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On this page you can find all exhibition texts in German Sign Language.

Vaginal Davis DGS

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On Thursday, 20 March 2025, we are celebrating the opening of the exhibition <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> with free admission to the exhibitions and a DJ set by Jimmy Trash.

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 expansive oeuvre, punk meets glamour, queer activism meets Black counter-culture and resistance meets desire.&nbsp;Vaginal Davis: Fabelhaftes Produkt&nbsp;features large-scale installations, paintings, video and film works, zines, writing, music and performances, offering an overview of Davis’ practice and artistic collaborations. In the exhibition, the Berlin-based&nbsp;art&nbsp;collective CHEAP&nbsp;presents the installation&nbsp;Choose Mutation, with photographs by Annette Frick.&nbsp;Fabelhaftes Produkt&nbsp;invites you into the universe of Vaginal Davis, populated by literary heroines, mythical figures and real icons.Jimmy Trash is an Australian Wildman DJ, musician, filmmaker and journalist, who has been a staple of Berlin good times for over 18 years. Jimmy has been a research assistant and editor for record labels releasing African and South American music and has finished films focussing on folk magic and culture through the Balkans and dirt track racing in Australia. His festival "Trashfest " ran for over 10 years celebrating noisy subculture from all over the world. He is currently completing a season of the podcast "Songlines with Jimmy Trash'' focussing on the untold stories of folk music from strained political times.During the event, photographs and video recordings may be made in which you may be recognisable. By attending, you consent to these recordings being used to communicate the event or exhibition.

Eröffnung Vaginal Davis: Fabelhaftes Produkt

Vaginal Davis: Fabelhaftes Produkt

Opening Vaginal Davis: Fabelhaftes Produkt

Er&ouml;ffnung Vaginal Davis: Fabelhaftes Produkt

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 expansive oeuvre, punk meets glamour, queer activism meets Black counter-culture and resistance meets desire.&nbsp;Vaginal Davis: Fabelhaftes Produkt captures the full scope of Ms. Davis’ practice: Across seven large-scale installations on the ground floor of Gropius Bau, the exhibition spans works from 1985 to 2025, including painting, video, film, zine-making, writing, music and performance. The exhibition also gives center stage to her many collaborative projects, with the Berlin-based art collective CHEAP – presenting the installation Choose Mutation, with photographs by Annette Frick – and New York-based artist Jonathan Berger, among many others.&nbsp;Vaginal Davis herself is a living work of art: a performer, writer and creator of iconic zines; a visual artist, experimental filmmaker; a self-proclaimed Blacktress and drag terrorist, a gossip columnist, influential socialite, educator and countercultural renegade. Since the late 1970s, her oeuvre has pushed the boundaries of art, music and performance. Inspired by the militancy of the Black Panthers’ pursuit of social justice in the United States, she named herself after feminist and Black Power activist Angela Davis. The exhibition stages Ms. Davis’ archive anew, reinterpreting the movements of her artistic practice and, in so doing, drawing connections to burning questions today.Content Note:&nbsp;The exhibition contains depictions of sexual acts and representations of racist language and imagery.

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Exhibition

Gropius Bau 2025

Vaginal Davis

VAGINAL DAVIS: FABELHAFTES PRODUKT

Veranstaltungen

Events

YOKO ONO DGS

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 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&nbsp;spans a wide range of Ono’s work, from her “instruction pieces” – written instructions that guide readers to imagine, experience, make or complete the work – to installations and performances, as well as films, music and photographs. Visitors are invited to activate Ono’s instructions, exchanging handshakes with strangers in&nbsp;Painting to Shake Hands&nbsp;(1961/2025) or bringing their shadows together in&nbsp;Shadow Piece&nbsp;(1963/2025).In the atrium of Gropius Bau, which is freely accessible, a banner from Ono’s ongoing&nbsp;PEACE is POWER&nbsp;campaign (2017/2025) can be seen alongside her&nbsp;Wish Tree for Berlin&nbsp;installation (1996/2025).&nbsp;Wish Tree for Berlin&nbsp;is an open invitation to visitors to write their wishes for peace on small pieces of paper and tie them to the branches of one of the nine trees in the atrium. It also offers a place to sit, write and rest, providing space to contemplate peace as a positive and driving force.On the occasion of&nbsp;YOKO ONO: MUSIC OF THE MIND, the Neue Nationalgalerie presents&nbsp;YOKO ONO: DREAM TOGETHER&nbsp;from 11 April through 14 September 2025. Concurrently, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.) presents the work&nbsp;TOUCH&nbsp;by Yoko Ono from 2 March through 31 August 2025 in the context of its n.b.k. Billboard series.

