Short guided tours (instead of an introductory speech):
7:15 pm with Janneke de Vries
8:15 pm with Ingo Clauß

Followed by a shared celebration with soup and drinks in the Library.

The collection exhibition The Way We Are appears in a new light: new works, new collections, new thematic areas. Alongside this, familiar works with modified emphases, established positions as moments of recognition, hands-on stations for visitors, and a stronger focus on positions from the 1960s to the 1980s as a historical backbone. The guiding question: Who are we—and who could we be?

New to the exhibition are works by around 40 artists: Saâdane Afif, John M. Armleder, Rebekka Benzenberg, Viktoria Binschtok, Karla Black, Christian Boltanski, André Cadere, Jesse Darling, Cao Fei, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Ceal Floyer, Andrea Fraser, Ryan Gander, Kyriaki Goni, Donald Judd, Johanna Karlsson, Annette Kelm, Sonia Khurana, Jürgen Klauke, Fabian Knecht, Jürgen Krause, Till Krause, Wolfe von Lenkiewicz, Richard Long, Robert Longo, Urs Lüthi, Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, Marge Monko, Andreas Mühe, Zanele Muholi, Kenneth Noland, Susan Philipsz, Paloma Proudfoot, Peter Roehr, Bunny Rogers, Kay Rosen, Ulrike Rosenbach, Emma Sarpaniemi, Lerato Shadi, Luc Tuymans, Anna Vogel, Wim Wenders

Fig.: Marge Monko, I Don’t Eat Flowers, 2009, Art’Us Collectors’ Collective © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026

What connects stars, galaxies, and sounding tones—and how can the infinite be made audible?

Astronomer Antonín Bečvář, founder of the Skalnaté Pleso Observatory in the High Tatras, created monumental star atlases in the 1950s and 1960s that inspired generations of researchers—and artists alike. American composer John Cage used Bečvář’s maps as the basis for his piano works Etudes Australes (1974–75) and Etudes Boreales (1978): music that quite literally reaches for the stars.

During the lecture-concert, excerpts from these fascinating works will be performed live, in dialogue with breathtaking celestial images from the atlases Atlas Borealis and Atlas Australis.

Outer space itself will also become audible: NASA has translated data from the Hubble Space Telescope into sound—so-called sonifications. These sounds from space will be heard during the concert and set in relation to John Cage’s compositional approach.

Matti Wiemers, deputy director of the Bremen Olbers Planetarium, will guide the audience through the mysteries of the night sky, speaking about star clusters, supernovae, and the fascination of the infinite—opening up new perspectives on listening and seeing. At the piano, works will be performed that make the night sky, light and darkness, distance and proximity musically tangible, by Olivier Messiaen, Tōru Takemitsu, Béla Bartók, and George Crumb.

An evening between art and science—for everyone curious about the sound of the sky.

About the participants:
Matti Wiemers completed his studies at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media, including a Master’s degree in historical musicology. Alongside his work as a subject coordinator for educational sciences at the State Institute for Schools Bremen, he has been deputy director of the Bremen Olbers Planetarium since 2015 and teaches music, geography, and astronomy at the Altes Gymnasium.

Claudia Janet Birkholz studied piano in Bremen, where she teaches piano and new music at the University of the Arts. She has performed at numerous festivals and with ensembles. Since 2012 she has chaired realtime – forum neue musik and serves as artistic director of the realtime festival in Bremen. She initiated the format Let’s Talk Music, inviting guests from music and science since 2015.

A cooperation between realtime – forum neue musik e.V. and Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst
With the kind support of Die Sparkasse Bremen

Fig.: Claudia Janet Birkholz, photo: Andreas Caspari