de en

Extended Library as rehearsal room

The series of discursive and artistic activations curated by Margarita Tsomou transforms the Extended Library into a space for movement and action. The potential to question the modes of conception and production of knowledge lies in the confrontation with this contrast.

In this cross-space, which invites visitors to read, write or think, but also to perform, train, dance or lie down, as equivalent offers of knowledge practices, codes and hierarchies of traditional knowledge systems can be challenged. The introduction of operations of the body into an institutionalized learning space such as a university library turns the Extended Library into a rehearsal space for questioning the basic conditions of modern epistemology: with artistic research experiments, performance lectures, rituals, dances, sounds and actions, the rehearsal space invites us to practice both critique and the unlearning of established forms of knowledge and to address the current epistemological crisis in the midst of planetary ruins by means of embodied knowledge production.

Considering that the modern sciences and their knowledge infrastructures and apparatuses were developed in the wake of violent divisions between a constructed "man-human", as a prototype of the human, and the colonized, racialized, feminized and naturalized "others", the series navigates between positions that propose epistemological paradigm shifts.


The program follows these traces of thought with contributions by Claire Cunningham, Jule Flier/Antonia Baehr, Isabell Spengler, Agata Siniarska, Martha Hincapié Charry, Lina Majdalanie or the Fundus Forschungstheater.


Prof. Dr. Margarita Tsomou is Curator for Theory and Discourse at Theater Hebbel am Ufer in Berlin and Professor of Contemporary Theatre Practice at Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences.

May 22, 2024: Robert Walser-Sculpture - a presentation by Thomas Hirschhorn

A presentation by Thomas Hirschhorn followed by a discussion with Tsaplya Olga Egorova and Dmitry Vilensky (Chto Delat).

“Be an Outsider! Be a Hero! Be Robert Walser!”, this was the motto of Thomas Hirschhorn's 86-day installation on Bahnhofplatz Biel/Bienne in summer 2019. Robert Walser-Sculpture is a work in public space that was created in Biel/Bienne together with residents of the city in honor of the Swiss writer Robert Walser. Thomas Hirschhorn will share his experiences with this specific work in public space, pointing out some of the most important decisions that need to be made for art in public space: Dedication, location, duration and impact.

As part of the block seminar The Lexicon of Emergency and the questions of pedagogy.

Thomas Hirschhorn was born in 1957 in Bern, Switzerland. After studying at the Kunstgewerbeschule Zürich, he moved to Paris in 1983 where he has been living and working since.

His work has been presented in many international exhibitions such as Skulptur Projekte Münster (1997), the Venice Biennale (1999 and 2015) where he represented Switzerland in 2011, Documenta11 (2002), 27th Sao Paolo Biennale (2006), 55th Carnegie International, Pittsburg (2008), La Triennale at Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2012), 9th Shanghai Biennale (2012), Manifesta 10 at Saint-Petersburg (2014), Atopolis Mons (2015), Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2018), Steirischer Herbst, Graz (2021). Other venues have hosted solo exhibitions, among which the Art Institute of Chicago (1998), Museum Ludwig, Cologne (1998), Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht (2005), Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2005), Museum Tinguely, Basel (2013), South London Gallery (2015), Kunsthal Aarhus, (2017), Museum Villa Stuck, Munich (2018), GL Strand, Copenhagen (2021).

Over the years, Hirschhorn has created more than seventy works in public space, questioning the autonomy, the authorship and resistance of a work of art. These demanding projects include Musée Précaire Albinet (Aubervilliers, France, 2004), The Bijlmer Spinoza Festival (Amsterdam, 2009), Flamme Eternelle (Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2014), What I can learn from you. What you can learn from me (Critical Workshop) (Remai Modern, Saskatoon 2018), and the Robert Walser-Sculpture (Fondation Exposition Suisse de Sculpture, Biel, Switzerland, 2019).

May 16, 2024: HECATOMB II - Integration: movements and rituals for the renewal of the world

Video installation and performance by Martha Hincapie Charry followed by a conversation with Margarita Tsomou.

HECATOMB II - Integration: movements and rituals for the renewal of the world bringt drei First Nation Repräsentanten aus den so genannten Amerikas (Kolumbien, USA und dem Amazonas-Regenwald) zusammen, die das Wissen und die Weisheit ihrer Vorfahren schützen und teilen und es durch traditionelle Tänze, Lieder und Zeremonien zum Ausdruck bringen.