Yoko Ono

YOKO ONO

YOKO ONO: MUSIC OF THE MIND 

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pieces of sky (2025)

As part of the solo exhibition <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>, Berlin-based artist and musician Peaches will stage Yoko Ono’s groundbreaking Cut Piece in the atrium of Gropius Bau. First performed in Kyoto in 1964, Cut Piece is one of Ono’s earliest and most influential performance works.

At the first performance of Cut Piece, Yoko Ono sat alone on the stage of the Yamaichi Concert Hall, a pair of scissors placed in front of her. She invited audience members to join her on stage, one by one, to cut pieces from her&nbsp;clothing, which they were allowed to keep. Ono herself remained almost motionless.&nbsp;By confronting the objectification of bodies perceived as female and dissolving the boundaries between passivity and activity, artist and audience, Cut Piece became a seminal work of feminist art and the art movement Fluxus.Yoko Ono herself performed Cut Piece several times, with many other performers following. In 2013, Peaches also staged the piece at the Meltdown Festival, having been personally invited by Ono. Later, Ono remarked that Cut Piece would likely “never be performed with such eloquence again”. &nbsp;Yoko Ono is an artist, musician and activist.&nbsp;Born in Tokyo in 1933, Ono grew up in Japan, with periods spent abroad in San Francisco and New York. By 1960 she had become a vital part of New York’s community of artists and composers. &nbsp;Over the next decade, she developed her visionary practice in art, performance, music and film, with iconic works including Cut Piece and her book Grapefruit (both 1964).An iconic feminist musician, producer, director and performance artist, Peaches has spent more than two decades pushing boundaries and breaking barriers, dramatically altering the landscape of popular culture. Through music, art, film, theater, television and books, she has upended stereotypes and embraced taboos, challenging social norms and patriarchal power structures while championing LGBTQIA+ rights and issues of gender and sexual identityContent Note: The performance may contain nudity.The performance takes place on the occasion of Gallery Weekend Berlin.

Yoko Ono: Cut Piece

Cut Piece Performed by Peaches

What has been the role of play in public space, both historically and in the present? Complementing BAUBAU, Gabriela Burkhalter’s Playing in the City presentation traces the history of playgrounds since their emergence in 1900 to today.&nbsp;

Spielen in der Stadt

Playing in the City

Gabriela Burkhalter: Spielen in der Stadt

On this page you can find information in German Sign Language.

BAUBAU DGS

Video in German Sign Language

Playing, imagining, laughing, crying, letting off steam, making noise – all in an exhibition venue!&nbsp;We’re excited to celebrate 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> with a special event! Join us for a day full of fun as we transform the atrium into a big, pop-up adventure playground for kids.

Starting 22 March 2025, our play space BAUBAU&nbsp;will open its doors again after a short break. On this special day, in addition to the BAUBAU&nbsp;space&nbsp;on the ground floor, the nearby atrium will be turned into a pop-up playground by Suzanna Law from <a href="https://www.popupadventureplay.org/">Pop-Up Adventure Play</a>. Accompanied by our&nbsp;playworkers&nbsp;– trained staff focused on free play – kids can dive into a world of imagination. There will be all sorts of loose materials like cardboard boxes, fabrics, tubes and papers to explore and transform in endless ways. We can't wait to see you there!&nbsp;Pop-Up Adventure Play began in 2010 with the intention of developing a holistic, low-cost and community-based approach to supporting children’s play. The organisation works with a variety of stakeholders to improve children’s opportunities for play throughout their lives.&nbsp;

BAUBAU Play Day Pop-up

<a href="${link:{uuid:{02f6e2e1-2f95-49ef-b51e-a0b857d0115f},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/programm/2024/radical-playgrounds}}}">Radical Playgrounds</a> was an art parcours that took place in front of Gropius Bau in spring and summer 2024. As part of the reopening of <a href="${link:{uuid:{df42e57d-a14a-4b44-a5e4-9d3e7dcab5a6},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/gropius-bau/programm/baubau}}}">BAUBAU – a Play Space for Kids at Gropius Bau</a> – contributors to the resulting digital publication discuss the political dimensions of play in the city.

