A program of experimental films and videos, curated and introduced by Christine Rüffert (University of Bremen)
Words form the bracket of this extremely diverse program, be it as spoken word poetry, asynchronous subtitles, demonstrative text panels or associative word games. Highly comical, deeply political, satirically denouncing, caricaturally distorted, the films and videos touch on topics such as the delivery madness of our consumer society, the Dutch Queen’s speech from the throne, the (non-)coexistence of black and white, sexual confessions of a former US president, Walter Benjamin’s media-theoretical thoughts, toxic masculinity in Berlin club life and much more. Everyday racism, gender relations, powerlessness and self-empowerment are pointedly put into words (and images).

The films:
| Andrea Winkler & Stefan Panhans | Anima Overdrive | D 2023 | 4:18
| Helga Davis & Anouk De Clercq | OK | BE/USA 2021 | 4:53
| eddie d. | Majesteit | NL 2009 | 2:13
| Antonio Muntadas | Media Ecology Ads | USA 1982 | 12:29
| John Smith | Associations | UK 1975 | 7:00
| Shelly Silver | Small Lies, Big Truth | USA 1999 | 18:48
| Laure Prouvost | OWT | UK 2007 | 3:35
| Julian Paul | Maschinenbauergemetzel | D 2022 | 2:58

Further information about the venue City 46 can be found here.
The program is part of the ongoing curatorial series film:art, which exhibits films between art and cinema.

75-minute yoga class for anyone interested with Gabriele Kroll in the exhibition “Kay Rosen. NOW AND THEN”. Afterwards, there will be a get-together with refreshments in the library. The exhibition and the museum can be explored before and after.

Please bring comfortable clothing and a yoga mat. If you do not have your own mat, please let us know when you register.

The international piano stars of the 18th European Piano Competition Bremen will take the audience on a musical journey through Europe. Contemporary pieces from the young artists’ home countries will be played on the Steinway grand piano at Sparkasse Bremen.

The European Piano Competition Bremen will be held from February 6 to 13, 2024 for the 18th time throughout Europe, including the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Georgia, Ukraine, Turkey and Israel. It offers talented 16 to 30-year-old pianists who are aiming for an international career a stage to present their skills to a broad, interested audience and a top-class jury.

Information and program: ekw-bremen.de

The matinée concert is a cooperation between the European Piano Competition Bremen (sponsor: Landesmusikrat Bremen e.V.) and the Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst.

Special thanks to Sparkasse Bremen AG for providing the grand piano in the Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst.

Fig. Hans Otte. Klanghaus in the Weserburg, photo: Björn Behrens

Get to know Kay Rosen’s world of word games, word (re)creations and text puzzles with curiosity and joy and use them imaginatively without a pen. The hands-on station invites you to create your own works on paper and take them home with you.

Curator Ingo Clauß will be offering a guided tour of the exhibition Kay Rosen. NOW AND THEN. at 11 am.

Photo: Maleen Dodt

75-minute yoga class for anyone interested with Gabriele Kroll in the exhibition “Kay Rosen. NOW AND THEN”. Afterwards, there will be a get-together with refreshments in the library. The exhibition and the museum can be explored before and after.

Please bring comfortable clothing and a yoga mat. If you do not have your own mat, please let us know when you register.

Illustration is often about making the invisible visible. The more abstract the object to be illustrated, the greater the challenge of finding a visual language for it. How can feelings be made visible? Or how to transform complex intellectual content into pointed visual positions? Who are the illustrations intended for and where do we lose viewers if we take off into possibly too personal worlds of thought?

In the practice of making the invisible visible in this way, we encounter very different approaches to illustration. From factual, analytical graphics to cloudy collages, from sharp lines to soft areas of color, from realistic scenes to dreamscapes, anything is possible. And of course there is no patent remedy, no one right way.

More detailed course information and registration requests: info@ankebaer.de

In the context of International Women’s Day

Idealized ideals of beauty, stereotypical role models, patriarchal power relations – art is not a neutral place, but sometimes a field in which social conditions and grievances come into view in a special way. The artists Claudia Christoffel (*1971) and Sibylle Springer (*1975) are connected in terms of content, but seek different ways of addressing their concerns:

Claudia Christoffel combines sharp provocation with disarming humor: “Ich schlaf mich lieber runter” (I’d rather sleep off) is the slogan on her T-shirt edition. Clichés and art history often come together in her work. Sibylle Springer, on the other hand, takes on the male-dominated painting tradition. In her latest paintings, she makes forgotten or barely noticed female artists visible. Her look back thus creates perspectives for a different, diverse and, above all, more feminine future.