Im antiken Griechenland war HECATOMB die Opferung von hundert Ochsen in den religiösen Zeremonien der Griechen und Römer. Im übertragenen Sinne wird „hecatomb“ verwendet, um die Opferung oder Zerstörung einer großen Anzahl von Menschen oder Tieren durch Feuer, Sturm, Krankheit oder Schwert zu beschreiben, aber auch für die umfassende Zerstörung unbelebter Gegenstände und sogar geistiger und moralischer Eigenschaften.

HECATOMB II ist eine 3-Kanal-Videoinstallation, die mit einer Live-Performance korrespondiert, bei der das Publikum den indigenen Oberhäuptern begegnen. Dieser Vorschlag erkennt das überlieferte Wissen der Eingeborenen als eine Wissenschaft an, die auf heilenden Technologien basiert, die das Gleichgewicht des Planeten anstreben.

Folgende indigene Repräsentant*innen wurden zur Teilnahme eingeladen: Petra Gouriyu & die Arralia-Gemeinschaft, Wayúu-Volk, La Guajira-Wüste, Shane Weeks - Shinnecock First Nation, Long Island NY und Aimema Úai - Muruy Muina-Volk, Amazonas-Regenwald.

April 11, 2024: 4 Legs Good - Lecture Demonstration by Claire Cunningham

One of the UK’s most acclaimed and internationally renowned disabled artists, Claire Cunningham, presents a lecture demonstration exploring her artistic practice.

Claire will talk through the development of her career as her focus shifts from explorations about the connection between her crutches and her body, to how her crutches connect her to the world.

She will demonstrate her own unique movement style Quanimacy, illustrating how she is influenced by the use/misuse, study and distortion of her crutches; rejecting formal dance training and techniques created for non-disabled bodies. She will discuss how her work is also influenced by her lived experience of disability and its impact on the way society thinks about knowledge, value, connection and interdependence.

This is a relaxed, informal event where the audience is free to make themselves comfortable. There will be Sign Language Interpretation and a variety of seating options.

The evening will be introduced and hosted by Margarita Tsomou (Professor of Contemporary Theater Practice at Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences and Curator for Theory and Discourse at Hebbel am Ufer in Berlin).

January 12, 2024: TonTänze/Die Hörposaune/The Body is the Glitch

Performative film and lecture program with Isabell Spengler, Antonia Baehr, Jule Flierl and Margarita Tsomou


The program deals with musical scores in an extended sense and understands them as a method to reflect together with the audience in the Extended Library on the perception, reading and interpretation of the world.

To kick off the program, Antonia Baehr and Jule Flierl will perform the duet TonTänze live. Isabell Spengler, Antonia Baehr and Jule Flierl will then present their work Die Hörposaune - Film, which will be vocalized, commented on and further developed by the keynote speech The Body is the Glitch by Margarita Tsomou.


TonTänze (a selection) by and with Antonia Baehr and Jule Flierl

TonTanz (sound dance) is a conceptual invention by Valeska Gert. She uses the term to describe the movement of the voice in the body, thus moving away from the cliché of the mute female dancer. In this selection, Baehr and Flierl refer to the TonTanz genre, which opens up new forms of relationships between body, dance and voice.

Ore of Peace - 2018 - Jule Flierl
My Dog is my Piano - 2012 - Antonia Baehr
A wie Arsen - 1972 - Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt
Dissociation Study - 2017 - Jule Flierl
HA HA HA - 2007 - Henry Wilt 2.


Die Hörposaune (The auditory trombone)

Film by Isabell Spengler, Antonia Baehr and Jule Flierl, staged in a visual installation by Nadia Lauro.

Using a floating camera, the film allows us to enter a world of membranes, liquefied boundaries and openings between inner and outer spaces. Here we encounter a reading session or voice performance in memory of the queer icon, Altus Klaus Nomi, one of the first public figures to die in the wake of the AIDS pandemic. The film delves daydream-like into the bowels of fantastical queer body imaginings, with spitting, panting, mouth space sounds, singing and vulva-like paper flower arrangements, reinterpreting anatomical representations.

