ON THE JUBILEE YEAR

»Berlin is changing like almost no other major city. But in the process, the fields of experimentation that once made Berlin unique are shrinking. Art has been able to preserve its independence and remains resistant. And it remains resistant. For this, it needs the freedom and space to move. But also an audience that it can enter into dialogue with, provoke and also reconcile with. Creating spaces for the exchange between people and art, especially unexpected encounters, remains an important task for Berlin as an art centre. In this spirit, congratulations to Berlin Art Week for this jubilee year!«
—Gabriele Horn, director, Berlin Biennale für zeitgenössische Kunst

»To thrill the entire world with Berlin and its lively cultural landscape—this was and is the joint vision of Berlin Art Week and C/O Berlin. Berlin Art Week is one of the most important highlights of the calendar year, especially because unique, creative synergy effects take place between the city’s art and cultural institutions. Rarely does Berlin glow and pulsate as it does during Berlin Art Week. Our heartfelt congratulations on the jubilee year: C/O Berlin looks forward to another ten years by your side!«
—Stephan Erfurt, CEO C/O Berlin Foundation

»Berlin Art Week brings together the Berlin art world in a unique way. After the summer, everyone looks forward to an autumn art season and the city is full of highlights of the art world. We consciously chose to schedule the opening of our exhibition ›Studio Berlin‹ at Berghain last year during Berlin Art Week, for only together can the participants generate Berlin’s visibility as a capital of cultural life.«
—Christian Boros, Boros Foundation

»It was in the summer, 2013. I had just moved to Berlin from Cologne and was trying to get an overview. Then, in the run up to Berlin Art Week, I was invited together with Monica Bonvicini and Claudia Wahjudi to visit smaller institutions and project spaces and to suggest possible partners: it was just perfect timing. I am eternally grateful for the two weekends that led us all over Berlin and provided me with a good insight into the alternative art world. Some places like ›After the butcher‹ I’ve repeatedly visited with interest and excitement.«
—Kaspar König, curator and jury member, Berlin Art Week Selection 2013

»In 2013, I was a member of the jury and was lucky to take a tour of the city with well-known esteemed colleagues from several non-profit organizations, both new and long established. Claudia Wahjudi knew the city and several of the latest galleries very well, while for Kasper König the tour became the discovery of his own new home. In Marzahn, he paid for a catalogue on public works of art with Swiss francs, Marzahn was really the Wild West for him. Over the years, Berlin Art Week has been able to support places like Schinkel Pavillon, the Goldrausch women artists’ project, District and the Harun Farocki Retrospektive, HAU and Savvy Contemporary. Berlin Art Week has succeeded in becoming an important motor for the city. It supports both established and newly emerging institutions and galleries, brings the periphery and the centre of the city closer to one another and is a connecting link for the constantly changing Berlin art world. I look forward to the next ten years and hope that Berlin Art Week will maintain a commitment both to contemporary and new and upcoming artists and to urban development—it is more important than ever!«
—Monica Bonvicini, artist and jury member, Berlin Art Week Selection 2013

»For me, over the past five years Berlin Art Week has meant a deep commitment that has more than paid off! For our city and for our art world. We’ve brought together what always belonged together and created new synergetic effects. We have networked, put a spotlight on Berlin art, and conceived alternative formats for presenting art, generating new possibilities! For the next ten years, I hope for the next ten years that we will keep the spirit and continue to dare new things. My heartfelt congratulations to all who have made this great project worthwhile!«
—Dr. Klaus Lederer, Senator for Culture and Europe

»With the support of Berlin Art Week, we seek to provide galleries and artists with an important presentation platform that can spotlight the diversity of artistic production. The city profits from Berlin Art Week’s presence in the media, and that in turn is a positive contribution to our image and the Berlin economy overall. The team at Kulturprojekte Berlin has mastered the enormous task of coordinating a very wide range of participants for many years now with great dedication. If Berlin Art Week continues to develop so well, I am sure that there will be many jubilees to celebrate in future.«
—Ramona Pop, Senator for Economics, Energy and Public Enterprises

»Berlin Art Week was started by a small group of initiators consisting of 11 institutions, including Neuer Berliner Kunstverein. I remember the complainers and art market sceptics. Since then, we have shown that a highlight like this in the Berlin art year not only relies on the commercial art world—instead, Berlin Art Week stands for the strong positioning of publicly funded art in Berlin. Together with policymakers, we seek to develop to format continuously and to use the forum for a committed engagement with local and global debate.«
—Marius Babias, director, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.)

