Programme 2024

Dear friends of arts and culture,

The team of the Bundeskunsthalle is very pleased to be able to give you a preview today of the Bundeskunsthalle’s varied and diverse programme for the coming year. A wide range of inspiring exhibitions and events await you!

Already at the end of this year, we will be focusing on the great philosopher Immanuel Kant, whose groundbreaking contributions to the Enlightenment, ethics, emancipation, epistemology, and international law are still regarded as reference points today. Entitled Immanuel Kant: Unresolved Issues, the exhibition on view from November 24, 2023 to March 17, 2024 will bring his thoughts and ideas closer to an explicitly young audience with little or no previous knowledge of philosophy through illustration and technology. In addition, the lecture series Kant and the Present will take place at the Bundeskunsthalle between April and July to mark the 300th anniversary of Kant’s birth.

The German conceptual artist Anna Oppermann has left behind a large body of work going back to the 1960s that is waiting to be rediscovered! From December 13, 2023 to April 1, 2024, we present the exhibition Anna Oppermann: A Retroperspective, featuring many of her striking, large-scale, and expansive installations, which she called “ensembles”.

From March 8, 2024, a true architectural highlight will follow: at this year’s Venice Biennale of Architecture, the internationally successful Japanese architect Kengo Kuma presented models of his most important buildings. The Bundeskunsthalle is now presenting the retrospective exhibition Kengo Kuma: Onomatopoeia Architecture in Bonn. The exhibition focuses on the dialogue between humans and material and the architect’s recourse to onomatopoeia associated with this.

Three weeks later, from March 22, 2024, another retrospective will follow: With "Images in mind, bodies in space", we honour Franz Erhard Walther (b. 22 July 1939) with a large exhibition on the occasion of his 85th birthday. One of the greatest living conceptual and installation artists, he was awarded the Golden Lion at the 2017 Venice Biennale. His concept of Œuvre, which involves the viewer as a participant, is still relevant today. We invite you to discover his groundbreaking work until July 28, 2024.

With the exhibition Interactions 2024, you can also actively participate in art from May 1, to October 13, 2024: from the roof to the foyer to the museum square, we will present works of art and performances that invite you to play interactively, to experience with your senses, or simply to linger.

The exhibition All In! Designing Democracy is also to be understood as a call for active participation. It is about participating in power, about shaping structures of co-determination. With works of art and design, testimonies from the history of political culture, architecture, film, and photography, the exhibition sheds light on the current social desire for more participation, as well as on traditional forms of democracy and invites people to participate in shaping it, for example in a gym where everyone can exercise their democratic muscles, as well as at other interactive stations. (May 30–October 13, 2024)

The fall art season 2024 gets off to a playful start at the Bundeskunsthalle! For the exhibition Mark Dion: Delirious Toys, the US-American artist has created a work of art from hundreds of exhibits from the toy collection of the Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin. His installations include a labyrinth of board games, a pyramid of animals, a circuit with an imaginary race between vehicles of all kinds, and much more. (September 8, 2024–January 5, 2025)

Playfulness is followed by dance: from September 27, 2024, the exhibition Dance Worlds is dedicated to dance as a unifying element between people, presenting dance as a global form of representation and expression. Until February 16, 2025, live interventions and performances will accompany and complement the exhibits. Professional dancers will rehearse in a specially designed dance hall.

As the year draws to a close, we will already herald the thematic focus of the year 2025: Sustainability. From December 6, 2024, SAVE LAND. United For Land will address the issue of the ecological restoration of land in close cooperation with the UNCCD (United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification). The immersive exhibition uses the latest media technology and combines exhibits from art, cultural history, and natural science to raise public awareness of this urgent issue. (until June 9 2025)

We invite you not only to visit our exhibitions, but also to share and create. In addition to the open space Salon 53177 in the Bad Godesberg district of Bonn, the main building will also have its own salon. While in Bad Godesberg the focus is on participation, in the Salon of the Bundeskunsthalle the emphasis is on lingering and coming together – as a new place for hospitality and culture and as a feel-good zone in the building.

When the exhibition doors close, the spotlights go on at live arts. Look forward to international productions from the fields of dance, theatre, music, and performance. Starting with works by the world-renowned choreographer and visual artist Trisha Brown and the Ballet de Lorraine, followed by the equally renowned percussionist and composer Manu Delago. After their visit in October 2023, the artist duo Action Hero will return in the summer of 2024 with their Oh Europa love song project, and with Save the last dance for me, Alessandro Sciarroni will perform a new interpretation of the historic Italian courtship dance.

Discuss with us! A new three-part series of talks with Nicole Deitelhoff and Meron Mendel at STUDIO BONN, the think tank of the Bundeskunsthalle, is dedicated to the highly topical issues of anti-Semitism and racism in Germany.

Whether it is a large-scale production or a poetic installation, a concentrated discourse or an upbeat event: together with the team of the Bundeskunsthalle, I invite you with our programme to reflect, to exchange ideas, and to participate!

We are looking forward to your visit!

Yours sincerely,
Eva Kraus and the whole team of the Bundeskunsthalle

Director: Eva Kraus
Managing Director: Oliver Hölken
Press officer: Sven Bergmann, kommunikation@bundeskunsthalle.de

Current exhibitions
Everything at Once: Postmodernity, 1967–1992
Until January 28, 2024

Federal Prize for Art Students
26th National Competition of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research
Until January 7, 2024

For the most up to date schedule, please go to: bundeskunsthalle.de/en/events/calendar

Contact
The Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany
Museumsmeile Bonn
Helmut-Kohl-Allee 4
53113 Bonn

Information
T +49 228 9171–200 / info@bundeskunsthalle.de