OMITTED December 7, 2023: BITE. Research presentation as part of the Museum of the Anthropocene project

A performative intervention by Agata Siniarska followed by an open conversation

Introduction and moderation: Margarita Tsomou


Welcome to the Museum of the Anthropocene - among colonies of bacteria, taxidermic creatures, omnipresent ghosts, machine animals, bombs, leaking oil from the mouths of dying organisms - all performed by the human body. Ontological status: impossible but strenuously trying.

For the last centuries humans have strenuously tried to distinguish themselves from non-human organisms and non-human matter, despite the impossibility of this task. The performative research and practice of Agata Siniarska are proposals to relate to non-human entities and to share these attempts. They are no solutions at all, but efforts that clumsily litter the choreographic parameters of time, space, movement, bodies. These constant rehearsals, create knowledge that offers possibilities to expand the human sensorium, the bodily imagination, and thus to get closer to the non-self.

How can these experiments be archived? What if humans not conserve/freeze/record matter, but leave it to its own terms and allowed it to transform? Can we think of the archive as something mobile that follows movement instead of immobilizing it? How is the archive related with the world and how much do archives need humans?

Agata Siniarska works in the field of extended choreography. She places her practice between how we think about the world and how we move in it. It is a place where somatics and politics intersect - a place where body perception meets social engagement - between somatic and environmental landscapes, between human and non-human bodies. Agata’s present research explores the idea of a Museum of the Anthropocene, multi-species archives in the time of war and extinction, as well as various human and non-human alliances.


Unfortunately, this date had to be cancelled due to illness.

October 11, 2023: Opening

Opening of the Extended Library with a lecture by Anselm Franke on the significance of Sylvia Wynter's work and a performative-participative reading by Sarah Lewis-Cappellari, who will transform the Extended Library into a rehearsal space for non-knowledge in a Ceremony of Loss.

The content programme of the new Extended Library, curated by Margarita Tsomou, focuses on performative forms and formats of presentation. The 150 square metre anteroom of the library has been transformed into a transdisciplinary space for learning, work and discourse. The artistic-experimental studio creates links to multiple public spheres - both inside and outside the university.

The Extended Library also includes the new work Group Hug (2023) by Valentina Karga, Professor of Design at the HFBK Hamburg.

Materials and tools for setting up a constellation are lying on the floor.

Before the exhibition, ICAT HFBK Hamburg; photo: Tim Albrecht

Hiscox Art Prize 2024

The HFBK Hamburg cordially invites to the award ceremony of the Hiscox Art Prize 2024 and to the opening of the exhibition with the nominated artists.

The filled auditorium at the opening of the 2024/25 academic year; photo: Tim Albrecht

Autumn program for everyone

The start of the winter semester at the HFBK Hamburg is accompanied by an extensive program of events including performances, screenings, exhibitions and book presentations.

Graphic design of the exhibition title

"The New Woman - How Female Artists and Designers shaped the Image of Modernism", graphic by Liudmila Savelyeva, Karla Krey, Amira Mostafa (Klasse Digitale Grafik)

The New Woman

The exhibition "The New Woman - How Female Artists and Designers Shaped the Image of Modernism" presents more than 50 works by 14 selected female artists and designers who studied at the Staatliche Kunstgewerbeschule zu Hamburg, the predecessor institution of the HFBK, from 1907 onwards. At a time when women were still denied access to many other art academies.

The cinema in the new film house, Finkenau 42; photo: Tim Albrecht

Opening of the 2024/25 semester centred on the new film house

After six decades of outstanding film education at the HFBK Hamburg, we will celebrate the opening of the new film house on Wednesday, October 16, 2024 with the start of the academic year. We will also introduce the new professors and welcome the new students.

Matthis Frickhœffer in his installation "Framing Electric Dreams" (with Sebastian Kommer) as part of the exhibition "Imaging Health I" 2022 at the ICAT of the HFBK Hamburg; photo: Tim Albrecht

Doing a PhD at the HFBK Hamburg

The HFBK Hamburg is the first art academy in Germany to offer a PhD in Art Practice. At the start of the programme, we are looking for artistic doctoral projects that deal with changing health concepts and the diverse social transformation processes from an artistic perspective. Apply now!

Fade-in of the Hannah Arendt sequence from the conversation with Günter Gaus at the start of the conversation between Juliane Rebentisch and Natan Sznaider in the auditorium of the HFBK Hamburg on 7 June 2024; photo: Maximilian Glas

Summer of theory

The past semester was filled with lectures, discussions, panels and talks. Here we offer a brief look back at the summer of Theory 2024 with the lecture series "Anti-Judaism and Anti-Semitism in Art", the project "Archives of the Body - The Body of Archiving" as well as the talks with Natan Sznaider.

