Opening of fall/winter program

Margarethe von Trotta
September 11–November 9, 2025
Curators: Marius Babias, Michaela Richter

Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.) presents a major retrospective of legendary filmmaker Margarethe von Trotta (*1942 in Berlin). In 1981, she became the first woman to be awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, for The German Sisters (Die bleierne Zeit), a drama inspired by the story of the Ensslin sisters. Throughout this and many other works, von Trotta pioneered the exploration of German history, iconic female figures, and the relationship between the personal and the political – particularly from a feminist perspective. Influenced by Ingmar Bergman, Alfred Hitchcock, and the French Nouvelle Vague, she creates psychologically complex characters while illuminating historical contexts as one of the central auteurs of New German Cinema.

At n.b.k, numerous film excerpts, photographs—some previously unpublished—screenplay drafts, and diaries provide insight into von Trotta’s life and work. The exhibition focuses on her sustained engagement with the perspectives and struggles of both contemporary and historical female figures, as well as with pivotal moments in German history. Her portrayals of influential thinkers such as Rosa Luxemburg, Hildegard von Bingen, Hannah Arendt, and Ingeborg Bachmann stand alongside her longtime collaborations with actors including Angela Winkler, Jutta Lampe, Katja Riemann, and Barbara Sukowa.

A project by Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.) in cooperation with Deutsche Kinemathek and Babylon cinema, Berlin.

 
n.b.k. Showroom
Katerina Poladjan, Henning Fritsch: Ancora un dialogo di Roma
September 11–November 9, 2025
Curator: Marius Babias

Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.) premieres Ancora un dialogo di Roma (2025), the first essay film by writer Katerina Poladjan and writer-director Henning Fritsch. Conceived as an “over-writing” of Marguerite Duras’s Il dialogo di Roma (1982), the film offers contemporary views of Rome while an off-screen voice reconstructs fragments of memory: an arrival in a indeterminate space of possibility and an imagined childhood in Ostia. As in Duras’s model, the narration retains the intimacy of lived experience; the images explore the city beyond postcard motifs, shifting between the beautiful and the uninhabitable, and unsettling simple oppositions of “own” and “other.”

Poladjan and Fritsch have collaborated across literature and theater since 2005 and were both Villa Massimo fellows in Rome in 2023/24. Their joint projects include the literary travelogue Hinter Sibirien (Rowohlt, 2016). Ancora un dialogo di Roma marks their first venture into film.

 
n.b.k. Facade
Nora Turato: they filled me up with words
September 11, 2025–August 31, 2026
Curator: Lidiya Anastasova

Language—both spoken and written—serves as a primary material in Nora Turato’s work, explored through typography, wall pieces, video, sound, performance, and artist books (notably her pool series). Working with found material from a wide range of sources—the internet, social media, press, books, films, music, and conversations—Turato collects and meticulously rearranges an abundance of verbal content, distilling it to its essence. Turato’s new work they filled me up with words, conceived specially for the n.b.k. facade, marks a turning point in her practice—an approach that takes her own body as its starting point—using it both as a source of language and as the basis for her handwriting. Turato investigates the conditioning that shape us, focusing on how these internalized patterns are revealed physically through the hand—seeing handwriting not just a form of expression, but a direct outcome of learned behaviour.

 
n.b.k. Billboard
Stephan Crasneanscki, Patti Smith: Cry of the Lost | Prince of Anarchy
September 11, 2025–February 22, 2026
Curator: Lidiya Anastasova
Location: Intersection of Friedrichstrasse x Torstrasse, within walking distance of Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.)
 
Soundwalk Collective founder Stephan Crasneanscki and musician-poet Patti Smith share a longstanding artistic exchange that manifests in their ever-evolving project CORRESPONDENCES. This continuously expanding body of work comprises multiple films, archival material, mixed-media collages, poems, installations, and performances. Crasneanscki describes his collaborative process with Smith as an ongoing dialogue intended to reflect on life and nature. His field recordings—which he describes as an archive of “sonic memories”—serve as a starting point, providing “landscapes” for Smith “to channel her poetic vision.” As part of the n.b.k. Billboard series, a work from CORRESPONDENCES – Cry of the Lost | Prince of Anarchy—will be presented for the first time in urban space, allowing it to reach a broader public.

 Kindly supported by the Wall family

n.b.k. at the Uferstudios, Uferhallen, and in the Berlin-Gesundbrunnen neighborhood
A Hidden Well
September 12–28, 2025
Opening on September 11, 2025, 6pm, at Uferhallen
Artists: Murat Adash, Maximiliane Baumgartner, Tony Cokes, Kasia Fudakowski, Judith Hopf, Aykan Safoğlu, Shade Théret, Leyla Yenirce, among others
Curators: Feben Amara, Susanne Mierzwiak
Location: Uferhallen, Uferstrasse 8–11, 13357 Berlin

Under the title A Hidden Well, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.), in cooperation with Uferhallen e.V., presents an exhibition project that turns the immediate surroundings of the Uferhallen and Uferstudios—an important center of Berlin’s art and cultural production—into a stage for site-specific interventions. Through diverse perspectives, the invited artists reflect on and challenge the histories, architectures, and images that continue to shape Berlin’s Gesundbrunnen district. These interventions take place in public space as well as in local sociocultural institutions and artistic initiatives—including ABA Projectspace / Uqbar, the Berlin Artistic Research Programme, the Bibliothek am Luisenbad, and the Mitte Museum—offering multiple approaches to the neighborhood’s memory, ongoing change, and communal life.

In addition to the decentralized exhibition, the artists working at Uferhallen will open their studios to the public. On September 13 and 14, visitors are invited to explore their workspaces, encounter both completed and in-progress works, and engage in conversation.

A project by n.b.k. in cooperation with Uferhallen e.V., Uferstudios, ABA Projectspace / Uqbar, Berlin Artistic Research Programme, Bibliothek am Luisenbad and Mitte Museum / Bezirksamt Mitte von Berlin

Supported by LOTTO Stiftung Berlin



Neuer Berliner Kunstverein is supported by the Kriket Foundation.

Neuer Berliner Kunstverein n.b.k. gGmbH is funded by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion.

Partner of Berlin Art Week 2025