Moyra Davey / Graciela Carnevale: Pieza Blanca

Moyra Davey
Curators: Layla Burger-Lichtenstein, Krisztina Hunya

Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.) presents the first institutional survey exhibition in Germany of artist, filmmaker, and writer Moyra Davey. Combining autobiographical elements with a research-driven approach, Davey has developed a unique essayistic practice that interweaves image and script. Her work reflects a fondness for engaging with iconic texts and authors whose work spans the fields of memoir and psychoanalysis to art history, and juxtaposes deliberations on artistic creation, with personal stories drawn from her New York City surroundings and beyond.

The exhibition includes more than three decades of Davey’s work, and foregrounds the artist’s distinctive method of collaging and revisiting found or self-produced images and fragments of text. In addition to photo series, the presentation focuses on Davey's experimental film practice.

Accompanying the exhibition is the publication Moyra Davey. Portrait Mode (English / German, Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König, Cologne), featuring a new essay by the artist.

Discourse program

Tuesday, December 9, 2025, 7pm
Artist talk—with Moyra Davey and Rosa Barba (artist, professor at the Department of Architecture / ETH Zurich, Berlin), moderated by Janique Vigier (editor of Granta magazine, London). In English.

Thursday, January 22, 2026, 7pm
Feminist Practices of Citation in Contemporary Art—Lecture by Helena Reckritt (Reader at the Curating Department of Art Goldsmiths, University of London). In English.

Free admission to all events.

 
n.b.k. Showroom
Graciela Carnevale. Pieza Blanca
Curator: Mathieu Copeland

For her solo exhibition at Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.), Graciela Carnevale revisits Pieza Blanca (1968) more than 50 years after its creation. Originally realized for her first exhibition at Galería Lirolay in Buenos Aires, the artist presented an empty gallery space, entirely painted white, brightly illuminated, and filled only with the amplified sound of a heartbeat. Pieza Blanca marked a radical reduction of means in Carnevale’s practice and introduced a consideration of the gallery itself as an artistic material to work with. In restaging this iconic work in 2025, Carnevale has chosen to replace the found recording used in 1968 with a recording of her own heartbeat—further insisting that the piece is about time, about now, and about life.

In addition to Pieza Blanca, the exhibition offers insight into Carnevale’s artistic trajectory through a paper retrospective. Documented are her sculptures Primary Structures (1967); the actions Acción del Encierro—a radical piece, blending political art, activism, and uncompromising action, now considered one of the defining artworks of the 20th century; and Tucumán Arde (both 1968) which denounced the abuses of the Argentine government. Also included are her involvement with Grupo Patrimonio in 1994 and, in 2003, her co-organization of El Levante, an independent platform fostering critical thinking through artistic practice.


Graciela Carnevale. Pieza Blanca is an exhibition by Neuer Berliner Kunstverein in cooperation with Leeds Beckett University—Leeds School of Arts. Supported by Berliner Morgenpost, Süddeutsche Zeitung, and Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung.

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.