"What can exhibitions do?" A roundtable discussion

"WHAT CAN EXHIBITIONS DO?"

HEIDI BALLET
CHRIS DERCON
TIRDAD ZOLGHADR

FRIDAY, APRIL 21, 6:30 pm
Spike Berlin, Rosa-Luxemburg-Straße 45

How is the role of exhibitions and exhibition-making changing as a result of increasing slippages in the borders of fiction and reality? What does it mean to exhibit something if we are losing trust in the idea of revealing or embodying truth in a post-fact world? Are discursive, theatrical and immersive exhibitions, talks, conferences and lectures more powerful than traditional exhibition formats? Is the white cube still relevant in this situation? Between education, entertainment, networks, theory and the market, where is the power of exhibitions today? 

Moderated by the curator and Spike editor Christian Kobald 

4 € entry to support our program. 
We will be serving drinks at the SYL-Bar until midnight!

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Heidi Ballet is an independent curator based in Berlin and Brussels. Among her current projects are the Beaufort sculpture triennial (Belgium) in 2018, and the Lofoten International Art Festival (Norway) in 2017, cocurated with Milena Hoegsberg. She curated the 2016 Satellite series at Jeu de Paume, Paris and CAPC, Bordeaux; and worked as a research curator for the exhibition "After Year Zero", presented at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2013).
Chris Dercon is the designated director of Volksbühne Berlin; his program will start this autumn. Previously he was the head of Tate Modern in London (2011–2016), Haus der Kunst in Munich (2003–2011), Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam (1996–2003) and Witte de With in Rotterdam (1990–1996).
Tirdad Zolghadr is a curator and writer. His most recent publication is Traction (Sternberg Press 2016). Zolghadr is director of the Summer Academy Paul Klee in Bern and associate curator at KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin. He teaches at the Dutch Art Institute in Arnhem.

Heidi Ballet
Chris Dercon
Tirdad Zolghadr

Discourse
Yves Saint Laurent at the press conference for his first retrospective 25 Years of Design, Metropolitan Museum, New York, 1983. © Roxanne Lowit. Photo: Roxanne Lowit

Yves Saint Laurent at the press conference for his first retrospective, “25 Years of Design,” Metropolitan Museum, New York, 1983. © Roxanne Lowit. Photo: Roxanne Lowit

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Views
Eva & Franco Mattes, Half Cat (2021) and Untitled (Yellow Cable Tray) (2021), installation view, Frankfurter Kunstverein, 2023. © Frankfurter Kunstverein. All images courtesy: the artists and Apalazzo Gallery, Brescia. Photos: Melania Dalle Grave, DSL Studio

Eva & Franco Mattes, Half Cat and Untitled (Yellow Cable Tray), both 2021. Installation view, Frankfurter Kunstverein, 2023. © Frankfurter Kunstverein. All images: © Frankfurter Kunstverein. Courtesy: the artists and Apalazzo Gallery, Brescia. Photos: Melania Dalle Grave, DSL Studio

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People
Portrait of Lauren Elkin, 2022. © Sophie Davidson. Courtesy: Penguin Random House

Portrait of Lauren Elkin, 2022. © Sophie Davidson. Courtesy: Penguin Random House

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Views
#76
Charlotte Salomon, Self-portrait , 1940, gouache. © Charlotte Salomon Foundation. Courtesy: Collection of the Jewish Museum, Amsterdam

Charlotte Salomon, Self-portrait, 1940, gouache. © Charlotte Salomon Foundation. Courtesy: Collection of the Jewish Museum, Amsterdam

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Discourse
Left: Celine Fall 2021 (Hedi Slimane). Right: Celine Spring 2014 (Phoebe Philo)

Left: Celine Fall 2021 (Hedi Slimane). Right: Celine Spring 2014 (Phoebe Philo)

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Discourse
Allen Jones, Table , painted fiberglass, resin, mixed media, glass, and tailor-made accessories, 61x 130 x 76 cm

Allen Jones, Table, 1969, painted fiberglass, resin, mixed media, glass, and tailor-made accessories, 61x 130 x 76 cm. Courtesy: the artist

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Views
Andrea Bowers, Grief Hope , 2020, neon, 124 x 304 x 10 cm. Courtesy: the artist and Capitain Petzel, Berlin

Andrea Bowers, Grief Hope, 2020, neon, 124 x 304 x 10 cm. Courtesy: the artist and Capitain Petzel, Berlin

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Andrea Bowers and Mary Weatherford’s duo show at Capitain Petzel, Berlin harmonizes their requiems of eco-grief while insisting on the power of simply taking note.

Views
View of “Project for a New American Century,” Whitney Museum of American Art, 2023. Photo: Ron Amstutz

View of “Project for a New American Century,” Whitney Museum of American Art, 2023. Photo: Ron Amstutz

Josh Kline’s “Project for a New American Century”

In New York, a mid-career retrospective at the Whitney recaps Josh Kline’s horrorcore journalization of the 21st-century precariat.

People
Portrait of Milo Rau

Portrait of Milo Rau. Photo: Daniel Seiffert

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Wiener Festwochen’s new artistic director unpacks Vienna’s relationship with being provoked, making grotesque demands onstage, and the theater as a total democracy.

Discourse
Photo: Adina Glickstein

Photo: Adina Glickstein

User Error: Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Girl Dinner

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Views
View of “Nuit américaine,” WIELS, Brussels, 2023. Courtesy: the artist and WIELS, Brussels. Photo: We Document Art

View of “Nuit américaine,” WIELS, Brussels, 2023. Courtesy: the artist and WIELS, Brussels. Photo: We Document Art

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