The two artistic positions will be presented in conversation with curator Ingo Clauß. In the subsequent tour, current works, some of which have never been exhibited before, will be on display.

Beforehand, there will be a guided tour with Janneke de Vries at 6 pm: Girls, Girls, Girls. Women artists in the Weserburg.

Fig.: Claudia Christoffel,Ich schlaf mich lieber runter, 2021, Photo: Lukas Klose

7:45 pm: Talk with Anna Ehrenstein and Jeanne-Ange Wagne about decolonial strategies, collaborative working methods and memory culture.

The artists’ space is part of the collection presentation The Way We Are.

Fluid body images and identities, the relationship between humans and technology, capitalism and new forms of resistance and activism. Anna Ehrenstein (*1993) focuses on virulent issues in our society as if through a burning glass. Her futuristic-looking visual worlds and video works have a shrill and challenging effect. The most diverse aesthetics of high and popular culture collide, be it dance, music video, performance or kink, in the form of workshops and performances, as virtual 3D videos or expansive installations.

In her artistic practice, Anna Ehrenstein focuses on collaboration, preferring to work in and with collectives. This also links the two groups of works that the German-Albanian artist is bringing together at the Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst. Protest Praxis takes the Afro-Asian writers’ conferences, first held in Tashkent in 1958, as a starting point for criticism, analysis and new utopian ideas. The works are part of the collaboration Albanian conference with DNA, Fadescha and Rebecca Pokua Korang. The work Tupamara’s Technophallus in turn reflects on socially relevant issues against the backdrop that even the latest technological achievements perpetuate historically evolved imbalances of power.

On display are fitness equipment combined with monitors, photographs extended into the space and textile sculptures.In the exhibited works, Ehrenstein makes queer-feminist perspectives visible, incorporating people from various fields of knowledge, including a cultural activist, a music duo and a dance collective from Bogotá.In this way, entrenched narratives and power structures are broken up and new knowledge and transcultural perspectives are made possible.

Fig.: Anna Ehrenstein, pvssy divx bei KOW Berlin, Out of the Dark II, Sammlung Haus N, courtesy the artist, KOW und Office Impart

As part of the opening of the new artist space Anna Ehrenstein. Protest Practice / Tupamaras Technophallus

On the artists’ space:

Fluid body images and identities, the relationship between humans and technology, capitalism and new forms of resistance and activism. Anna Ehrenstein focuses on virulent themes in our society as if through a burning glass. Her futuristic-looking visual worlds and video works have a shrill and challenging effect. On display are fitness equipment combined with monitors, photographs extended into the space and textile sculptures. In the exhibited works, Ehrenstein makes queer-feminist perspectives visible, incorporating people from various fields of knowledge, including a cultural activist, a music duo and a dance collective from Bogotá.

About the people:

Anna Ehrenstein studied photography and media art in Germany and attended curatorial courses in Valetta, Malta and Lagos, Nigeria. In 2022 she received the INITIAL grant for artistic mediation with her work for Conviviality, in 2021 the research grant of the Senate Department for Culture and Europe, Berlin and in 2020 the C/O Berlin Talent Award 2020 for “New Documentary Film Strategies” with her work Tools for Conviviality. She has worked for the educational program BB10 curated by Gabi Ngcobo and curated exhibitions for the Triennial of Photography in Hamburg. In 2019, she received a DAAD scholarship for a research semester in Bogotá, Colombia. She recently exhibited at the Ural Biennale in Yekaterinburg, the Lagos Biennale in Lagos and at KOW Berlin, Office Impart, the C/O Berlin Foundation, the Kunstraum Kreuzberg, the Stadtgalerie Saarbrücken and the Kunstverein Braunschweig, among others.

Jeanne-Ange Wagne is an art historian, art educator and creative practitioner who conducts artistic research into (German) memory culture, colonial history and colonial provenance research. As a freelance art mediator, she regularly offers critical mediation formats for the public program of cultural and art institutions, most recently for the “Dekoloniale,” the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, the 12th Berlin Biennale, as well as for the Akademie der Künste Berlin. She also works for the German branch of the transnational research project “The Restitution of Knowledge,” based at the Department of Modern Art History at the Technical University of Berlin, where she co-curated and coordinated the event series “KuK-Tuesdays: Dislocation” in 2022-2023.

