2025

From Cosmos to Commons: Between Stars and Signals

Group Show
21. June – 17. August 2025

Participating artists: Aram Bartholl, Zach Blas, Nolan Oswald Dennis, Charles & Ray Eames, Sasha Litvintseva & Beny Wagner, Timo Nasseri, Norbert Pape & Simon Speiser, Trevor Paglen, Katie Paterson, Marie Pietsch, Agnieszka Polska, Jana Schumacher, Hoda Tawakol.

How do we navigate a world in which our actions have a planetary impact? In our post-global era, we cannot see ourselves merely as inhabitants of the Earth. Essentially, we are geological actors whose economic, ecological and political decisions leave profound marks on the globe. From this perspective, the Earth can be viewed as a dynamic system within a much larger cosmic structure.

The group exhibition Between Stars and Signals at the Kunsthaus Hamburg focuses on the bigger picture and spans an arc from humanity’s early understanding of the world and its orientation on the stars all the way to the planetary paradigm and modern technologies such as GPS. The participating artists have engaged in the topic of physical movement through space and time along with its philosophical and social implication. The works on view, spanning video, wall and spatial installations, reflect complex relationships between humans, nature and the cosmos – and make us think. For the question remains whether the digital transformation will lead to a deeper cosmic consciousness or whether it will distance us even further from our immediate experience of the world.

From the Cosmos to the Commons marks the beginning of the five-year programme conceived by City Curator Joanna Warsza. In 2025, it includes exhibitions at the Planetarium Hamburg, Stadtpark, the Kunsthaus Hamburg and a symposium at the Warburg Haus. Since 2024, the project City Curator Hamburg has been hosted by Kunsthaus Hamburg.

Curated by Anna Nowak

Are we there yet?

Group Show
14. February – 12. April 2025
Nome gallery, Berlin

NOME is pleased to announce are we there yet?, a group exhibition that critically examines issues of police brutality, mass incarceration, discrimination, immigration, and state surveillance. The show draws its title from a work by Kameelah Janan Rasheed, whose aphoristic text-based practice often grapples with complex societal questions. As with many of her works, are we there yet? carries multiple meanings, symbolizing both a push for equality and the darker undercurrents of state violence. The exhibition invokes Rasheed’s question to probe the spread of authoritarianism in contemporary society.

Artists: Camae Ayewa, Sadie Barnette, Aram Bartholl, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, James Bridle, Paolo Cirio, Cian Dayrit, Priscilla Dobler Dzul, Navine G. Dossos, Igor Grubić, Kite, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Voluspa Jarpa, Ahmet Öğüt, Dread Scott, Myriam Zarhloul

Total Screen Time: BRAINROT

Group Show
1. February 2025

After the success of the Athenian version of Total Screen Time, and after ‘Brainrot’ was voted last year’s word of the year, we are back in Berlin! No,no we are so,so back! Meanwhile, everyone seems to be obsessed with their screen time. Some are trying to downsize it, some are accepting their ‘terminally online’ identity, some perceive it as a competition, and some—as always, simply don’t care.

Enough with the heavy! We invited thirty artists to present digital works through their own personal devices, extending an intimate invitation for audiences to peer through the artist’s screen—a portal into their unique, brainrot-filled worlds. From personal and collective imagery to camp, critical takes on surveillance, viral memes, and wholesome escapism—artworks from every corner of the digital psyche are on display. This one night exhibition is about connecting, sharing in the joy of deep-frying our brains, rather than in isolation. And we think THAT’S HOT!

Curated by:
Aram Bartholl & Socrates Stamatatos

Participating artists:
!Mediengruppe Bitnik with Selena Savić & Gordan Savičić, Afroditi Panagiotakou & Manolis Manousakis, Aleksandra Domanović, Clusterduck, Constant Dullaart, Cory Arcangel, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Darsha Hewitt, Dirk Paesmans, Esben Holk, Evan Roth, Igor Štromajer, Ingrid Hideki, Ipek Burçak, Jan Berger, Joan Heemskerk, Joana Moll, Joanna Bacas, Jonas Lund, Katerina Baxevani, Kathrin Hunze, Marsunev, Miltos Kontogiannis, Nadja Buttendorf, Nestor Siré, Niko Princen, Nora Al-Badri, Olaf Val, Ria Schöneberger, Theo Trianfyllidis

Total Screen Time is a one night group exhibition on phones! All participating artists will bring a phone with their artwork on it, which will be mounted on the walls of the exhibition space. The idea behind the show is that the audience gets to peep through the hole of the artist’s phones immersing into their artworks. LET’S BRAINROT TOGETHER! 🧠 In a collective and liberating moment we asked all artists and visitors to share their daily phone screen time during the opening. WE ARE ALL GETTING EXPOSED LOL 🎀

2024

Instruments of Surveillance

Group Show
21. September 2024 – 2. May 2025
National Communications Museum, Hawthorn, Melbourne

As the race to create an artificial general intelligence (AGI) accelerates, questions of surveillance are more important than ever. Is it human or machine? And how can people equip themselves with the tools and knowledge they need to navigate technological futures?

Instruments of Surveillance grounds an age-old and contentious topic in the human and the everyday. From government spooks, data-extraction and activism through to generative AI, this exhibition unravels the interface between human and machine, inviting audiences to unpack the technologies that people use to surveil and their role in it.

