Hovers
Shunsaku Hayashi has conceptualized the leap-frog as an icon of the rebellious spirit of our age. Inspired by a football video game, it is presented in his film hovers (2026) in the form of a stop-motion animation consisting of original paintings. The leap-frog manifests itself as a playful ritual to celebrate the scoring of a […]
It Started with a Pear
It Started with a Pear is a narrative by Noé Duboutay about desire, memory and the constructed nature of gender. The starting point of the exhibition is the thirteenth-century medieval verse novel Le Roman de Silence by Heldris de Cornuälle (Heldris of Cornwall). It tells the story of a girl who is raised as a […]
Ren Loren Britton: Deixis & Needs
What if needs, rather than norms, shaped how we live together, form relationships and organize institutions? Ren Loren Britton’s first institutional solo exhibition, Deixis & Needs, combines sculptural objects, textiles and a sound work into an expansive, multi-sensory spatial installation. Helium-filled balloons float slowly through the air as you enter the exhibition space. Some hover […]
Pleasure garden
Louise Paramor, born 1964 in Sydney, is a guest at Künstlerhaus Bethanien for one year in 1999/2000 as part of the International Studio Program of the Australia Council, Visual Arts/Craft Board. Louise Paramor obtains her working materials from the almost inexhaustible pool of everyday objects – cheap, small decorative objects and materials made of fabric, […]
Memory Is a Strange Bell
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 […]
This is not a Dance Film
In This is not a Dance Film, the dancer and photographer become mutually active participants in a choreography where the act of filming itself becomes the driving force. The dancer responds to the camera, and the camera responds to the body – a loop of movement, gaze, and control emerges. At first, the roles seem […]
16 Dreams of Me
The exhibition 16 Dreams of Me introduces a multilayered, dreamlike space in which personal memory, collective trauma, and political reality are inextricably intertwined. Dream is presented not as a retreat, but as a state of confrontation—a space in which inner images, social conditioning, and political violence converge. The interactive installation 16 Dreams of Me, which […]
Substitute for a Sunset
Upon entering Andreas Brunner’s exhibition Substitute for a Sunset, one’s gaze is drawn to a former illuminated sign, mounted high and completely stripped of its original content. Transparent panel, bare aluminum, exposed electronics. A cold circular light glows evenly, without image, without text, without address. What normally captures attention and promises meaning appears here as […]
Skinny Cat
In Malthe Møhr’s video Sja Mægre, memory is (in) a body and structured to the rhythm of a steady beat. Acting as a filmic metronome kept entirely out of sight, this beat—dumb yet precise—dictates the tempo of the artist’s dialectical storytelling: two screens offering distinct dimensions of the same unfolding narrative. For the film’s characters, […]
Sweet Sweet Sun
The protocols of cruising for gay sex—such as those that take place most evenings in the woodland in Hasenheide Park, a short walk from the Bethanien studios—have more than a little in common with the rites in the life of an artist travelling between international residencies. Each approach—to the object of desire or, more prosaically, […]