Radical Playgrounds used playground elements – be it a swing, a water fountain, a carousel or a labyrinth – to reveal what is left unspoken: histories of inclusion and exclusion, engaging activism through the medium of play or the dark past buried under the parking lot of Gropius Bau. A number of contributors to the resulting digital publication discuss the political agency of play, its healing potential, the history of playgrounds as well as what happens where more is allowed than forbidden.With Jenny Schlenzka, Director Gropius Bau, Joanna Warsza and Benjamin Foerster-Baldenius, curators Radical Playgrounds, Lan Linh Merli-Nguyen Hoai, assistant curator Radical Playgrounds,&nbsp;Jonas Tinius, contributor Radical Playbook

Radical Playbook: On Politics of Play

Radical Playbook

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.&nbsp;They set the tone and decide what happens in this place.&nbsp;

Gropius Bau 2024

Gropius Bau, BAUBAU (EG)

Gropius Bau, BAUBAU (Ground floor)

BAUBAU

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Festivals & Programme Series

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.

The complete programme with all exhibitions and events.

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The international and interdisciplinary festival produced by the Berliner Festspiele

Performing Exiles

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37th&nbsp;International Festival Berlin

Tanz im August

Leichte Sprache

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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

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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.

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

More Berliner Festspiele

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In a nationwide competition, 60&nbsp;ensembles applied for this year’s Theatertreffen der Jugend. The&nbsp;jury&nbsp;selected 18&nbsp;productions for the interim selection, which they then experienced in live viewings. The jurors have now made the final selection.&nbsp;The complete festival programme is online, advance ticket sale has started.

Theatertreffen der Jugend

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Performing Exiles is an international and interdisciplinary festival produced by the Berliner Festspiele, that seeks to make diasporic lives in the city of Berlin visible and explore the contemporary meaning of exile. The second edition of the festival will present both works by internationally acclaimed artists and those of artists who are still at the beginning of their careers.&nbsp;The complete programme is online, advance ticket sale is open.

Performing Exiles

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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. Two productions are already on pre-sale.

Tanz im August

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Musikfest Berlin 2025 brings together guest performances by the world’s best symphony orchestras and choirs from the Netherlands, France, Belgium and Italy, which are rarely heard in Berlin. The full programme is online and tickets are available now.

Musikfest Berlin

Upcoming

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<h3>Theatertreffen</h3><h4>2 to 20 May 2024</h4>The 10&nbsp;remarkable productions, selected by a jury of critics, were announced in a press conference on 26&nbsp;January 2024, 11:00. The programme will be published on 5&nbsp;April, advance ticket sales will start on 19&nbsp;April at 14:00

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The Berlinale as a guest at Haus der Berliner Festspiele

75th Berlin International Film Festival

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 expansive oeuvre, punk meets glamour, queer activism meets Black counter-culture and resistance meets desire. Fabelhaftes Produkt offers an overview of Davis’ practice and artistic collaborations.

Vaginal Davis:&nbsp;Fabelhaftes Produkt

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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:&nbsp;MUSIC OF THE MIND

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A&nbsp;Play Space for Kids

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

A Short History from 1900 to the Present

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 the Gropius Bau

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<h3>Radical Playgrounds: From Competition to Collaboration</h3><h4>27 April to 14 July 2024</h4>Berlin is known for its numerous “Spielpl&auml;tze” for kids, but the project “Radical Playgrounds” is a place where play gets serious.&nbsp;It arrives at Gropius Hain for eleven weeks like an itinerant, temporary funfair: both melancholic and light-hearted, sad and joyful, funny and serious.&nbsp;

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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.

Sustainable Environmental Performance

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Active since 2018, the national network DIE VIELEN formulates clear positions against enmity, right-wing extremism and attacks against artistic freedom. With the campaign “SHIELD &amp; SHINE”, the alliance is calling out to take an even stronger stance in support of a plural, democratic orientation of the world.

SHIELD &amp; SHINE – We Are Many

<h3>Sustainable Environmental Performance</h3>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.

<h3>Musikfest Berlin</h3><h4>24 August to 18 September 2024</h4>In 2024, the Musikfest Berlin will once again open the concert season in late summer with top-class international orchestras, celebrated conductors and remarkable soloists. The full programme is online. Advance ticket sales has started.

Fallback-Bild Performing Arts Season

<h3>Performing Arts Season</h3><h4>9 October 2024 to 25 January 2025</h4>The second season, presented between October 2024 and January 2025, will concentrate on memory and heritage in contemporary performing arts, with a focus on New York’s dance and performance scene.