Annual program 2018

The world’s new disorder and the mobilization of resentments, the challenges that accompany algorithms, bitcoins, and fragmented publics, the attitudes and values of art in times of crisis, the search for alternative designs for the future. In a world of changing identities and blurry truths, HKW asks: what is necessary in order for us to change course? Seeing beyond the radar of the now, how can we tie into what has been imagined over the past 100 years to tap into horizons for action? Its long-term projects 100 Years of Now (2015–18) and Kanon-Fragen (2016–19), the discourse programs, exhibitions, music festivals, and educational events seek to activate the political imagination and form aesthetic judgment.

In exhibitions and conferences, the long-term project Kanon-Fragen deals with crises and paradoxes in global art history and marks HKW’s program start with Saving Bruce Lee – African and Arab Cinema in the Era of Soviet Cultural Diplomacy (Jan 19–21). A program of film screenings, lectures, and conversations curated by Rasha Salti and Koyo Kouoh addresses the impact of the USSR’s foreign cultural policies in the field of film production on the African continent and in the Arab World between the 1960s and 1980s.

From January 31–February 4 transmediale 2018 face value takes stock of our current moment of digital populism and culture wars by probing the values, as well as the processes of value creation, that have contributed to our present moment of extreme political, economic, and cultural divides. Artistic director Kristoffer Gansing together with curators Daphne Dragona, Inga Seidler and Florian Wüst present five days of exhibitions, discussions, and performances. With Jonathan Beller, Zach Blas, Aria Dean, Angela Nagle, Lisa Nakamura, Nick Thurston, and Yuk Hui among many others.

100 Years of Now continues in March with Rimini Protokoll’s tetralogy Staat 1–4, an examination of the current state of democracy. In the theater productions the writer-director collective sets out to explore fields outside of what can be organized and controlled by the nation-state today. All four parts of the co-production by HKW with the Münchner Kammerspiele, Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus, Staatsschauspiel Dresden, and Schauspielhaus Zürich will be shown from March 1–25 at HKW and Neues Museum Berlin.

Racism articulates itself through class relations and intensifies in nationalist currents. A new understanding of this dynamic is needed in order to create emancipatory and solidary social models. That is the diagnosis of the seminal volume Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities by Étienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein, published 1988 in Paris. Thirty years later – at a time when this sinister triad rises again—the symposium Pangs of Ambiguity. Resituating Balibar and Wallerstein’s Race, Nation, Class from March 15–17 aims to redefine the connections between new racisms, unequal class relations and intensifying nationalisms, and their effects. Participants include Étienne Balibar, Maria Chehonadskih, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Wang Hui, and Antonio Negri. Curated by Manuela Bojadžijev and Katrin Klingan.

As part of Kanon-Fragen, Neolithic Childhood: Art in a False Present c. 1930 (April 13–July 9) examines how in the interwar years the artistic avant-gardes in Europe and beyond reacted to– the “crisis” of almost everything, from the barbarism of technological mass war to the hypocrisies of colonial discourse. The perceived need to re-establish European civilization after the disaster of the First World War led to an interminable reconstruction of origins and beginnings—making “ground zero” the limiting function of modernity. Curated by Anselm Franke and Tom Holert; including extensive archival sections alongside artworks by Willi Baumeister, Georges Braque, Claude Cahun, Paul Klee, Kalifala Sidibé, Toyen, Paule Vézelay, Catherine Yarrow, and others.

The music festivals 100 Years of Beat (April 26–29) and 100 Years of Copyright (October 18–21) tell the story of (pop) music and the conditions under which it is produced. HKW curator Detlef Diederichsen explores the music of the past 100 years and traces leitmotifs of pop history from unexpected perspectives. The first drum set came on the market in 1918. It conquered urban dance music and established the triad of bass drum, snare, and hi-hat as the globally used combination. 100 Years of Beat tells this story and investigates the relationship between played and programmed beats. With concerts by Tony Allen playing a tribute to legendary jazz drummer Art Blakey, Terri Lyne Carrington, Jlin, and others, and lectures by Karl Bartos, and others. 100 Years of Copyright explores the titanic struggle currently raging over copyright: Publishers, labels and production companies battle the representatives of the digital economy over exploitation and remuneration. In this conflict, where are the interests of the artists? What about those of consumers with their desire to use high quality cultural goods? Can music, literature, and films still be produced independently at all? The research project will culminate from October 18–21, 2018 with concerts, talks, films, installations, and performances.

