2005 – The Year in Review

In 2005, twenty-two international guests from the fields of visual arts, literature, music, film and dance were invited to take up residence in Berlin for up to one year. International juries of experts carried out the selection process. The Berliner Künstlerprogramm (BKP – Artists-in-Berlin Programme) offers its guests – both internationally well-known artists as well as young artists – the opportunity to present their works in Berlin and in other places, at exhibitions, concerts, screenings and readings during book fairs, festivals, and other Veranstaltungen. The BKP also publishes catalogues, books, CDs and DVDs and commissions translations and compositions.

The Berliner Künstlerprogramm presented its activities for the first time in Warsaw in November 2005, on the occasion of a Franco-German Cultural Council conference, with a reading by Petr Borkovec, Matthew Sweeney and Memo Anjel.

The major event of the year for the visual arts section was the daadgalerie’s move from Kurfürstenstrasse to Zimmerstrasse.

David Claerbout’s films were presented at the Akademie der Künste on Hanseatenweg between January 22nd and March 20th in connection with the Berlinale international film festival.

A video installation by Anri Sala, Dammi I colori at the daadgalerie opened on Februrary 4th.
Air is Good, the exhibition by the Shanghai artist Xu Tan, followed from March 18–30th: a sauna, which visitors were able to use, stood in the gallery space as a sculpture.
On May 3rd Susan Hillier’s long-term work The J. Street Project premiered in the daadgalerie. This 90-minute semi-documentary film took three years to complete, and received generous support from the Federal Cultural Foundation. From July 7th until August 27th, an exhibition of photographs by the Kiev-born artist Illya Chichkan was on display.

The autumn art season began on September 9th with the exhibition Getrennt aber doch zusammen (separated but still together) by Arturo Herrera. With renovations in the new daadgalerie space completed, Herrera was also able to paint a permanent mural on the west side of the building.
On the occasion of both the opening of the new gallery space and a comprehensive presentation of many former guests during the annual autumn Berlin Art Forum, DAAD President Professor Dr. Theodor Berchem, in cooperation with Messe Berlin and the TLG, officially opened the new daadgalerie on September 28th. Herrera’s red and white design of the gallery rooms in Zimmerstrasse, created especially for the opening, provided a spectacular surrounding for that event and for several artists’ portraits and readings in November.
The daadgalerie moved into 2006 with the exhibition O.V. Retrospective by Paola Yacoub and Michel Lasserre, which opened December 9th.

The move to Zimmerstrasse met with great positive response; since then at least 30–50 people per day regularly visit the exhibitions. The daadgalerie and several other commercial galleries located around Zimmerstrasse have created a hub that attracts a large contingent of international visitors who are interested in art.

Last but not least, during this year’s Venice Biennale, two national pavilions (Holland, Israel) featured artists who will be BKP guests in 2006. Also, fifteen of the forty-five artists taking part in the Italian pavilion’s central exhibition were former guests of the Berliner Künstlerprogramm. Among the works shown was Mark Wallinger’s video Sleeper, which originated in a performance in the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin.

Numerous Veranstaltungen planned by the literature section took place both in Berlin and elsewhere during 2005. The renowned Danish lyricist Inger Christensen gave the first reading in the new daadgalerie on February 9th. It was moderated by Aris Fioretos, a former guest of the Berliner Künstlerprogramm and currently the Cultural Attaché of the Swedish Embassy in Berlin.

Eine Postkarte an Don Dukay by Ottó Tolnais, the latest volume in the Berliner Künstlerprogramm’s book series Spurensicherung (securing the evidence), was launched at the Literaturhaus on February 25th.
The next literature event, a reading of Dante by Gianni Celati (Italy) performed with the actor Frank Arnold, took place at the daadgalerie.
The reading series Wahlheimat Berlin (Berlin: Adopted Hometown) continued with the Columbian author Memo Anjel and his German voice Christian Brückner at the Deutsches Historisches Museum on May 30th.

A number of current and former Berliner Künstlerprogramm guests were represented at the Leipzig and Frankfurt Book Fairs. The BKP co-sponsored and organized the readings programme of the GEK (Association of European Cultural Institutes in Berlin) at the Leipzig Book Fair, supporting the performances of the poets Petr Borkovec (Czech Republic) and Daniel Ba˘nulescu (Romania).
The literature section also contributed several Veranstaltungen to the programme of the International Centre at the Frankfurt Book Fair, including a reading by Memo Anjel under the heading “New Literatures: Next Year in Jerusalem”.

