Bjørn Melhus, FREEDOM & INDEPENDENCE, 2014, film still © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025
Bjørn Melhus, FREEDOM & INDEPENDENCE, 2014, film still © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025

Cuts
Finissage 5-5-5-5 cut
Raimund Kummer / Daniel Ott

17 May

Audio Play, Readings, Films

An evening on the artistic method of editing: With an audio piece by Ulrich Gerhardt, with readings by Katja Lange-Müller, Kathrin Röggla, Kathrin Schmidt, Katharina Schultens and Ulf Stolterfoht, and with a short film programme with works by Dieter Appelt, VALIE EXPORT, Christoph Giradet & Matthias Müller, Jochen Kuhn, Bjørn Melhus, Marcel Odenbach, Ulrike Rosenbach, Zbigniew Rybczyński and Klaus vom Bruch.

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5-5-5-5 cut
Raimund Kummer /
Daniel Ott

10 Apr – 14 May

SpaceSoundIntervention

5 rooms, 5 sculptures, 5 instrumentalists, 5 hours a day over a five-week period: in “5-5-5-5 cut”, sculptor Raimund Kummer and composer Daniel Ott interact sculpturally, spatially, acoustically and with digital projections in the historical exhibition halls at the Akademie der Künste’s Pariser Platz venue. This experiment entices visitors to discover spatial and auditory encounters with the musicians within the space.

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Insight into the display depot of the Architectural Archives © Akademie der Künste, Berlin, photo: Andreas [FranzXaver] Süß
Insight into the display depot of the Architectural Archives © Akademie der Künste, Berlin, photo: Andreas [FranzXaver] Süß

The Schaudepot (display depot) provides an exclusive insight into the Akademie der Künste’s outstanding collection of architectural models. The highlights of the collection can be seen in a permanent exhibition with a selection of the more than 750 models from the Architectural Archives by over 50 artists. Temporary exhibitions explore current topics relating to architecture and urban planning. Guided tours in German.

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Paintings on cellar walls
Picture Cellar, in the foreground mural by Harald Metzkes and Manfred Böttcher © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2018, photo: Andreas [FranzXaver] Süß

Picture Cellar
Wednesdays, 5 pm

Guided Tour

In the middle of the political “Tauwetter-Periode” (thaw period), the master students of the German Akademie der Künste celebrate carnival in the coal cellar in 1957 and 1958. The murals by Manfred Böttcher, Harald Metzkes, Ernst Schroeder and Horst Zickelbein can be visited as a unique testimony to unofficial art in the GDR and as part of the eventful history of the institution and the building. Guided tours in German.

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Anna Seghers Museum
Anna Seghers Museum in Berlin Adlershof © photo: Andreas [FranzXaver] Süß

Bertolt Brecht's study, Helene Weigel's conservatory, Anna Seghers' “crow's nest” : Regular tours offer visitors a chance to view the homes and studies of the writer Bertolt Brecht, actress and theatre director Helene Weigel and the writer Anna Seghers, largely kept in their original condition. The tours provide an insight into how these three major international figures in the arts world of the 20th century lived and worked. In German.

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Akademie der Künste at Pariser Platz. Photo © Jeanette Gonsior
Akademie der Künste at Pariser Platz © photo: Jeanette Gonsior

The Akademie der Künste is an international community of artists that currently totals 422 members in its six Sections Visual Arts, Architecture, Music, Literature, Performing Arts, Film and Media Arts. It is an exhibition and event location. Its Archives collectively form one of the most important interdisciplinary archives on 20th century art. Founded in 1696, the Akademie der Künste in Berlin is one of the oldest cultural institutes in Europe.

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News

Returning – a Retreat by hn. lyonga & Safiya Yon and Open Studios at E-WERK Luckenwaldemore

Future Ancestry – Impactful Storytelling in the Visual Artsmore

#minutestrike – United Against the Cultural Cutbacks!more

Further news are available in German only: News

© Natalia Reich
15 May – 15 Jun
Festival

Poesiefestival Berlin 2025

The main festival will open on June 3 with the Berlin Poetry Lecture at Akademie der Künste. This will be followed by numerous events at silent green. For the closing weekend (14–15 Jun), the festival will return to Akademie der Künste, with various reading formats, a poetry book market, poetry talks, readings in the Beech Garden and “Weltklang – Night of Poetry”, featuring eight international poets. In German and English.

