Cold as Ice. Coldness in Art and Society

Coldness is understood as low temperatures outside as well as emotionlessness, missing empathy, and a lack of solidarity. In this context, coldness can become a means of artistic expression for depicting and criticizing social conditions. Warmth is a fundamental human need, the prerequisite for health and well-being. Its absence has devastating consequences: a lack of social cohesion, increasing alienation, states of indifference and loneliness, acts of violence.

The exhibition Cold as Ice. Coldness in Art and Society presents artistic images of an ever-cooling social climate, bringing together works that address (politically) frosty times, but also evoke resistance and the counter-image of change and solidarity. On display over 1.000 square meters are space-encompassing installations, video works, sculptures, photographs, drawings, audio works, and paintings along with performances and participatory formats. Renowned artists from an international context, most of whom are making their first appearance in Bremen, stand alongside positions still awaiting discovery.

A catalog will be published, and in November there will be a special issue of the Zeitschrift der Straße on the themes of the exhibition.

Opening: September 19, 2025, 7 pm

admission free

Exhibition on level 3

Curated by Ingo Clauß und Janneke de Vries

Funded by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation). Funded by the Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien (Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media).