Fig.: Jeanne-Ange Wagne (Photo: Iga Drobisz) and Anna Ehrenstein

In this concert, Ukrainian works from the 20th century will be performed for the first time in Bremen and accompanied by Ukrainian poetry translated into German.The duo explores musically and lyrically the deepest wishes, dreams and hopes of people and everything they often hide in the secret depths of their souls.

75-minute yoga class for anyone interested with Gabriele Kroll (certified yoga teacher) in the exhibition “Kay Rosen. NOW AND THEN”. Afterwards, there will be a joint finale with refreshments in the library. The exhibition and the museum can be explored before and after.

Please bring comfortable clothing and a yoga mat. If you do not have your own mat, please let us know when you register.

R F Jefferies is a young collector and arts philanthropist based between San Diego, and Los Angeles California, who has been working closely with the Weserburg for several years. He is particularly interested in conceptual art, experimental formats, sculpture and videos. Some of his works only exist as artistic ideas, which are first created by means of instructions. Nevertheless, the walls of his private home are almost completely covered with photographic works, sculptural objects, video screens and light works – a man of conviction who cannot and will not live without art.In an interview with Cultured magazine, R F Jefferies describes his passion as follows: “I focus on time-based works, sculptures and installations with a concentration on those artists identifying as female, persons of color, and LGBTQI+.” Indeed, many of the works in the collection reflect socially controversial issues and focus on questions of body and identity with analytical acuity. He views collecting as a form of support and collects in depth with serval artists in the collection such as Jade Kuriki Olivo (Puppies Puppies), Ser Serpas, Tschabalala Self, Pierre Huyghe, Ghislaine Leung, and Cosima von Bonin.

The conversation with curator Ingo Clauß will take place via Zoom. There will be opportunities to ask questions.

Free zoom link: ttps://us02web.zoom.us/j/81035545708?pwd=VjRXVEFYMVBRK0YyTkgzYUJtanUyUT09

Fig.: R F Jefferies

The internationally established jazz pianist Claude Diallo travels the world and inspires a wide audience with his music. With the trio Claude Diallo Situation, he has produced many albums, received various awards and plays at jazz festivals and clubs in Europe, America and Asia. He discovered his love of jazz through the music of Oscar Peterson. After intensive studies at the Berklee College of Music in Boston and at the Aaron Copland School of Music in New York, Claude Diallo began his career in New York. There he worked for eleven years with the best musicians in his genre. Under the motto Traveling with Music, he began touring the world at the age of 20.

The evening offers the unique opportunity to hear Claude Diallo solo piano. The concert will be recorded live by the American record label Dot Time Records.

Fig.: Portrait Claude Diallo, Photo: Nina Chen

Artists have been inspired by the fascinating energy of the oceans for centuries, but in most cases they looked at the stormy or paradisiacal conditions from the outside.

Dr. Nora Diehl will take the audience underwater and talk about the diversity of life, the sensitive cycles, but also the challenges that changing climatic conditions will bring in the future.

Compositions on the theme of water, played between the talks by Claudia Janet Birkholz on the grand piano, will bring the underwater world to life in a special way.

With works by Tōru Takemitsu, George Crumb, Noriko Nakamura, Luciano Berio

About Dr. Nora Diehl:
Nora Diehl studied marine biology in Rostock and completed her doctorate at the University of Bremen in 2021. In her research, she specialized in adaptation mechanisms of large algae to their environment. She is currently working within the EU project FACE-IT, where she is investigating the impact of climate change on Arctic brown algae, known as kelps.

About Claudia Janet Birkholz:
Claudia Janet Birkholz studied piano in Bremen, where she has since worked as a lecturer for piano and new music at the University of the Arts. She has played at numerous festivals and in ensembles. Since 2012, she has been chairwoman of the realtime – forum neue musik association and artistic director of the realtime festival in Bremen. She initiated the format “Let’s Talk Music”, to which she has been inviting guests from the fields of music and science since 2015.

The event is a cooperation between Realtime – Forum Neue Musik e.V. and the Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst.

With the kind support of Sparkassen Bremen AG

Fig.: Dr. Nora Diehl, Photo: Britta Iken

15 March 2024 marks the eighth anniversary of the Printmaking Day. In connection with this day, the BBK Bundesverband (Federal Association) is initiating the annual project “ZEITGLEICH-ZEITZEICHEN 2024 – Im Zeichen der zeitgenössischen experimentellen Druckkunst”.