Interact with a robotic commission by Louis-Philippe Demers. See an original WWII Enigma Machine, along with wiretaps and prototypes from the Australian Federal Police. Engage with commissions by Leah Heiss and Emma Luke, Kate Crawford, Aram Bartholl and Weniki Hensch among others.

This exhibition is curated by Jemimah Widdicombe (NCM) in collaboration with Dr. Tyne Sumner, current ARC DECRA fellow at the Australian National University.

50 für Bad Berlin

Group Show
11. – 15. September 2024

For Berlin Art Week, the non-profit organisation Flussbad Berlin will be presenting the exhibition and auction “50 Für Bad Berlin” in the Red Salon of the Bauakademie. Fluss Bad Berlin is a civil society initiative for urban development committed to making swimming possible in the Spree Canal and, in the long run, in other sections of the Berlin Spree.

“50 Für Bad Berlin” will present works by mostly Berlin-based artists and architects who show solidarity with the objectives of the Fluss Bad Berlin project and the team behind it. They advocate a sustainable development of Berlin for the common good. They oppose the tendency to restrict for ideological reasons the debate on the future of the city (centre) to the historicising reconstruction of the Berlin of the early 20th century and the attempt to appropriate “art and culture” for that purpose. They want to emphasise instead that art and culture are closely linked to development initiatives such as Fluss Bad Berlin, which promote a more social, ecological, sustainable, and futureproof urban development.

While the works on display cover a wide range of types and techniques, they all relate to themes the Fluss Bad project addresses: for instance, in their interpretation of the essential significance of water for our world and for life, and the diverse relationships between humans and the element. They analyse the sensory, political and technical significance of water as a cultural asset, and the meaning of a free and equal access to it. They remind us that the river belongs to the city, that everyday culture belongs to high culture, and that the city is shaped by social values, which –at the same time– it is capable to mediate.

All of the pieces shown at the “50 Für Bad Berlin” exhibition will be auctioned on September 12.

List of participating artists:
Rosa Barba, Barkow Leibinger, Aram Bartholl, John Bock, Stefanie Bürkle, Thomas Demand, Oswald Egger, Olafur Eliasson, Elmgreen & Dragset, Estudio Herreros, Nina Fischer & Maroan El Sani, Simon Fujiwara, Filomeno Fusco & Victor Kégli, Graft, Katharina Grosse, Esra Gülmen, Asmund Hansteen-Mikkelsen, Annette Hauschild, Heide von Beckerath Alberts, Robert Hermann, Katharina Hinsberg, Moon Hoon, Bjarke Ingels, Inges Idee, Christian Jankowski, Peter K. Koch, Annette Kisling, Mischa Kuball, Götz Lemberg, Susanne Lorenz, Regula Lüscher, Maciej Markowicz, Maix Mayer, Jürgen Mayer H, Bjørn Mehlhus, Fernando Menis, Christian Möller, Olaf Nicolai, Lewis Pugh, Raumlabor, realities:united, Anselm Reyle, Shirin Sabahi, Michael Sailstorfer, Karin Sander, Tomás Saraceno, Sauerbruch Hutton, Erik Schmidt, Something Fantastic, Carlo Stanga, Wolfgang Tillmans, Clement Valla x Certain Measures, Michael Wesely, Haegue Yang, Tobias Zielony

The World In My Hand

Group Show
18. April – 31. October 2024

The World in My Hand explores the smartphone as both object and aesthetic inspiration for artistic creation. It comments on public debates surrounding the many uses of smartphones: from always-on media consumption to digital detox, from swiping and matching to ghosting and blocking, from language atrophy to information overload, from resource depletion to status symbol.

The curators, Dr Jörg Garbrecht and Katharina Wenkler, have chosen a narrative approach to the exhibition. In eight chapters, they summarize various aspects and debates surrounding the smartphone, ranging from the launch date of our daily digital companion to its characteristic touchscreen and the contractions of time and space it enables. Deeply personal moments – such as Ai Weiwei’s selfie at the moment of his arrest or Sergey Melnitchenko’s photograph of his son during a blackout in Kyiv – appear alongside themes of perception and presentation of the self, as realized in the glass sculpture Stability by Julija Pociūtė. Other subjects include: looking for love online, as in Ariane Forkel’s Casanova’s Kabinett or John Yuyi’s Tinder Match; the complexities and pitfalls of digital communication, for example in the works of James Akers or Alejandra Seeber; and the smartphone as a means of staying in touch during pandemic lockdown isolation, for instance in the work of George McLeod. Edward Burtynsky’s photograph of lithium mines in the Atacama Desert calls attention to the topic of raw materials for electronic devices.

With works by:
Tornike Abuladze, James Akers, Ai Weiwei, Kate Baker, Aram Bartholl, Tillie Burden, Edward Burtynsky, Yvon Chabrowski, Julia Chamberlain, Rachel Daeng Ngalle, Erwin Eisch, Ariane Forkel, Shige Fujishiro, Valentin Goppel, David Horvitz, Artem Humilevskyi, Gudrun Kemsa, Zsuzsanna Kóródi, Brigitte Kowanz, George McLeod, Sergey Melnitchenko, Jonas Noël Niedermann, Julian Opie, Cornelia Parker, Katie Paterson mit Zeller & Moye, Julija Pociūtė, Rebecca Ruchti, Karin Sander, Jeffrey Sarmiento, Alejandra Seeber, JanHein van Stiphout, Jolita Vaitkute, Sascha Weidner, John Yuyi, Jeff Zimmer