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Anna Seghers Museum, Berlin Adlershof, © Andreas [FranzXaver] Süß
Thursday, 15 May
Guided Tour

2 pm

Anna Seghers Museum
Anna-Seghers-Str. 81
12489 Berlin

How Netty Reiling became Anna Seghers

The theme of Anna Seghers’ work is the self-liberation of her literary characters. To what extent does this liberation have biographical features? An approach to the transformation from sheltered daughter to headstrong writer. Guided tour in the writer’s home and study as it was, when she lived there from 1955 until her death in 1983. In German.

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Bjørn Melhus, FREEDOM & INDEPENDENCE, 2014, film still © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025
Saturday, 17 May
Audio Play, Readings, Films

8 pm

Cuts Finissage 5-5-5-5 cut
Raimund Kummer / Daniel Ott

An evening on the artistic method of editing: Ulrich Gerhardt developed an audio piece from Rolf Dieter Brinkmann’s text collages Schnitte (cuts), which aims at acoustic correspondences. Katja Lange-Müller, Kathrin Röggla, Kathrin Schmidt, Katharina Schultens and Ulf Stolterfoht refer to this method in their readings. The short film programme demonstrates that a film can be created without editing and a narrative without narrative montage.

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Typewriter in Brecht-Weigel Museum, © Erik-Jan Ouwerkerk
Sunday, 18 May
Guided Tours

11 am – 6 pm

Anna-Seghers-Museum
Anna-Seghers-Str. 81
12489 Berlin

Brecht-Weigel-Museum
Chausseestr. 125
10115 Berlin

International Museum Day

The museums of the Akademie der Künste are taking part in International Museum Day. The original preserved flats of Bertolt Brecht and Helene Weigel in the Brecht-Weigel Museum in Berlin-Mitte and Anna Seghers in the Anna Seghers Museum in Berlin-Adlershof can be visited with free guided tours. In German.

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Paul Wiegler (around 1943), Photographer unknown
Tuesday, 20 May
Archive Presentation, Reading, Talk

8 pm

Brecht-Haus
Chausseestraße 125
10115 Berlin

Paul Wiegler: Gabriele – A novel from the estate

A look through binoculars into “the world of yesterday”: Sieglinde Geisel talks to editor Gernot Krämer about the novel Gabriele, a literary epochal painting of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Gabriele Radecke provides insights into the Akademie der Künste’s Paul Wiegler Archive, and Max von Pufendorf reads from the first published volume of the estate of the co-founder of the magazine SINN UND FORM. In German.

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Dorotheenstädtischer Friedhof (Dorotheenstadt Cemetery), Berlin Mitte, © Stefanie Thomas, 2024
Wednesday, 21 May
Guided Tour

2 pm

Brecht-Weigel Museum
Chausseestraße 125
10115 Berlin

Famous women

The resting places of famous women in art and culture are the focus of this guided tour of the Dorotheenstädtischer Friedhof (Dorotheenstadt Cemetery). It tells of the writers Christa Wolf and Annemarie Bostroem, the artists Beatrice Zweig and Doris Kahane, the opera director Ruth Berghaus and many others. Thematic guided tour in German.

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Please click here to view all events and exhibitions.

Upcoming

Aspects of Presence. Art in Times of Militarization
Symposium: 5 – 6 Jun 2025, Akademie der Künste, Berlin
Exhibition: Oct 2025 – Jan 2026, Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius
Publication: Summer 2026
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494h 29m 53s
The collection of the n.b.k. Video-Forum, sorted by running time by Karin Sander

Exhibition: 4 Jul – 2 Aug 2025
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Every Artist Must Take Sides – Resonances of Eslanda and Paul Robeson
Exhibition: 14 Nov 2025 – 25 Jan 2026, Festival: 23 – 25 Jan 2026
more