Detail: Installation by Mark Morris; photo: Tim Albrecht

Graduate Show 2024 - Letting Go

From 12 to 14 July 2024 (2 - 8 p.m.), more than 160 graduates from the 2023/24 academic year will be showing their final artistic works in a comprehensive exhibition at the HFBK Hamburg. In addition, all graduation films will be presented in the new cinema hall of the Filmhaus at Finkenau 42 as part of Final Cut.

Julia Scher, Territorium, 2024, installationview at ICAT of HFBK Hamburg; photo: Tim Albrecht

Finkenwerder Art Prize 2024

The US artist Julia Scher will receive the Finkenwerder Art Prize 2024, while Anna Stüdeli, who studied sculpture at the HFBK Hamburg, will be honoured with the Finkenwerder Grant from the HFBK.

Archives of the Body - The Body in Archiving

With a symposium, an exhibition, a film programme and a digital publication, the research project conceived by Prof. Hanne Loreck and Vanessa Gravenor examines the "archive" as a form of order with regard to the human body. Which body archives and discourses have become established? What potentials for political-aesthetic resistance and activism could and can emerge?

Sharon Poliakine, Untitled, 2023, oil on canvas, detail

New partnership with the School of Arts at the University of Haifa

On the occasion of a new partnership with the School of Arts at the University of Haifa, the HFBK Hamburg is presenting an exhibition by the artists Birgit Brandis, Sharon Poliakine and HFBK students.

photo: Ronja Lotz

Exhibition recommendations

Numerous exhibitions with HFBK participation are currently on display. We present a small selection and invite you to visit the exhibitions during the term break.

Visitors of the annual exhibition 2024; photo: Lukes Engelhardt

Annual Exhibition 2024 at the HFBK Hamburg

From February 9 -11, 2024 (daily 2-8 pm) the students of HFBK Hamburg present their artistic productions from the past year. In addition, the exhibition »Think & Feel! Speak & Act!« curated by Nadine Droste, as well as the presentation of exchange students from Goldsmiths, University of London, can be seen at ICAT.

Examination of the submitted portfolios

How to apply: study at HFBK Hamburg

The application period for studying at the HFBK Hamburg runs from 1 February to 5 March 2024, 4 p.m. All important information can be found here.

photo: Tim Albrecht

(Ex)Changes of / in Art

There's a lot going on at the HFBK Hamburg at the end of the year: exhibitions at ICAT, the ASA students' Open Studios in Karolinenstraße, performances in the Extended Library and lectures in the Aula Wartenau.

Extended Libraries

Knowledge is now accessible from anywhere, at any time. In such a scenario, what role(s) can libraries still play? How can they support not only as knowledge archives but also as facilitators of artistic knowledge production? As an example, we present library projects by students and alumni, as well as our new knowledge space: the Extended Library.

And Still I Rise

For over 20 years, US artist Rajkamal Kahlon has been interested in the connections between aesthetics and power, which are organized across historical and geographical boundaries, primarily through violence. With this solo exhibition, the HFBK Hamburg presents the versatile work of the professor of painting and drawing to the Hamburg art public for the first time.

photo: Lukes Engelhardt

photo: Lukes Engelhardt

No Tracking. No Paywall.

Just Premium Content! The (missing) summer offers the ideal opportunity to catch up on what has been missed. In our media library, faculty, students and alumni share knowledge and discussions with us - both emotional moments and controversial discourses. Through podcasts and videos, they contribute to current debates and address important topics that are currently in focus.

Let's talk about language

There are currently around 350 international students studying at the HFBK Hamburg, who speak 55 different languages - at least these are the official languages of their countries of origin. A quarter of the teaching staff have an international background. And the trend is rising. But how do we deal productively with the multilingualism of university members in everyday life? What ways of communication can be found? The current Lerchenfeld issue looks at creative solutions for dealing with multilingualism and lets numerous former international students have their say.

photo: Miriam Schmidt / HFBK

Graduate Show 2023: Unfinished Business

From July 13 to 16, 2023, 165 Bachelor's and Master's graduates of the class of 2022/23 will present their final projects from all areas of study. Under the title Final Cut, all graduation films will be shown on a big screen in the auditorium of the HFBK Hamburg.