Radiophonic Spaces presents experiments, forms of production, and methods of composition of 100 years of Radio Art and correlates current and historic, known and unknown positions. László Moholy-Nagy’s phonograph experiments meet the signals chosen by Carl Sagan for the Voyager probe. John Cage’s Imaginary Landscapes resound alongside Christoph Schlingensief’s Rocky Dutschke 68. Olaf Nicolai meets Orson Welles, Eran Schaerf and Friederike Mayröcker encounter Stereo Total, Antonin Artaud, Ammer & Console, Michaela Melián and many more. From November 1, 2018–January 6, 2019 Cevdet Erek creates an immersive space for the archive of radio. Radiophonice Spaces is curated by Nathalie Singer and is part of the interdisciplinary research project Radiophonic Cultures.

On June 13–14, the Schools of Tomorrow festival will temporarily transform the HKW into a future learning space. Its experimental curriculum is based on the school projects artists, teachers and students have been working on since the kick-off conference in spring 2017. A competition for ideas is asking schoolchildren what would make their ideal school. Its results are going to be discussed at the festival. Schools of Tomorrow is curated by Silvia Fehrmann.

In summer, the Wassermusik festival, entitled Goodbye UK – and Thank You for the Music, will trace the “Britishness” of pop music from July 27–August 18. Matthew Herbert’s Brexit Bigband launches the program that pays tribute to this unique musical melting pot. The 10th Internationaler Literaturpreis will celebrate global contemporary literatures and their first translation into German on June 28.

The Dictionary of Now will be continued with new episodes on the words Image, Justice and Animal with seminal speakers such as Hito Steyerl, John Tresch, Anne Peters, and Philippe Descollas. HKW’s five years of foundational research will lead to a multi-volume 100 Years of Now Library, published by Matthes & Seitz in Berlin, and reflect the program of events of the four-year project 100 Years of Now 2015–2019 and will conclude with the Dictionary of Now.

With lectures by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing and Lesley J.F. Green the  Anthropocene Lectures as well as the worldwide collaborative platform Anthropocene Curriculum HKW, and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science continue the many years of exploring the epoch of humankind, re-accentuating this paradigm shift with respect to its transformative potentials. Technosphere Magazine publishes artistic and academic online dossiers on the technological structures and conditions at a global scale.

In cooperation with the Goethe-Institut and supported by the S.Fischer Stiftung and the S. Fischer Verlag, the multi-year project Hubert Fichte: Love and Ethnology, which began in 2017 with exhibitions in Portugal and Brazil, will go on to Santiago de Chile, New York, and Dakar to conclude at HKW in 2019.

In March 2018, Bauhaus Imaginista will be launched at Le Cube in Rabat, followed by exhibitions at the China Design Museum in Hangzhou, the National Museum of Modern Art Kyoto, the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, and the SESC Pompéia Sao Paulo, amongst others. The exhibition and research project is a collaboration of the Bauhaus Cooperation Berlin Dessau Weimar, Goethe-Institut and HKW. It will form finale of 100 Years of Now in Berlin in 2019.

Numerous cooperation projects with actors from society, the arts, education and research complement the program of events in Berlin. In 2018 it will host, among others, Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin, and Forecast Festival. In addition our many international partnerships will be continued.

Haus der Kulturen der Welt is supported by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media as well as by the Federal Foreign Office.

Press contact:
Anne Maier, Haus der Kulturen der Welt
T +49 (0)30 39787 153/196
anne.maier [​at​] hkw.de