Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.) and Künstlerhaus Bethanien jointly present works by the recipients of the Berlin Senate’s 2025 Visual Arts Work Grant. Staged in parallel across both venues, the exhibition gathers international positions from artists living and working in Berlin. The show once again highlights the vital role that reliable funding structures play in the production and dissemination of contemporary art.
United by an engagement with societal, political, and historical questions, the artists critically reflect on power dynamics, norms, and ideologies. Spanning a broad spectrum of aesthetic approaches and media – including video, sound, photography, painting, drawing, installation, and performance–the works negotiate diverse, and at times contradictory, realms of experience and reality. They address the visible and invisible power structures that govern individual and collective perception in physical and digital space alike, and determine how knowledge and cultural expression are canonized.
Other works revolve around the phenomenon of memory – its processual nature, its fragility, and its inherent ambivalence. This concern is echoed in the exhibition title, which borrows a line from a letter by American poet Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) to her sister: “Memory is a strange Bell – Jubilee, and Knell.” Through the metaphor of a ringing bell, signaling both joy and loss, memory is framed as an ambivalent, dynamic process – not a static state, but a continuous, complex movement. At the same time, the quote evokes a present defined by paradoxical tensions, a perpetual oscillation between multiple crises and the pursuit of progress and growth.
Exhibitions
Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Kottbusser Str. 10, 10999 Berlin
Opening: 19.03 2026, 7 p.m.
Duration: 20.03.2026 – 17.05.2026
Artists: İpek Burçak, Olga Monina, Ania Nowak, Niclas Riepshoff, Max Schaffer, Alina Schmuch, Antje Taubert, Sergio Zevallos
Curator: Antje Weitzel
Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Chausseestraße 128/129, 10115 Berlin
Opening: 13.03.2026, 7 p.m.
Duration: 14.03.2026 – 03.05.2026
Artists: Nadja Buttendorf, Markus Draper, Martin Eberle, Noi Fuhrer, Shaun Motsi, Leonie Nagel
Curator: Lidiya Anastasova
www.nbk.org
A project by Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.) in cooperation with Künstlerhaus Bethanien.
The exhibition is sponsored by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion.
Events
Saturday, 21.03.2026
Exhibition tour with the artists
3 p.m. – Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Chausseestraße 128/129, 10115 Berlin
5 p.m. – Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Kottbusser Straße 41-43, 10999 Berlin
Language: German and English
Thursday, 16.04.2026, 7 p.m.
Shaun Motsi, Masters, 2023
Film screening
Venue: Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Chausseestraße 128/129, 10115 Berlin
Language: English
Saturday, 25.04.2026, 5 p.m.
Techfascism. Power and authoritarianism in the digital space
Panel discussion with Anna-Verena Nosthoff (Junior Professor for Ethics of Digitalization, University of Oldenburg) and Paul Feigelfeld (Professor for Digitality and Cultural Mediation, Mozarteum University Salzburg), moderated by Christine Watty (Journalist, Deutschlandfunk Kultur)
Location: Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Chausseestraße 128/129, 10115 Berlin
Language: German
Saturday, 02.05.2026, 5 – 9 p.m.
Performances by İpek Burçak, Ania Nowak, Sergio Zevallos and guests
Open Studios
Location: Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Kottbusser Straße 41-43, 10999 Berlin
Language: English
Sunday, 03.05.2026, 5 p.m.
Film presentation by Leonie Nagel
Location: Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Chausseestraße 128/129, 10115 Berlin
Language: German
Sunday, 17.05.2026, 4 p.m.
Tour with artists* from the exhibition
Location: Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Kottbusser Straße 41-43, 10999 Berlin
Language: German and English
No registration required
Free admission