»From the very start, Berlin Art Week has been an essential part of Berlin’s cultural life. With the collaboration of all those involved, each year it’s able to generate an international feel. It’s the galleries and the artists that they represent that truly maintain Berlin’s reputation around the world as an art capital. Here, Berlin shows itself from its creative and flexible side in a model way.«
—Udo Kittelmann, curator, former director of Nationalgalerie Berlin (2008—2020)

»We’ve now been organizing Berlin Art Week as a joint collaboration for ten years now. We are grateful for the faith placed in us and are pleased about the development over the past ten years and look forward to the next ten!«
—Simone Leimbach and Moritz van Dülmen, directors, Berlin Art Week

»The first Berlin Art Week was held right after I began as director at Berlinische Galerie in 2012. That makes for a special relationship. Berlinische Galerie was part of BAW from the very beginning, and as a member of the steering committee I was able to play a role from the start. I still recall the opening that first year outside Kunst-Werken on Auguststraße. The whole street was a party. The opening became a street party! That’s how Berlin Art Week can create and celebrate the unique atmosphere that characterizes Berlin as an art capital.«
—Thomas Köhler, Berlinische Galerie

»›Risen from the Ruins‹: that could be the victorious slogan of Berlin Art Week—the end of Artforum in 2010 led just to a brief depression among gallerists, art dealers, collectors, and Berlin fans. From the midst of this disaster, the ten-year jubilarian veritably radiates. I prefer this collaboration of Berlin institution with countless, because uncountable galleries to art fairs. Strolling through neighbourhoods, discovering new galleries, making repeat encounters, combined with advice about must-sees is what makes this art week unique—in Germany, in all of Europe, maybe even worldwide. Facing the future: that’s my hope for the next decade.«
—Prof. Peter Raue, lawyer and art patron

»Berlin Art Week is a perfect moment to take the temperature of the art world in the city with its galleries, museums, art spaces and art fairs. As the city is in constant flux it’s sometimes hard to keep track of things, so it’s great opportunity to do this. I’m not really someone to focus on highlights but I believe the quality and dedication to Berlin Art Week has increased over the past years. Unification is key in order to move forward and I believe Berlin Art Week and all the partners involved should strive toward that, especially in these fragile times.«
—Krist Gruijthuijsen, director, KW Institute for Contemporary Art

»When I think of the collaboration of HAU with Berlin Art Week, I think of the exhibition with Miet Warlop (2017) and Halil Altındere’s ›Köfte Airlines‹ (2016). In Warlop’s ›Fruits of Labour‹, in a sense the closing event of Berlin Art Week 2017, the entire HAU1 was filled to the rafters and felt like it was taking off: it was one of those special moments when the energy on stage is transmitted directly to the audience, flows back to the stage and everything seems to come together. Altındere’s installation is quite different: the picture of people trying to flee who literally occupy an airplane from the outside, which is still hanging at HAU2, has taken on a new tragic significance due to the recent events in Afghanistan. Both examples show the wide spectrum in which art develops its power, and with it its social significance. I hope that Berlin Art Week will continue to stand for that in future, for BAW and the art capital Berlin!«
—Annemie Vanackere, artistic and managing director, HAU Hebbel am Ufer

»We have been involved from the very start, because a close collaboration between public institutions and private collectors has always been important to us. That makes it clear how rich the art world here is. Berlin Art Week makes Berlin glow.«
—Axel and Barbara Haubrok, Haubrok Foundation

»By gathering diverse forces in the city, Berlin Art Week has helped make the city a top address for contemporary art for a week each fall—the event is well-known among artists and colleagues around the world. What I really like is that during its tenth year BAW has struck out on new paths with Sol Calero’s display of outreach events, advancing its international and local networking and addressing a wider audience and more diverse communities.«
—Kathrin Becker, artistic director, Kindl— Center for Contemporary Art

»Berlin as an art capital is decentralized, asynchronous, and fragmentary, and that’s what makes it so exciting. During this week in September when all the city’s players briefly gather their energy, one can suspect Berlin’s true greatness. This is why Berlin Art Week is the perfect format for this special city. Congratulations for ten years!«
—Julia Stoschek, collector

»Berlin Art Week—that means enthusiasm for art and celebrating joint events. The high point for Berlin’s Akademie der Künste was the opening of Berlin Art Week at Hanseatenweg in 2013 with 7000 visitors in front of the show ›Schwindel der Wirklichkeit‹. Klaus Staeck, who tried to counter the floods in the exhibition halls. In [BC1] the global art circus, Berlin has chosen a different path, a path defined by cooperation. By opening ever new resources for art, from alternative art spaces to the large tankers, Berlin has become a power station of a polycentric dynamism parallel to the art fairs.«
—Dr. Johannes Odenthal, programme director, Akademie der Künste Berlin

