Friday 30 July 2010 | 19:00Venue: Martin-Gropius-Bau, CinemaUSA 1979, unfinished original: 1931approx. 85 minWith Martin Hernandez, Félix Balderas, David Liceaga and othersOn the occasion of the exhibition “Frida Kahlo – Retrospektive”

Gropius Bau

Gropius Bau 2023

Gropius Bau, Kino (Untergeschoss)

Gropius Bau, Cinema (Lower ground floor)

Qué viva México!

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Located in the centre of Berlin, the Gropius Bau is a lively place for encounters with art and each other. As an internationally renowned exhibition centre, it offers space for major exhibitions and performances by contemporary artists.

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The Gropius Bau is closed on Tuesdays.

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Gropius Bau 2025

Events

Exhibitions & Projects

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Tanz im August, presented by HAU Hebbel am Ufer, is a festival of contemporary dance in Berlin. With three productions, it will once again be a guest at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele this year. The pre-sale of some programme highlights has already started.

Tanz im August

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Eight selected concert highlights of Musikfest Berlin 2025 have already been published and are on sale. These include guest performances by the world’s best symphony orchestras and choirs from the Netherlands, France, Belgium and Italy, which are rarely heard in Berlin.

Musikfest Berlin

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The international literature festival berlin, or ilb for short, is considered one of the most important literary festivals in the world. The programme for the 25th&nbsp;ilb will take place from 11 to 20&nbsp;September 2025. The Young Programme will run from 15 to 24&nbsp;September 2025. The main venue is the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, with additional locations for the Young Programme including Theater an der Parkaue and the Gelbe Villa.

25th international literature festival berlin

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This year, 53&nbsp;ensembles from all over Germany applied for the Tanztreffen der Jugend. 8&nbsp;young ensembles between contemporary and urban dance were chosen by the jury for the final selection. They will show their work at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele in autumn.

Tanztreffen der Jugend

More Berliner Festspiele

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The international literature festival berlin, or ilb for short, is considered one of the most important literary festivals in the world. The programme for the 25th&nbsp;ilb will take place from 11 to 20&nbsp;September 2025. The Young Programme will run from 15 to 20 September 2025. The main venue is the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, with additional locations for the Young Programme including Theater an der Parkaue and the Gelbe Villa.

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The Performing Arts Season once again brings renowned international dance, theatre and performance productions to the Haus der Berliner Festspiele and the Gropius Bau. In this edition, the series focuses primarily on various concepts of identity.

Performing Arts Season

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YOKO ONO: MUSIC OF THE MIND

Since the 1950s, Yoko Ono has been ahead of her time, leaving her mark on visual arts, music and activism. To honour her groundbreaking work, Gropius Bau presents the comprehensive solo exhibition&nbsp;YOKO ONO: MUSIC OF THE MIND. Spanning the first floor and the atrium of Gropius Bau, the show brings together over 200 works from seven decades, revealing her radical approach to language, art and participation that continues to speak to the present moment.

YOKO ONO: MUSIC OF THE MIND

Key Visual Neu

Marking twenty years since artist, writer and performer Vaginal Davis made Berlin her home, Gropius Bau presents the first comprehensive solo exhibition of her work in Germany. In her oeuvre, punk meets glamour, queer activism meets Black counter-culture and resistance meets desire.&nbsp;Fabelhaftes Produkt&nbsp;offers&nbsp;an overview of Davis’ practice and artistic collaborations.

Vaginal DavisFabelhaftes Produkt

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Playing, laughing, making noise, letting off steam, doing nothing – all in an exhibition venue! With BAUBAU, the artist Kerstin Br&auml;tsch designed an&nbsp;admission-free play space for kids, where more is allowed than forbidden. On Gropius Bau’s ground floor, colourful wallpapers, structures, objects and open-ended material called “loose parts” configure flexible spaces that are shaped by children’s activities.

BAUBAU

Spielen in der Stadt

What has been the role of play in public space, both historically and in the present? Complementing BAUBAU, our free play space for kids, Gabriela Burkhalter’s&nbsp;Playing in the City&nbsp;presentation traces the history of playgrounds since their emergence in 1900 to today. The free presentation is open to all and can be seen in two rooms next to the play space’s entrance.

Playing in the City

Currently at Gropius Bau

Vaginal Davis: Fabelhaftes Produkt

Current Exhibitions

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Widely regarded as one of the most original and influential artists of the 20th century, Diane Arbus’ bold black-and-white photographs demolish aesthetic conventions and upend all certainties. With Diane Arbus: Konstellationen, Gropius Bau presents the most comprehensive exhibition of her work to date. Featuring 454 prints, many of them shown here for the first time, Konstellationen offers new perspectives on Arbus’ iconic images and the wide range of her portraiture.

Diane Arbus: Konstellationen

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Ligia Lewis is a central figure in redefining performance within the context of the visual arts. In her multifaceted practice, she combines performance, live installation and film. &nbsp;From autumn 2025, Gropius Bau presents I’M NOT HERE FORRRRR…, the artist and choreographer’s most comprehensive solo exhibition to date. It brings together new and existing works that explore themes of race, gender, violence and resistance.

