2009
In the midst of the financial and banking crisis in 2009, KOW opened in a radical new building—here you can see the open doors that dissolve the boundary between urban space and exhibition space—with an exhibition trilogy whose title could not have been more unwieldy: ›Antirepresentationalism: Politics of Redescription. Conceptual and Socially Oriented Art in Leipzig 1997—2009.‹ With 27 artistic positions, the exhibition was a survey of conceptual art from Leipzig in the second post-reunification decade.
2010
The artistic themes of the early years were often as hard as the concrete of the exhibition spaces. Social violence, racism, neo-feudal injustice, colonial exploitation—and of course the vulnerability of the individual in these contexts—were and still are recurring themes today. The picture shows the exhibition by Clemens von Wedemeyer.
2011
From the beginning, the gallery programme has been cross-medial and cross-generational. In 2011, KOW presented the first solo show at the gallery by Franz Erhard Walther (1939)—supplemented by documentary pictorial material from various phases of Franz Erhard Walther’s oeuvre. Also on show in 2011 were Barbara Hammer’s (1939) first ever solo exhibition, Cady Noland (1956), Santiago Sierra (1966), and Mario Pfeifer (1981).
2012
One of the gallery’s most radical actions: Arno Brandlhuber’s ›Archipele‹ project flooded the exhibition space for six weeks—after which KOW needed a complete refurbishment. The theme of the show: gentrification and neoliberal urban planning.
2013
The cartoon controversy raged in 2013: how much humour and satire should Muslims put up with? How cheekily are we allowed to trample on the feelings of people? The blind spot of the debate: in Germany and »in the West«, too, religious regimes prevail that don’t know how to have fun. The exhibition ›Believers‹ showed 19 positions on this, including Pussy Riot and Christoph Schlingensief.
The second show of the year, with new sculptures by Michael E. Smith (1977), was the artist’s second solo show at the gallery on Brunnenstraße: all installations were largely created on site, inhabiting the exhibition space. Santiago Sierra’s project for KOW, ›40 cbm of Earth from the Iberian Peninsula‹ was also part of that year’s programme.
2014
For the Russian artist collective Chto Delat, it was already clear in 2014 that Russia would now be at war with Ukraine. Putin’s ruling regime would leave no room for art and criticism. Their exhibition at KOW was about catastrophe, chaos, and artistic powerlessness. Today, all members of Chto Delat live abroad, many as political refugees.
2015
In 2015, KOW dedicated an entire year to filmmakers from the gallery programme and held the small film festival ›A Summer of Film‹. Also, KOW presented sculptural works by the CATPC for the first time at KOW—and for the first time in Germany. In 2024, they represented the Dutch Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.
2017
Candice Breitz’s brilliant exhibition ›Love Story‹ was another crowd-puller in 2017. In the elaborate video installation, Julianne Moore and Alec Baldwin read texts from refugees who—despite all their acting skills and empathy—do not want to fit in with the white privileged faces from Hollywood.
2018
When hundreds of right-wing extremists marched through the city of Chemnitz and the country cried out, KOW spontaneously put together an exhibition to protest the shift to the right, but also to show how long artists have been concerned with this issue and how long it has been present in individual works.
2019
Henrike Naumann’s first solo gallery exhibition turned the exhibition space 90 degrees. Immense effort, immense effect. Between GDR romanticism, baseball bat nationalism, and Germanic nonsense, Naumann located right-wing everyday German mentalities somewhere in the Stone Age—which for some people is the present.
2020
Barbara Hammer was a pioneer of queer cinema, born in Hollywood in 1939. Her documentaries and experimental films are among the earliest and most comprehensive depictions of lesbian identity, love, and sexuality. In 2011, KOW showed the first ever solo exhibition of Barbara Hammer. ›Would You Like to Meet Your Neighbor?‹ was one of the first exhibitions in KOW’s new premises at Lindenstraße 35 in Kreuzberg.
2021
The Oury Jalloh case is one of the biggest police and judicial scandals in recent German history. Everything points to the fact that officers doused the black African man with petrol in a police cell and burned him to death. Clarification? Not a chance. Mario Pfeifer has reopened the case in several stages. In 2021, he showed his replica of the cell at KOW, thanks to which a fire expert then produced new evidence, which was presented at KOW in 2022.
2022
Anna Boghiguian (1946), born in Cairo, has lived and continues to live in many parts of the world. She connects and tells stories about people and events around the globe. The decline of mining and its cultures in Cornwall, England, was one of the themes of her first exhibition at KOW, and so was ›The Silk Road‹.
2023
With works by 19 artists from the gallery’s programme, KOW formulated a plea for openness of meaning and freedom of art in the group show ›Das Auto Rosi Aber‹. Since documenta 15, political and media attacks aimed at restricting artistic freedom, censoring artistic positions and intimidating critical voices have become more frequent. The exhibition responded with aesthetics that are suitable for resistance. 2023 was also a year in which KOW hosted the Kurdish-Iraqi artist Hiwa K, who presented an ensemble of works including a new video installation in which he returned to his native city Sulaymaniyah. The same year, ›My Mountain Has No Summit‹, Simon Lehner’s (1996) first solo exhibition at KOW, was also shown.
2024
Ten years in Mitte, five years in Kreuzberg—now Schöneberg. With its new location at Frobenstraße / corner of Kurfürstenstraße 145, KOW is moving further into the centre of the city and into the neighbourhood of numerous high-quality galleries. A group exhibition with 28 positions from 14 countries looks at the wars and crises of our time through a universal lens: the perception of the vulnerability that is unalterably inherent to human bodies and orders.