The architecture of the International Congress Centre Berlin (ICC) in digitally modified form against a yellow circular background.

The Sun Machine Is Coming Down

Art at the ICC

7.10.–
17.10.21

To the programme
Key visual “Everything Is Just for a While”
Exhibition

Everything Is Just for a While

70 years of Berliner Festspiele revisited

28.5. -
17.10.21

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Matthias Pees to be appointed as new Director of Berliner Festspiele

Today, the board of directors of Kulturveranstaltungen des Bundes in Berlin (KBB) GmbH, chaired by Monika Grütters, Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, appointed the dramaturg, curator and theatre manager Matthias Pees as the new director of Berliner Festspiele. On 1 September 2022, he will take over the position from Thomas Oberender, who has been director of Berliner Festspiele since 2012 and will leave the institution at the end of the year at his own request.

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What’s On
Discover the programme
ICC Berlin, 2014

Art at the ICC

The programme for “The Sun Machine Is Coming Down” is out! In the extraordinary architecture of the International Congress Centre Berlin (ICC), works by Ed Atkins, Ayaka Nakama, Rosaceae & Natascha P., Tino Sehgal, Joulia Strauss, Alexander Vantournhout / not standing and many more can be seen from 7 to 17 October. Advance ticket sales have begun.

Discover the programme

To the exhibition "Everything Is Just for a While"
Key visual “Everything Is Just for a While”

Everything Is Just for a While – 70 Years of Berliner Festspiele Revisited

Previously little-known video footage from our own, public and private collections are boldly edited together in “Everything Is Just for a While” to mark the Berliner Festspiele’s 70th birthday and offer a new perspective on artistic positions from around the world that continue to amaze us today. The exhibition will be on view in the Gropius Bau from 28 May to 17 October 2021.

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Gropius Bau What’s On

Ayumi Paul composing simultaneity, 2021
Singing sculpture

The Singing Project

21 August to 18 December 2021

The Singing Project is an ever-changing singing sculpture that will begin to unfold at the Gropius Bau from August 2021. The artist-violinist, Ayumi Paul, will host workshops every month at the Gropius Bau and in Gropius Wood.

 More information
Thea Djordjadze, He ne sa tu to me., 2014 (detail)
Exhibition

Thea Djordjadze: all building as making

18 September 2021 to 16 January 2022

Thea Djordjadze’s artistic practice can be understood as a process of continually reusing, reconfiguring and rearranging objects.

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Jury Korolyov, Cosmonauts, 1982
Exhibition

The Cool and the Cold. Painting in the USA and the USSR 1960–1990

Ludwig Collection
24 September 2021 to 9 January 2022

30 years after the demise of the Soviet Union, the Gropius Bau presents an extensive group show that brings together works held by the Ludwig Collection from six international museums.

 More information
Coming Soon
Further information
The architecture of the International Congress Centre Berlin (ICC) in digitally modified form against a yellow circular background.

Visual concept and design: Eps51
CGI: bus.group
© Berliner Festspiele

The Sun Machine Is Coming Down

To mark their 70th anniversary, the Berliner Festspiele will take over the International Congress Centre Berlin (ICC) and open up the long-disused building for Live art, installations and films. Many younger people and a significant number of Berliners have never seen this architectural icon designed by Ursulina Schüler-Witte and Ralf Schüler from the inside. In a time dominated by coronavirus the project that takes its title from a line in David Bowie’s song “Memory Of A Free Festival” (1969) will offer light, space and transformation.

Further information

Seeing what’s ahead
– Berliner Festspiele stand for a cultural programme where the new becomes visible.
The Berliner Festspiele Edition
Berliner Festspiele

Edition No. 31

Angela Rosenberg about Gerhart von Westerman, art manager and first artistic director of the Berliner Festwochen

Key visual “Everything Is Just for a While”
Berliner Festspiele

Berliner Festspiele 70

We invite you to explore some of the many stories and aspects of the Berliner Festspiele in our anniversary year.

 Read more

More Berliner Festspiele

Solar system on the roof of the Gropius Bau
Berliner Festspiele

Sustainable Environmental Performance

We have been following EMAS guidelines for sustainable environmental performance since 2013. Find out more about our goals and the measures that we have already taken on the website of our umbrella organisation.

 To the KBB GmbH
Berliner Festspiele

Statement by the “Initiative GG 5.3 Weltoffenheit”

As representatives of public cultural and research institutions in Germany, we share a mandate from the state to promote arts and culture, historical research and democratic education and to make these accessible to the general public. Toward this end, we rely on a public sphere that welcomes controversial debates in accordance with the norms of the German constitution. At the center of our initiative lies a common struggle against antisemitism, racism, right-wing extremism and any form of violent religious fundamentalism.

 Further information to download
We are many * Every single one of us.
Berliner Festspiele

The Berlin Declaration of The Many

Berlin theatres, art and cultural institutions and their associations take a clear stance against right-wing populism. We are one of them!

 To the declaration