A Leading Laboratory for Contemporary Art Turns Thirty KUNST-WERKE BERLIN e.V. is one of the
world's most highly renowned organizations for contemporary art. For three decades the KW
Institute for Contemporary Art has been a vital scene of progressive creative practices
pursuing distinctive visions the curators who have worked here including Klaus Biesenbach
Anselm Franke Susanne Pfeffer and Krist Gruijthuijsen have set major trends in the
international art world. Since KW's early days the avant-garde program of exhibitions and
transdisciplinary events has made significant contributions to the discourse of contemporary
art and its impact beyond art's own disciplinary boundaries. Flagship programs have included
the Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art initiated in 1997 and a wide-ranging exhibition
practice that has spawned seminal projects including Berliner Chronik (1994) Stand der Dinge
(2000) Regarding Terror: The RAF Exhibition (2005) One on One (2012-13) and The Making of
Husbands: Christina Ramberg in Dialogue (2019-20). The list of outstanding artists featured in
KW's exhibitions has included Absalon Kader Attia Keren Cytter Cyprien Gaillard Douglas
Gordon Channa Horwitz Carsten Höller Renata Lucas Hiwa K Annette Kelm Mika Rottenberg
Christoph Schlingensief Hassan Sharif Anri Sala and many more. Thirty years after Klaus
Biesenbach Alexandra Binswanger Philipp von Doering Clemens Homburger and Alfonso
Rutigliano founded KW in what was then a dilapidated former margarine factory in
post-fall-of-the-Wall Berlin this book reviews the institution's extensive archive and
exhibition history. It is the first publication to offer a comprehensive overview of all shows
and the eleven editions (and counting) of Berlin Biennale. With essays by Jan Verwoert Susanne
von Falkenhausen and Jenny Dirksen a conversation between Klaus Biesenbach Krist
Gruijthuijsen and Gabriele Horn and a chronology of exhibitions and projects running to over
300 pages.