Ligia Lewis: I’M NOT HERE FORRRRR…

Preview Autumn 2025

The international literature festival berlin, or ilb for short, is considered one of the most important literary festivals in the world. The programme for the 25th&nbsp;ilb will take place from 11 to 20&nbsp;September 2025. The Young Programme will run from 15 to 20 September 2025. The main venue is the Haus der Berliner Festspiele.

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With CHEAP, Larry, Evita Manji, New Noveta, otay:onii and Keioui Keijaun Thomas

Sp&auml;tschicht x Creamcake

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The Practice – What Moves Artists

The Practice – What Moves Artists&nbsp;is a new book series by Gropius Bau that invites artists to showcase a practice that they pursue, that has influenced them or that has been with them for a long time. In the second volume of the series, artist, performer and author Vaginal Davis looks back on the saucy underground scenes of Los Angeles and Berlin together with former bandmates.&nbsp;On Dangerous Ground recounts past gigs, spectacular live performances and well-kept secrets.

Vaginal Davis: On Dangerous Ground

Located in the centre of Berlin, the Gropius Bau is a lively place to encounter art and each other. The internationally renowned institution stages large-scale exhibitions and performances by contemporary artists. Its diverse events focus on exchange and discussion, bringing together local and global perspectives.&nbsp;

About the Gropius Bau

We are looking forward to welcoming you back in mid-March with the reopening of our play space, <a href="${link:{uuid:{df42e57d-a14a-4b44-a5e4-9d3e7dcab5a6},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/gropius-bau/programm/baubau}}}">BAUBAU</a> (on 22 March), and two exhibitions, <a href="${link:{uuid:{55d64239-53fe-4b12-8567-a63191c6cae4},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/gropius-bau/programm/2025/ausstellungen/vaginal-davis}}}">Vaginal Davis: Fabelhaftes Produkt</a> (from 21 March) and <a href="${link:{uuid:{9618c701-bd05-432e-b688-5943e1f7fc57},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/gropius-bau/programm/2025/ausstellungen/yoko-ono}}}">YOKO ONO: MUSIC OF THE MIND</a> (from 11 April). For details on opening hours and tickets, please visit our <a href="${link:{uuid:{62c3018b-bb40-46ce-8019-646ec5cd2e4a},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/gropius-bau/besuch/informationen}}}">Information &amp; Tickets</a> page. We look forward to seeing you soon!

See you in March!

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Located in the centre of Berlin, the Gropius Bau is a lively place to encounter art and each other. The internationally renowned institution stages large-scale exhibitions and performances by contemporary artists.

Ab 4. September

Festivals & Programme Series

From 30 April to 9 August 2010 Berlin&rsquo;s Martin-Gropius-Bau will be devoting an extensive retrospective to the important Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.

Born in Coyoac&aacute;n, Mexico City, Frida Kahlo is one of the great identification figures of Latin American art. She stands out as one of the most famous female artists of the first half of the 20th century.

Injured in a traffic accident on 17 September 1925 Frida Kahlo spent the rest of her life in pain as a consequence of her frequent operations. These profound experiences left their mark on her work and her world. Her acquaintanceships with such prominent figures of her day as Leon Trotsky, Andr&eacute; Breton or Nicholas Murray influenced her eventful life. In 1929 she married the famous Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, who supported her in her artistic career.

Frida Kahlo&rsquo;s works refer back to the early art of Mexico, that of the Aztecs and the Mayas, reflecting the social, political, and above all private aspects of her life. In 1938 /39 she had very successful one-person exhibitions in both New York and Paris. Later she was given a chair at the Mexican Ministry of Education&rsquo;s School of Painting and Sculpture, known as &ldquo;La Esmeralda&rdquo;. She taught mural and easel painting, receiving the National Art Prize. She was able to sustain her teaching activities for some years before poor health forced her to abandon them.

The exhibition in the Martin-Gropius-Bau, curated by the art historian Helga Prignitz-Poda, will consist of about 150 works (paintings and drawings), making it the most comprehensive show of Frida Kahlo&rsquo;s work ever staged. For the first time the two largest Kahlo collections will be on display in toto and together. To these must be added valuable loans from 30 Mexican and 15 North American museums and private collections.

Frida Kahlo&rsquo;s artistic development from the New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit) through Mexican Estridentism &ndash; an avant garde, interdisciplinary artistic movement that arose out of the Mexican Revolution &ndash; to Surrealism and her very own brand of realism, will be comprehensively presented. In addition to the famous paintings, works by Kahlo that are largely unknown or were believed to be lost will be on show. A particular highlight will be a collection of about 90 drawings, some previously unpublished, and her last works dating from 1954: The self-portrait in oils as a sunflower &ndash; a work previously believed to have been destroyed &ndash; and the self-portrait drawing will be seen in Europe for the first time. The drawings with surreal compositions reveal a hitherto undiscovered side of Frida Kahlo: her humour. These light-hearted and subtle verbal and visual puns at once conceal and express her thoughts.