In this context, the Berufsverband Bildender Künstler*innen Bremen (BBK) is organising the Print Festival (19 – 21.4.2024) and an annual exhibition (19.4 – 26.5.2024) on the subject of print art at the Weserburg.

During the festival weekend, visitors can learn about and try out various printmaking techniques under professional artistic guidance. The programme includes four creative hands-on staions: letterpress printing with soft cut (Pia van Nuland, Inger Seemann, Evita Emersleben), intaglio printing on PVC film as drypoint (Udo Steinmann, Melissa Chelmis, Anja Höppner) and risography, a stencil printing process similar to screen printing (D. O.C.H.: Katharina Dacrés, Karin Demuth, Julia Dambuk, Carolin Klapp and Lucia Mendelova) as well as live screen printing (Serigraphic Circus). Please note that the textiles need to be provided by the participants themselves. Participation is on a donation basis.

In addition, there will once again be an open presentation, a kind of rotation principle for spontaneous art purchases. Exhibited prints can be purchased directly and taken home immediately. There will also be an extensive sales stand with prints such as editions, monographs, posters and postcards.

Furthermore on Sunday (21 April) on 1 p.m. the performance “Druckgrafik ist wie Karate Vol. 2 (Printmaking is like karate Vol. 2)” with Shogun Bremen e.V. will take place.

At the same time, the curated BBK annual exhibition “Das Papier hat einen entscheidenden Einfluss auf das Druckergebnis (The paper has a decisive influence on the print result)” will be shown with works by Georg Bronn, Johann Büsen, Erwin Edel, Toni Ehrhardt, Anja Fußbach/von weit hergeholt, Kollektiv Studio LØLU, Anja Höppner, Christine Huizenga, Constantin Jaxy, Veranika Khatskevich, Maria Mathieu, Inger Seemann, Ul Seo, Yoriko Seto and Pia van Nuland.

Fig.: Print Art Festival 2023, photo: Lukas Klose

Participating Artists:

Isolde Loock, Patrizia Bach, Irmgard Dahms, Veronika Dobers, Monika B. Beyer, Barbara Rosengarth, Michael Wendt, Mechtild Böger, Anne Schlöpke, Marikke Heinz-Hoek, Sirma Kekeç, Kornelia Hoffmann, Herwig Gillerke, Gertrud Schleising, Doris Weinberger, Edith Pundt, Ele Hermel, Claudia Christoffel

The publication is based on the F105 collection from the TOMIKO Archive by Patrizia Bach: an art project in the form of a photographic archive. Starting with the question of how archives can be sustainably opened up and revitalized through artistic work, Patrizia Bach and Isolde Loock invited artists to select any number of photos from the collection and respond to them.

Since 2020, Patrizia Bach has been in close contact with Bettina Brach, a curator at Weserburg, who unexpectedly passed away on July 30, 2023. Many artists experienced Bettina Brach as the heart and soul of the Weserburg Center for Artists’ Publications: through her intelligence and openness, as well as her talent for discreetly making connections, she became a friend to many artists and also brought Isolde Loock and Patrizia Bach together.

The publication F105 is dedicated to Bettina Brach and will be launched with contributions from artists close to her.

Making Connections – An Archive Project in Memory of Bettina Brach was initiated and curated by Patrizia Bach and Isolde Loock.

About Patrizia Bach’s TOMIKO Archive: The TOMIKO Archive is an art project in the form of a photographic archive and includes approximately 500,000 family/amateur photographs of unknown origin from Germany, Italy, and Turkey. The artist began the collection around 2001 and started integrating it into an archive around 2006. To date, around 15,000 photographs have been inventoried, and the associated digital publication by Patrizia Bach can be viewed at tomikoarchiv.de.

Fig.: TOMIKO Archive

As part of International Museum Day, visitors have free admission to the Weserburg all day. At 11 a.m., there will also be a free guided tour in German with Karin Puck through the exhibition The Way We Are with the title Mann mit Löffel, Frau mit Flöte. Körperbilder in der Weserburg (Man with Spoon, Woman with Flute: Body Images in the Weserburg).

Fig.: International Museum Day

8 p.m.: Conversation between Janneke de Vries and Yael Bartana at Hans Otte. Klanghaus

Yael Bartana (*1970 in Israel, lives in Amsterdam and Berlin) is considered one of the most important international filmmakers of her generation. Her films, photographs, objects, neon works, and performances connect the past and present to develop a speculative future. The artist describes her working method as “pre-enactment” – not a reenactment of the past, but rather a foreshadowing of the future based on the past. What if? Bartana: “Pre-enactment mixes facts and fiction. It is a thought experiment that challenges the historical narrative, creating an alternative present and counterfactual stories.”