An extensive network of cooperation has enabled guests of the Berliner Künstlerprogramm to present their works in many venues. For example, the poets Petr Borkovec and Daniel Ba˘nulescu took part in yet another community event held in the Max Liebermann Haus at the Brandenburg Gate for the UNESCO World Poetry Day. Four 2005 grant recipients performed at the Berlin International Literature Festival (ilb) between September 6thand 17th. In general, the Berliner Künstlerprogramm intensified its cooperation with festivals this year; as a result, four BKP guests gave readings in Bremen as part of poetry on the road (May 26th-31st).

The BKP literature section and the Literaturhaus Cologne initiated a joint series of readings; under the title “Contemporary World Literature”, Juri Andruchowytsch presented his new novel in Cologne on May 23rd. Memo Anjel’s many readings took him to the universities of Göttingen, Bremen and Jena, the Hamburg Theatre Festival, the Passauer Latin-American Days, and the Instituto Cervantes in Munich. The lyricist Paulo Teixeira was also invited to the festival cinco sentidos 2005 in Jena.

As part of the collaboration with the GEK, in this case especially with the Polish Cultural Institute, Ryszard Krynicki, one of the most renowned Polish lyricists and a BKP guest in 1993, came to Berlin to participate in the event Europa erzählt Geschichte (Europe tells Stories) at the Martin-Gropius-Bau (Oct. 28th–29th). And the Collegium Hungaricum Berlin (CHB) helped make possible a reading there on November 9th by one of the oldest guests in the history of the Berliner Künstlerprogramm: Ivan Denes, BKP guest 1971–72.

Other Veranstaltungen involving former guests that were supported included a reading by Pepetela at the Museum Dahlem, organized by IAI (Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut) and the Angolan Embassy, on April 24th. Fabio Morábito appeared in the Literaturwerkstatt’s poetry festival Versschmuggel on June 22nd.

Guests of the Berliner Künstlerprogramm literature section were once again honoured this year with prestigious awards: the Hungarian Literature Prize 2005, the most prestigious literary award in Hungary, went to Ottó Tolnai; Daniel Ba˘nulescu was awarded the European Prize for Poetry 2005 from the city of Münster; and Jean Phillippe Toussaint received the Prix Médicis 2005.

Three current guests presented their works at the Cinema Arsenal in the series Director’s Night: Saodat Ismailova from Uzbekistan on May 12th, the Hungarian Ildikó Enyedi as part of a series of Hungarian films between May 1st and 10th (podium discussion with Istvan Szabo on May 4th), and Jacqueline Goss (USA) on September 22nd.

There was cooperation with the festival achtung berlin – new berlin film award which took place for the first time in 2005 (April 14th–17th): the Berliner Künstlerprogramm curated a retrospective of three films by former guests and their friends: Shelly Silver’s Former East / Former West, After the Fall by Frauke Sandig and Eric Black, and Shinkichi Tajiri’s The Berlin Wall.

The highlight of the first half of the year was the presentation, also at the Arsenal, of the DVD 6 ½, a compilation of short films by BKP guests from the years 2000 to 2004.

Project funding from the Berliner Künstlerprogramm also enabled the art-house filmmaker Lou Ye (China) to work on the filming of his feature film set in Berlin, and Ayelet Bargur (Israel) to begin filming her documentary about the Jewish orphanage on Auguststrasse, Berlin. Amie Siegel, a former BKP guest, received support for her video installation project Berlin Remake.

Several performances by BKP guest Jennifer Walshe, the Irish composer, vocal artist and improviser who specializes in extreme singing techniques, marked the start of the year in music 2005.

As a long-term partner of the UltraSchall Festival for New Music, produced by Deutschlandradio Berlin and RBB (Radio Berlin Brandenburg), the Berliner Künstlerprogramm presented a portrait concert on January 18th in the Sophiensäle where Jennifer Walshe, together with the Ensemble Apartment House, London, performed seven of her works. On November 11th and 12th, in a DAAD apartment in Storkwinkel, the house opera Motel Abandon with Jennifer Walshe, the cellist Augustin Maurs and the singer Stephan Swift had its premiere.

Works by guests Agostino Di Scipio (Italy), Shintaro Imai (Japan) and Ed Osborn (USA) also were performed at the 2005 UltraSchall Festival.