»Ten years of Berlin Art Week mean for me: exchange with colleagues that allow the many diverse voices of the city to be heard, in brief, a strengthening of the complex eco-system of city society. In this way, a consciousness of the joint responsibility for cultural institutions for Berlin. I recall several projects presented by colleagues, such as the exhibition by Alicja Kwade in 2015 at Haus am Waldsee, the Harun Farocki retrospective in 2017, or the exciting use of Haus der Statistik two years ago. This year, HKW took a critical look at the now clichéd idea of “free art” with the exhibition ›Illiberal Arts‹. My wish is that Berlin Art Week, as it has done in the past, will still be able to reinvent itself in light of the great transformations in our society in the years to come.«
—Bernd Scherer, director, Haus der Kulturen der Welt

»Congratulations on ten years! Many thanks for the generous support of our event programme ›Good To Talk‹—this year as well. I look forward to many exciting and inspiring collaborations in the next ten years!«
—Tanja Wagner, gallerist

»Ten Berlin Art Weeks have re-established Berlin’s art September. For the city, the institutions, the museums and galleries—but also for the smaller cultural venues, Berlin Art Week is a joint seasonal kick off for presenting artists and their work. Berlin Art Week stands for cooperation, for diversity and participation. With ›Good To Talk‹, a festival that is dedicated to the spoken word in art, we would like to take up these issues and are especially pleased to be part of Berlin Art Week.«
—Johanna Neuschäffer and Anne Schwanz, Office Impart

»Berlin Art Week is always a bustling week, and each year features thought-provoking highlights for all those who take the time: Douglas Gordon at the Akademie der Künste, Anne Imhof at Hamburger Bahnhof, or Julian Charrière im Berghain, artfully interwoven venues of inspiration, production, distribution, exhibition, communication. I like the accessible private collections and hidden private chambers that contribute to the cultural know-how and wealth of the city. How lovely it would be if the studios, galleries, and museums could do that all year!«
—Ivo Wessel, collector

»Berlin Art Week is a wonderful art moment for this city! It combines a great deal and spotlights the great diversity that makes Berlin unique, from large institutions to a host of alternative spaces. For me, the events around the prize award ceremonies were always major highlights full of debate, exhibitions, performances, and music, bundling many exciting approaches. I wish you great success for the next ten years: keep the focus and continue to celebrate the wonderful, wide variety of Berlin art!«
—Chris Benedict, Netzwerk freier Berliner Projekträume und -initiativen

»A very personal Berlin Art Week moment for me was the opening of the project ›Stadt/Bild‹ on the terrace of the Neue Nationalgalerie with the happening ›Fluids‹ by Allan Kaprow, which was ultimately performed in five versions in different places in Berlin. Volunteers were supposed to use huge ice blocks to imitate the large enclosure, which was not so easy, but in the end looked wonderful. I remember the nice collaboration of this temporary community, but I also enjoyed collaborating with colleagues at Berlinische Galerie, Deutsche Bank Kunsthalle, and KW.«
—Lisa Marei Schmidt, director, Brücke-Museum

»I like to recall the start of ›Kunstherbst Berlin‹, for which several contemporary institutions—including Brücke-Museum—joined together. It is marvelous to see how Berlin Art Week has developed and is permanently introducing new ideas. Today it is impossible to imagine the cultural season without it, with its international appeal. I am particularly happy that Berlin Art Week appeals to a wide, diverse audience, that corresponds to the idea of an open institution that we seek to live out at PalaisPopulaire by Deutsche Bank: so keep at it!«
—Svenja Gräfin v. Reichenbach, director, PalaisPopulaire by Deutsche Bank

»I am happy that my exhibition ›Schizo Sonics‹, which was shown at Kindl—Center for Contemporary Art could open in the framework of Berlin Art Week 2020. Because of this, were able to attract a diverse and really wonderful crowd despite the pandemic and the difficult conditions resulting from that. For ten years now, Berlin Art Week has made a magnificent contribution in terms of public relations. An important format for Berlin that creates encounters and intensifies them.«
—Nik Nowak, artist

»Art as a mirror and surface of friction for society: that was not necessarily the focus of Berlin Art Week at the time of its founding in 2012. But today, political, ecological, and social subjects can be found in most exhibitions: artists not only accompany these issues, they catalyse, analyse, and develop visions in often complex artistic works. Berlin Art Week has in the meantime become a place for engaging with these artistic and social issues. That’s a positive development.«
—Karin Scheel, artistic director, Schloss Biesdorf