A disguised man with sunglasses holds a star-shaped sign for the camera. It says "Suckle". The picture is taken in black and white.

photo: Honey-Suckle Company

Let`s work together

Collectives are booming in the art world. And they have been for several decades. For the start of the summer semester 2023, the new issue of the Lerchenfeld Magazine is dedicated to the topic of collective practice in art, presents selected collectives, and also explores the dangers and problems of collective working.

Jahresausstellung 2023, Arbeit von Toni Mosebach / Nora Strömer; photo: Lukes Engelhardt

Annual Exhibition 2023 at HFBK Hamburg

From February 10-12, students from all departments will present their artistic works at Lerchenfeld 2, Wartenau 15 and AtelierHaus, Lerchenfeld 2a. At ICAT, Tobias Peper, Artistic Director of the Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, curates an exhibition with HFBK master students. Also 10 exchange students from Goldsmiths, University of London will show their work there.

Symposium: Controversy over documenta fifteen

With this symposium on documenta fifteen on the 1st and 2nd of February, the HFBK Hamburg aims to analyze the background and context, foster dialogue between different viewpoints, and enable a debate that explicitly addresses anti-Semitism in the field of art. The symposium offers space for divergent positions and aims to open up perspectives for the present and future of exhibition making.

ASA Open Studios winter semester 2021/22; photo: Marie-Theres Böhmker

ASA Open Studios winter semester 2021/22; photo: Marie-Theres Böhmker

The best is saved until last

At the end of the year, once again there will be numerous exhibitions and events with an HFBK context. We have compiled some of them here. You will also find a short preview of two lectures of the professionalization program in January.

Non-Knowledge, Laughter and the Moving Image, Grafik: Leon Lothschütz

Non-Knowledge, Laughter and the Moving Image, Grafik: Leon Lothschütz

Festival and Symposium: Non-Knowledge, Laughter and the Moving Image

As the final part of the artistic research project, the festival and symposium invite you to screenings, performances, talks, and discussions that explore the potential of the moving images and the (human and non-human) body to overturn our habitual course and change the dominant order of things.

Solo exhibition by Konstantin Grcic

From September 29 to October 23, 2022, Konstantin Grcic (Professor of Industrial Design) will be showing a room-sized installation at ICAT - Institute for Contemporary Art & Transfer at the HFBK Hamburg consisting of objects designed by him and existing, newly assembled objects. At the same time, the space he designed for workshops, seminars and office workstations in the AtelierHaus will be put into operation.

Amna Elhassan, Tea Lady, oil on canvas, 100 x 100 cm

Amna Elhassan, Tea Lady, oil on canvas, 100 x 100 cm

Art and war

"Every artist is a human being". This statement by Martin Kippenberger, which is as true as it is existentialist (in an ironic rephrasing of the well-known Beuys quote), gets to the heart of the matter in many ways. On the one hand, it reminds us not to look away, to be (artistically) active and to raise our voices. At the same time, it is an exhortation to help those who are in need. And that is a lot of people at the moment, among them many artists. That is why it is important for art institutions to discuss not only art, but also politics.

Merlin Reichert, Die Alltäglichkeit des Untergangs, Installation in der Galerie der HFBK; photo: Tim Albrecht

Graduate Show 2022: We’ve Only Just Begun

From July 8 to 10, 2022, more than 160 Bachelor’s and Master’s graduates of the class of 2021/22 will present their final projects from all majors. Under the title Final Cut, all graduation films will be shown on a big screen in the auditorium of the HFBK Hamburg. At the same time, the exhibition of the Sudanese guest lecturer Amna Elhassan can be seen in the HFBK gallery in the Atelierhaus.

Grafik: Nele Willert, Dennise Salinas

Grafik: Nele Willert, Dennise Salinas

June is full of art and theory

It has been a long time since there has been so much on offer: a three-day congress on the visuality of the Internet brings together international web designers; the research collective freethought discusses the role of infrastructures; and the symposium marking the farewell of professor Michaela Ott takes up central questions of her research work.

Renée Green. ED/HF, 2017. Film still. Courtesy of the artist, Free Agent Media, Bortolami Gallery, New York, and Galerie Nagel Draxler, Berlin/Cologne/Munich.