Since the early 2000s, Yael Bartana has explored themes such as national identity and religious tradition, collective traumas and the longing for redemption, patriarchal power structures, and promises of salvation. Ultimately, her work always revolves around the question of how we can and want to live meaningfully together in the future in light of the weight of a shared past that affects us in different ways.

The selection of works from Utopia Now! at the Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst includes film installations, photographs, and neon works from the last ten years, as well as the world premiere of Bartana’s latest film – with a particular focus on the facts of German history and contemporary reality. However, the artist does not aim to address or resolve German guilt. Instead, in Utopia Now!, the view into the past serves as a starting point for developing visions for a possible future based on the present situation—visions that transcend national borders.

Fig.: Yael Bartana, Brasil, 2024 (Filmstill)

Further information on the exhibition: https://weserburg.de/ausstellung/yael-bartana-utopia-now/

The Lange Nacht der Bremer Museen (Long Night of Bremer Museums) offers an exciting and varied program for young and old in and around the museum.

Weserburg Program

• 6:00 pm–10:00 pm (hourly):
  Short guided tours through the current exhibitions with art mediators and curators.
• 6:00 pm–10:00 pm:
  Hands-on Stations: Painting as if Printed
  With artist Sirma Kekeç. The printing block serves as both a painting board and canvas. Combine solid colors and linear drawings: rolled, painted, dabbed, with brushes, sponges, fingers, palm, or other tools. Monotype offers many possibilities and unleashes creativity. Give it a try!
• 6:45 pm, 7:45 pm, 8:45 pm (each for 20 minutes):
  Piano Recital at the Hans Otte. Klanghaus
  Pianist Alexandra Wenger rehearses on Mondays and Tuesdays with children and young people who have fled from Ukraine on the grand piano in the Hans Otte Klanghaus. As part of the Lange Nacht der Bremer Museen, the young pianists invite you to a brief recital.

Die Sparkasse Bremen AG provides the grand piano. The Ahten Stiftung and the Bremer Bündnis für die Ukraine take care of the teaching costs in 2024.

• 7:30 pm
  BIKE IT! Stage Lange Nacht Tour: Nakamarra on the Bike Stage
  Bremen’s Velostage rolls through the Lange Nacht der Bremer Museen and the Oldenburg band Nakamarra performs on it! The bike stage unfolds in front of the Weserburg, the Städtische Galerie, and the Kunsthalle, bringing the fusion of jazz and hip-hop of the trio, which has been active since summer 2021, to the forecourts of the exhibition venues. The three musicians on keys, bass, and drums share a passion for UK jazz and interpret pieces by currently pioneering artists such as Yussef Dayes, Alfa Mist, Oli Howe, and Robert Glasper.

Fig: The Weserburg at Night (Photo: Christian Wasenmüller)

Of Stones that Do Not Forget, and People Who Do Not Remember

What is it like to grow up as the son of a father persecuted by the Nazis among the grandchildren of perpetrators? In Spur und Abweg Tallert confronts the history of persecution in his family. What sets his fate and his perspective on German history apart: Kurt Tallert is now 37 years old, yet his father was persecuted by the Nazis as a half-Jew when he was still a young man. Harry Tallert is 58 years old when his son is born. And he passes away twelve years later. Even as a student, Kurt Tallert must come to terms with the fact that what is mere textbook history for much of his generation is alive and tangible for him—the story of his father. A father who, after liberation, remains in Germany, becomes a journalist, and a member of the Bundestag. Yet, he spends his entire life searching for his place. In Spur und Abweg past meets present, tradition meets repression, experience meets memory. Kurt Tallert tells the story of his father—and his own—in a distinctive voice. An unforgettable debut and a piece of contemporary literature in which the fragments of a life are pieced together to reflect society.

Kurt Tallert was born in 1987 in Bad Honnef and studied German studies and Hispanic studies. Under the stage name Retrogott he has been shaping the German hip-hop scene as a rapper, DJ, and producer for over twenty years, releasing numerous albums. Spur und Abweg marks his debut as a writer.

The reading takes place as part of the accompanying program for the exhibition Yael Bartana. Utopia Now!

Fig.: Portrait of Kurt Tallert (Photo: Constantin Arei)