The concert series Music in July – Inventionen 2005 organized by the Berliner Künstlerprogramm, the Technisches Universität (TU) Berlin and tesla, took place from July 1st to 9th with seven concerts featuring twenty-two performances of works by twenty composers, including six premieres by eleven guests of the BKP. Once again, the festival’s focus was acousmatic music.

Inventionen’s opening night at tesla was devoted to Agostino Di Scipio, considered today the most important composer of electronic music in Italy. Three new electronic works were presented in live performance (Natalia Pschenitschnikova, A. Di Scipio) along with Tiresia, a scenic work with video by Matias Guerra and the singers Anna Clementi and Giuliano Mesa.

A concert and live broadcast of Nicolas Collins’s Pea Soup by the Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin followed in the bell room of the Parochial Church.

A special event was the July 3rd open air concert for carillon and loud speakers in Tiergarten, with premieres by BKP guests Lucia Ronchetti (Italy) and Mario Verandi (Argentina) as well as a piece that Ricardo Mandolini (Argentina) composed during his BKP residency in 1988.

Three sound installations rounded off the Inventionen programme: Agostino Di Scipio’s Untitled. Ecological system in a small echoing room was in the daadgalerie from June 17th through July 3rd; Nicholas Collins’s Pea Soup in the singuhr audio gallery in the Parochial Church from June 22nd to July 31st; and Garden of Codes, three sound gardens growing telematically in Berlin–Cologne–Florence in the courtyard of the Podewils’sches Palace from July 2nd to 17th. Former Edgard Varèse Guest Professor Alberto de Campo (Graz) played a substantial role in this project.

The series of Composer Portraits and Portrait Concerts continued with four Veranstaltungen in the daadgalerie: On November 10th there was an Indian house concert by former guest Sankha Chatterjee (tabla), his daughter Sangeeta (vocals), and two friends on harmonium and tabla. Takumi Endo, the media artist from Japan, was introduced on November 21st and the Italian composer Lucia Ronchetti on November 23rd. Kasper T. Toeplitz, the composer and electronic musician from Poland, presented two new compositions under the motto Zum Mittelpunkt des Lärms (to the centre of noise) on December 6th at tesla.

The Berliner Künstlerprogramm contributed to the successful Total Music Meeting 2005 (November 3rd-6th) through its invitations to former guests Richard Barrett (Great Britain) and the legendary pianist Cecil Taylor from New York.

A reunion with former guest Benedict Mason (Great Britain) was made possible in cooperation with the Berlin Festivals’ MaerzMusik 2005. On March 12th, the sound of the former cable works on the upper Spree River was explored in a music theatrical work featuring the Ensemble Modern and the Internationale Ensemble Akademie in unusual instrumentation (the work premiered at the Donaueschingen Music Days 2004).
Former BKP guests Olga Neuwirth (Austria) and Roberto Paci Dalò (Italy) performed a scenic concert with six musicians at the festival.
The Institute for Living Voice (former BKP guest David Moss, artistic director), held its seventh session of workshops and concerts under the auspices of MaerzMusik 2005.

The ongoing close collaboration with the Electronic Studio of the TU Berlin gave guests Agostino Di Scipio, Takumi Endo, Lucia Ronchetti and Kasper T. Toeplitz the opportunity to present their newest compositions to a young audience.

The Moscow choreographer Daria Buzovkina and the dancer Nikoley Shchetnev were invited to Berlin, on short-term grants awarded by the director of the Berliner Künstlerprogramm, to develop a new piece in collaboration with the Akademie der Künste and Theorem as part of an international project. Other choreographers from Central and Eastern Europe also began new works in Vienna, Paris and Tallin, all of which were performed at a concert in Tallin, Estonia in September.

In cooperation with Berlin’s major universities, the DAAD has established three international guest professorships.

The Samuel Fischer Guest Professorship in literature at the Freie Universität Berlin was established in conjunction with the Veranstaltungen Forum of the Georg von Holtzbrinck Group and S.-Fischer-Verlag. Visiting professors in 2005 were Carlos Fuentes (Mexico), Michèle Métail (France) and Amit Chaudhuri (India).

The Edgard Varèse Guest Professorship in computer music at the Technisches Universität is maintained in cooperation with the TU and RBB (Radio Berlin Brandenburg). Daniel Teruggi (France) and Kees Tazelaar (Holland) were this year’s lecturers.

The Rudolph Arnheim Guest Professorship in contemporary art at the Humboldt Universität was established together with the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation and the Brandenburg Gate Foundation. Ali Akay and Dr. Tul Akbal Sualp (Turkey) were visiting professors in 2005.

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