Renée Green. ED/HF, 2017. Film still. Courtesy of the artist, Free Agent Media, Bortolami Gallery, New York, and Galerie Nagel Draxler, Berlin/Cologne/Munich.

Finkenwerder Art Prize 2022

The Finkenwerder Art Prize, initiated in 1999 by the Kulturkreis Finkenwerder e.V., has undergone a realignment: As a new partner, the HFBK Hamburg is expanding the prize to include the aspect of promoting young artists and, starting in 2022, will host the exhibition of the award winners in the HFBK Gallery. This year's Finkenwerder Art Prize will be awarded to the US artist Renée Green. HFBK graduate Frieda Toranzo Jaeger receives the Finkenwerder Art Prize for recent graduates.

Amanda F. Koch-Nielsen, Motherslugger; photo: Lukas Engelhardt

Amanda F. Koch-Nielsen, Motherslugger; photo: Lukas Engelhardt

Nachhaltigkeit im Kontext von Kunst und Kunsthochschule

Im Bewusstsein einer ausstehenden fundamentalen gesellschaftlichen Transformation und der nicht unwesentlichen Schrittmacherfunktion, die einem Ort der künstlerischen Forschung und Produktion hierbei womöglich zukommt, hat sich die HFBK Hamburg auf den Weg gemacht, das Thema strategisch wie konkret pragmatisch für die Hochschule zu entwickeln. Denn wer, wenn nicht die Künstler*innen sind in ihrer täglichen Arbeit damit befasst, das Gegebene zu hinterfragen, genau hinzuschauen, neue Möglichkeiten, wie die Welt sein könnte, zu erkennen und durchzuspielen, einem anderen Wissen Gestalt zu geben

New studio in the row of houses at Lerchenfeld

New studio in the row of houses at Lerchenfeld, in the background the building of Fritz Schumacher; photo: Tim Albrecht

Raum für die Kunst

After more than 40 years of intensive effort, a long-cherished dream is becoming reality for the HFBK Hamburg. With the newly opened studio building, the main areas of study Painting/Drawing, Sculpture and Time-Related Media will finally have the urgently needed studio space for Master's students. It simply needs space for their own ideas, for thinking, for art production, exhibitions and as a depot.

Martha Szymkowiak / Emilia Bongilaj, Installation “Mmh”; photo: Tim Albrecht

Martha Szymkowiak / Emilia Bongilaj, Installation “Mmh”; photo: Tim Albrecht

Annual Exhibition 2022 at the HFBK

After last year's digital edition, the 2022 annual exhibition at the HFBK Hamburg will once again take place with an audience. From 11-13 February, students from all departments will present their artistic work in the building at Lerchenfeld, Wartenau 15 and the newly opened Atelierhaus.

Annette Wehrmann, photography from the series Blumensprengungen, 1991-95; photo: Ort des Gegen e.V., VG-Bild Kunst Bonn

Annette Wehrmann, photography from the series Blumensprengungen, 1991-95; photo: Ort des Gegen e.V., VG-Bild Kunst Bonn

Conference: Counter-Monuments and Para-Monuments.

The international conference at HFBK Hamburg on December 2-4, 2021 – jointly conceived by Nora Sternfeld and Michaela Melián –, is dedicated to the history of artistic counter-monuments and forms of protest, discusses aesthetics of memory and historical manifestations in public space, and asks about para-monuments for the present.

23 Fragen des Institutional Questionaire, grafisch umgesetzt von Ran Altamirano auf den Türgläsern der HFBK Hamburg zur Jahresausstellung 2021; photo: Charlotte Spiegelfeld

23 Fragen des Institutional Questionaire, grafisch umgesetzt von Ran Altamirano auf den Türgläsern der HFBK Hamburg zur Jahresausstellung 2021; photo: Charlotte Spiegelfeld

Diversity

Who speaks? Who paints which motif? Who is shown, who is not? Questions of identity politics play an important role in art and thus also at the HFBK Hamburg. In the current issue, the university's own Lerchenfeld magazine highlights university structures as well as student initiatives that deal with diversity and identity.

photo: Klaus Frahm

photo: Klaus Frahm

Summer Break

The HFBK Hamburg is in the lecture-free period, many students and teachers are on summer vacation, art institutions have summer break. This is a good opportunity to read and see a variety of things:

ASA Open Studio 2019, Karolinenstraße 2a, Haus 5; photo: Matthew Muir

ASA Open Studio 2019, Karolinenstraße 2a, Haus 5; photo: Matthew Muir

Live und in Farbe: die ASA Open Studios im Juni 2021

Since 2010, the HFBK has organised the international exchange programme Art School Alliance. It enables HFBK students to spend a semester abroad at renowned partner universities and, vice versa, invites international art students to the HFBK. At the end of their stay in Hamburg, the students exhibit their work in the Open Studios in Karolinenstraße, which are now open again to the art-interested public.