Another section of the exhibition will be devoted to the small-format votive paintings which the artist executed in the Mexican ex voto style in the early 1930s. They express the artist&rsquo;s yearnings for health, independence and fulfilment.

<h3>The photographs</h3>

In order to keep the biographical details as far as possible from the work context while at the same time granting the visitor insights into her life, the exhibition will be supplemented by an extensive collection of photos belonging to her family and close friends. This section will be curated by Cristina Kahlo, Frida Kahlo&rsquo;s grandniece. The photos show scenes from the various phases in the life of this exceptional Mexican artist: Frida as a young girl, Frida with her husband Diego Rivera, Frida lying in bed painting her plaster corset, and various individual portraits presenting her as a fascinating woman with magnificent jewellery, traditional costume, and a confident gaze.

The exhibition will subsequently be on display at Kunstforum Wien.

<h3>Film in the exhibition:</h3>

&ldquo;Frida Kahlo&rdquo;, 1983, documentary, 62 minutes 
Licensed by Arthaus Musik 
DVD available at <a href="http://www.arthaus-musik.com/en/index.html" target="_blank" title="">www.arthaus-musik.com</a>

Frida Kahlo

Veranstaltungen Frida Kahlo

Ausstellungen 2010

Exhibitions 2010

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Programme

The Berliner Festspiele organise a range of festivals and art exhibitions, concerts, dance and theatre performances, readings, lectures, debates and much more throughout the year. These events are presented at a range of locations across Berlin but are concentrated primarily at their own two venues: the Gropius Bau and the Haus der Berliner Festspiele.

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37th&nbsp;International Festival Berlin

Tanz im August

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The international literature festival berlin, or ilb for short, is considered one of the most important literary festivals in the world.

25th international literature festival berlin

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You can listen to some of our events this year digitally in the Berliner Festspiele Media Library after the live concerts.&nbsp;In addition, On Demand offers from past years are available.

Musikfest Berlin in the Media Library

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The international Jazzfest Research Lab&nbsp;welcomes academics and students to take a critical look at the festival’s archive, its programmes, creators, musicians and – last but not least – its myths. In two seminars during the summer semester of 2024, students from the Berlin University of the Arts and the University of Hildesheim have explored the festival’s history from various perspectives. In this film, the participants give a first look at how they dealt with their research subject.

Introducing: Jazzfest Research Lab

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To mark its 60th anniversary, Jazzfest Berlin is celebrating the cultural diversity of the neighbouring district of Moabit in collaboration with around 35 official partners and initiatives and with over 350 participants of all ages.&nbsp;In June 2024, interviews were conducted with 20 partners who presented their perspectives, wishes and ideas for the Jazzfest Community Lab Moabit. You can get a first impression with this film.

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Curated by&nbsp;Meron Mendel and Saba-Nur Cheema&nbsp;

From 13 to 16 June 2024, the interdisciplinary themed days “Reflexes &amp; Reflections” on the Israel-Palestine conflict and its consequences for society in Germany took place at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele. You can now find video and audio recordings of the discourse events in the Berliner Festspiele Media Library!

Reflexes &amp; Reflections. 7 October, the war in Gaza and the debate in Germany

In the Media Library

Key Visual Musikfest Berlin 2025

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Major Orchestras and Vocal Ensembles as Guests in Berlin

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The 10 Remarkable Productions 2024

On 26 January, the Theatertreffen’s jury of critics announced their selection of 10 remarkable productions for the 2024 Theatertreffen at a press conference. Our congratulations go to the nominated production teams and all participants! The programme will be published on 5 April.

Theatertreffen 2024

“Radical Playgrounds”, an art parcours at the Gropius Bau, is spending eleven weeks exploring the differences between the concepts of play as competition and free play. Visitors are invited to walk and climb on the various installations and sculptures, to activate them and to shape the project collectively.

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Summer School 2025

As part of Performing Exiles there will be a Summer School from 16 to 28&nbsp;June 2025. This will offer workshops, seminars and mentoring. The participants will see the performances and guest productions in the festival programme and visit artistic initiatives and cultural institutions in Berlin that operate across a wide range of disciplines and contexts. A public presentation of the participants’ current work and research at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele will complete the programme.

Open Call

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The massacre, hostage-taking and rocket attacks by Hamas have shaken us deeply. The grue-some attack on Israel on 7&nbsp;October left us stunned and initially lost for words.

The Berliner Festspiele on Current Events in Israel, Gaza and Germany

With this letter of intent, we, the signing cultural organizations, express our intention to welcome, host and stage Ukrainian theatre artists in our venues, to make Ukrainian dramatic work visible to the European community.

Support of the Ukrainian Cultural Scene

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In August 2025, the festival Tanz im August will be a guest at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele with three productions. All productions are already on pre-sale.

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Upcoming