»Alongside Gallery Weekend, Berlin Art Week is the most important moment in Berlin’s art year for us. While Gallery Weekend takes place in spring and is organised by galleries for galleries, Berlin Art Week is more firmly rooted in the city’s institutions and museums—and in the extraordinary variety of spaces Berlin has to offer.
One particularly positive development is that the entire city has now embraced the week. That wasn’t always the case. Today, Berlin Art Week marks the start of the autumn and winter season: institutions open their new exhibitions, while a packed programme of talks, performances, concerts, and many other formats unfolds across the city.
For a few days, all of this brings into focus something that has always distinguished Berlin, and that we should never forget: the extraordinary diversity of its art landscape and the interplay between its many different players. For us, Berlin Art Week has become an essential date in the calendar—one we look forward to every year.«
—Esther Schipper, Galerie Esther Schipper
»For the past ten years, the Landesverband Berliner Galerien (LVBG) has participated in Berlin Art Week by presenting the VBKI-Preis Berliner Galerien. Bringing together a wide range of art events each September, Berlin Art Week gives art lovers yet another reason to visit the city. Looking ahead, we would like to see more festival formats that bring Berlin’s private galleries more firmly into the public eye.«
—Landesverband Berliner Galerien (LVBG)
»Berlin Art Week is the city’s cultural New Year celebration, in a way that only Berlin can pull off: the weeks of empty theatres, opera houses, and concert halls are over. Berlin Art Week sends a message out into the world: We’re back. The galleries pull out all the stops, the museums surprise us, and the art world celebrates itself and art—year after year … indispensable.«
—Peter Raue, Lawyer and supporter of the arts
»Berlin Art Week brings together art, performance, installation, a wide range of formats, and institutions in an exceptional constellation. During this week, the city itself becomes a stage where diverse artistic languages and perspectives enter into dialogue. This approach closely reflects Wentrup’s own: the gallery understands art as an open space for encounters, exchange, and crossing disciplinary boundaries—not least given Tina Wentrup’s own background in theatre and dance.«
—Tina and Jan Wentrup, Galerie Wentrup
»For decades, Berlin has ranked among the world’s leading art capitals. At the same time, it’s a city where far too many people are intent on cooking up their own little soup. With Berlin Art Week, there’s finally a moment each year when people bring their different ingredients together to create something collectively. Berlin is at its best when we think and act together and stand side by side.«
—Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW)
»Fifteen years of Berlin Art Week reflect an art city that never stands still. For Julia Stoschek Foundation, those have been intense years at Leipziger Straße: packed galleries, long queues, and conversations stretching late into the night. Looking ahead, I hope Berlin Art Week continues to embrace the openness and plurality that define it.«
—Julia Stoschek, Julia Stoschek Foundation
»Art has so many facets—for three lustres now, Berlin Art Week has revealed them in all their phases and from every angle: production in studios, presentation and trade in galleries, exhibitions in institutions, but also how art is handled in private collections. What happens to art after it has been bought, once it »disappears«? How does art live on »afterwards«? How do people live with art? Witnessing this with others, and allowing others to share in it, is usually a mutual pleasure; the communication, amazement and discussion are equally inspiring and enriching for visitors and hosts alike.«
—Ivo Wessel, Sammlung Ivo Wessel
»Berlin Art Week brings together the full spectrum of ways in which art becomes visible. For one week, museums, private collections, galleries, project spaces, and independent art spaces weave together into the rich fabric that makes Berlin’s art scene unique worldwide. Looking back at the programmes of recent years, it becomes clear how continuously the field has evolved: complexity has grown, exhibition models have begun to merge, and the boundaries between public and private are being explored in increasingly conceptual ways. Anyone who wants to understand contemporary art should experience it.«
—Juliet Kothe, Curator and author
»For fifteen years, Berlin Art Week has demonstrated the power that emerges when an entire city brings its cultural energies together. Exhibitions, openings, conversations, performances, and encounters come together in a programme whose impact extends far beyond the art world. Berlin Art Week not only mobilises institutions but also their audiences, reminding us that art truly comes alive when it brings people together. That the cultural administration chose to withdraw its financial support in this anniversary year of all years can only be described as short-sighted and scandalous.«
—Thomas Köhler, Berlinische Galerie
»Artists make Berlin what it is. Their decision to live and work here defines the city. Berlin Art Week brings that back into the spotlight. None of this would be possible without them.«
—Gerd Harry Lybke, Galerie Eigen+Art
»Congratulations on fifteen years of Berlin Art Week! I have followed Berlin’s art scene for more than two decades, and it has been a pleasure to see the festival grow into such a strong voice for Berlin as a centre for the arts over the years. With the opening of Hasenheide 13 later this year, we, too, want to make a lasting commitment to this city and its exceptional art scene. I wish Berlin Art Week continued success in raising its profile and giving even greater visibility to the city’s artists, galleries, institutions, project spaces, and collections—all of which contribute to Berlin as an international capital of art and culture.«
—Heiner Wemhöner, Sammlung Wemhöner
»After the summer, Germany is ready for art again—and nowhere is that appetite greater than at Berlin Art Week. Its place in the calendar is truly unique. People move through the city with synapses firing, and everywhere you look, there’s a smile. The spirit of collaboration among everyone involved creates the feeling of being part of one big art family.«
—Karen and Christian Boros, Boros Collection
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—Sebastian Pflum, Managing Director & Director of the KUNSTFORUM Foundation of Berliner Volksbank gGmbH
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—Stephan Koal, Kvost
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—Tarik Kentouche and Lorenz Liebig, Scherben
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—Christina Landbrecht
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—Positions Berlin
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—Diandra Donecker
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—Marius Barbias