Studiengruppe Prof. Dr. Anja Steidinger, Was animiert uns?, 2021, Mediathek der HFBK Hamburg, Filmstill

Studiengruppe Prof. Dr. Anja Steidinger, Was animiert uns?, 2021, Mediathek der HFBK Hamburg, Filmstill

Unlearning: Wartenau Assemblies

The art education professors Nora Sternfeld and Anja Steidinger initiated the format "Wartenau Assemblies". It oscillates between art, education, research and activism. Complementing this open space for action, there is now a dedicated website that accompanies the discourses, conversations and events.

Ausstellungsansicht "Schule der Folgenlosigkeit. Übungen für ein anderes Leben" im Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg; photo: Maximilian Schwarzmann

Ausstellungsansicht "Schule der Folgenlosigkeit. Übungen für ein anderes Leben" im Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg; photo: Maximilian Schwarzmann

School of No Consequences

Everyone is talking about consequences: The consequences of climate change, the Corona pandemic or digitalization. Friedrich von Borries (professor of design theory), on the other hand, is dedicated to consequence-free design. In “School of No Consequences. Exercises for a New Life” at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg, he links collection objects with a "self-learning room" set up especially for the exhibition in such a way that a new perspective on "sustainability" emerges and supposedly universally valid ideas of a "proper life" are questioned.

Annual Exhibition 2021 at the HFBK

Annual exhibition a bit different: From February 12- 14, 2021 students at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts, together with their professors, had developed a variety of presentations on different communication channels. The formats ranged from streamed live performances to video programs, radio broadcasts, a telephone hotline, online conferences, and a web store for editions. In addition, isolated interventions could be discovered in the outdoor space of the HFBK and in the city.

Katja Pilipenko

Katja Pilipenko

Semestereröffnung und Hiscox-Preisverleihung 2020

On the evening of November 4, the HFBK celebrated the opening of the academic year 2020/21 as well as the awarding of the Hiscox Art Prize in a livestream - offline with enough distance and yet together online.

Exhibition Transparencies with works by Elena Crijnen, Annika Faescke, Svenja Frank, Francis Kussatz, Anne Meerpohl, Elisa Nessler, Julia Nordholz, Florentine Pahl, Cristina Rüesch, Janka Schubert, Wiebke Schwarzhans, Rosa Thiemer, Lea van Hall. Organized by Prof. Verena Issel and Fabian Hesse; photo: Screenshot

Exhibition Transparencies with works by Elena Crijnen, Annika Faescke, Svenja Frank, Francis Kussatz, Anne Meerpohl, Elisa Nessler, Julia Nordholz, Florentine Pahl, Cristina Rüesch, Janka Schubert, Wiebke Schwarzhans, Rosa Thiemer, Lea van Hall. Organized by Prof. Verena Issel and Fabian Hesse; photo: Screenshot

Teaching Art Online at the HFBK

How the university brings together its artistic interdisciplinary study structure with digital formats and their possibilities.

Alltagsrealität oder Klischee?; photo: Tim Albrecht

Alltagsrealität oder Klischee?; photo: Tim Albrecht

HFBK Graduate Survey

Studying art - and what comes next? The clichéd images stand their ground: Those who have studied art either become taxi drivers, work in a bar or marry rich. But only very few people could really live from art – especially in times of global crises. The HFBK Hamburg wanted to know more about this and commissioned the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences at the University of Hamburg to conduct a broad-based survey of its graduates from the last 15 years.

Ausstellung Social Design, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg, Teilansicht; photo: MKG Hamburg

Ausstellung Social Design, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg, Teilansicht; photo: MKG Hamburg

How political is Social Design?

Social Design, as its own claim is often formulated, wants to address social grievances and ideally change them. Therefore, it sees itself as critical of society – and at the same time optimizes the existing. So what is the political dimension of Social Design – is it a motor for change or does it contribute to stabilizing and normalizing existing injustices?