Vautier, David Loeb Weiss, La Monte Young / Marian Zazeela

At the project space after the butcher: Forensic Architecture / Die Gesellschaft der Freund*innen von Halit / Initiative 6. April, Michaela Meise, Tomás Saraceno

The exhibition project A 37 90 89 – The Invention of the Neo-Avant-Garde, is dedicated to the project space A 37 90 89, which was founded in Antwerp in 1969 and has significantly shaped the development of project spaces worldwide. It quintessentially influenced subsequent models of alternative project spaces, producer galleries and participatory initiatives. The artists and mediators involved in Antwerp are today among the outstanding exponents of the neo-avant-garde.

Taking the 50th anniversary of Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.) and of the project space A 37 90 89 in Antwerp as an occasion, the presentation and reappraisal of the historical project space A 37 90 89 reconstructs the period of social upheavals around 1968/1969 and renders it productive and tangible for our time.

At the same time, the history of Neuer Berliner Kunstverein is put into relation with the activities in Antwerp: Having evolved over time, n.b.k. with its exhibition program, its video collection and its art lending library Artothek not only reflects the history of the neo-avant-garde in Berlin, but has also shaped it right up to the present day. Following the approach of A 37 90 89, a co-operation with the project space after the butcher complements the exhibition project. Furthermore, it is accompanied by a program of films in co-operation with Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art as well as a series of discursive events.

On the occasion of the exhibition, a publication with hitherto unpublished material on the history of A 37 90 89 will be made available by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne, with texts by Marius Babias, Beatrice von Bismarck, Birgit Pelzer and Florian Waldvogel as well as interviews with Isi Fiszman and Kasper König.


Geta Brătescu
September 27, 2018–January 25, 2019
Opening: Wednesday, September 26, 6pm

Curator: Magda Radu

Geta Brătescu is considered one of the most important conceptual artists in Eastern Europe, her diverse oeuvre includes drawings, collages made of fabric or paper, graphic works, performances, experimental films and photographs as well as objects and spatial installations. Already under socialist rule she created abstract works in which patterns, surfaces, lines, colors and structures intertwine and in which the official state art was opposed. Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.) now presents the first solo exhibition of Geta Brătescu in a Berlin institution.

In Brătescu’s avant-garde work the boundaries between art and life are blurred; at the center of her works are questions of memory and history, human identity, normativity, and the female gender, among other things. Since the 1990s, she has been creating more and more series in which she consistently refines her formal language. Neuer Berliner Kunstverein presents historical and new works by Geta Brătescu as well as a film about and with the artist that she produced in collaboration with Stefan Sava.


Ceal Floyer. Maximum Headroom
September 27, 2018–August 31, 2019
Opening: Wednesday, September 26, 6pm

Curator: Kathrin Becker

The façade of Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.), which connects the exhibition area with the public space of the city, on an annually alternating basis serves as a surface of intervention for different contemporary artists, who develop special projects for the building. The outdoor projects directly exert their influence on the public space, they encourage an active engagement with the urban environment and stimulate a debate about contemporary art and its aesthetic, social and political implications. From September 2018, the artist Ceal Floyer (b. 1968, living in Berlin) will unfold her work on the façade of the n.b.k. Ceal Floyer’s oeuvre bears the traits of the absurd, which often is even enhanced by the formal simplicity and rigor of her works. The artist sounds out our patterns of perception, but also the relationship between language, verbal image, and reality.