Calendar

Participating artists:
Naima Amrein, Lennert Arnoldt, Anna Bein, Roula Beranek, Luzie Bommert, Albin Flieder, Dana Guzu, Krasna Vukasovic Herrero, Lucie Hess, Ida Lovis Hüsing, Svenja Jarisch, Miriam Jehle, Jasmina Klein, Magda Klose, Mathilda Köhler, Taisiia Kravchenko, Danyila Matsyna, Olena Melnyk, Nele Pianka, Karlotta Pöschko, Hannes Rühl, Rasool Abu Saab, Johanna Sander, Kolja Kärtner Sainz, Lukas Schwake, Onno Seeger, Arno Selle, Lenya Taubert, Maja Tobolewska, Leon von der Lippe, Paul Zschocke, Eva Noeske

Period (opening hours):
Tue - Fri 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sat - Sun 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Venue:
Museum Boppard
Burgplatz 2
56154 Boppard

The students of the painting and graphics class led by Rep. Professor Franziska Reinbothe of the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig are exhibiting together.

The term painting/graphics in our official class title usually evokes certain expectations from the public. We like to subvert these expectations (again and again), because one thing is certain: in our class for painting and graphic art, everything may, must and will happen without restriction! Printmaking meets sculpture, painting meets installation, photography meets performance, ceramics meets literature. Despite all our artistic differences, we are united by our curiosity to try things out, the joy of creating and our unconditional dedication to our own work.

Venue:
Fondazione Palazzo Magnani
corso Garibaldi 31
42121 Reggio Emilia

Raisan Hameed's publication "Pixel of Memories بكسلات الذاكرة", with which he completed his masterclass at the HGB under Professor Tina Bara, has been honoured with the "FE+SK Book Award" at the Festival Fotografie Europea in Reggio Emilia. Congratulations!

The photo book will not only be on display during the festival from 30 April to 3 May, but will also be presented in an artist talk by Raisan Hameed with the jury Tim Clark, Milo Montelli (Skinnerboox) and Chiara Cpodici (leporello.books) on 2 May at 6.30 pm.

"Pixel of Memories بكسلات الذاكرة" combines conceptual reflections on memory, destruction and the invisibility of history. The book takes up this visual language and creates a fragment of memories, image errors and gaps. It becomes a space of testimony and reflection in which the viewer must decipher the layers of images and their meaning. Hameed has scoured the entire map of Iraq on Google Maps and created an archive with hundreds of screenshots. In Iraq, the 360-degree views are not uploaded by the platform itself, but by private individuals. Hameed is particularly interested in the errors and gaps he came across during his research.

Raisan Hameed (*1991) is an Iraqi-German multimedia artist who lives in Leipzig. After graduating in photography, he completed his masterclass at the HGB. His work has been shown in international exhibitions, including the Prix Photoforum Biel, the Bundeskunsthalle Bonn and the Carte Blanche Exhibition in Paris. Hameed's practice uses a subtle and metaphorical visual language characterised by experiences of loss and displacement.

Venue:
International Short Film Festival Oberhausen
Verschiedene Spielstätten
www.kurzfilmtage.de

Trained for prompt fulfilment and the seamless imitation of external reality, image-generating AIs challenge our perception of the real. What means can we find in film and art history when it comes to separating reality from illusion? Do these tools possibly help us to come closer to the idea of a self-critical AI aesthetic? And take into account the effects of the AI industry on society and the environment?

With Prof. Clemens von Wedemeyer, Professor of Expanded Cinema, Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig; Ariana Dongus, critical media scientist, Berlin; Prof. Dr Jan Distelmeyer, Professor of Media History and Media Theory, Potsdam University of Applied Sciences and Potsdam University; Dr Inke Arns , Director of HMKV Hartware MedienKunstVerein, Dortmund.

Venue:
Fotografiska Berlin
Oranienburgerstraße 54
10117 Berlin

How much human labour is involved in "artificial" intelligence? Artist Anna Ehrenstein and AI researcher Ariana Dongus explore this question in conversation.

The discussion builds on Ehrenstein's exhibition The Language of the Soil, which examines the infrastructures of AI and the working conditions on which they are based. The project is based on ongoing research and collaborations with digital workers and practitioners, including Richard Mathenge, Mophat Okinyi and Fasica Berhane, as well as other participants in Nairobi and Cairo.

Rather than portraying AI as autonomous or immaterial, the conversation situates AI systems within existing labour networks, colonial histories, extractive processes and the global platform economy. Ehrenstein and Dongus also reflect on questions of authorship, the political dimensions of AI and how artistic practice can address and challenge these structures.

Author and researcher Yaniya Lee will moderate the discussion.

More information & tickets...

Venue:
HGB, Raum 2.34

>>> More information about Prof. Michael Riedel

In the lecture series "Positions", the professors present their artistic / design practice every Monday from 17:00-19:00. The lectures are open to members of the HGB.

Venue:
Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz
Theaterplatz 1
09111 Chemnitz
www.kunstsammlungen-chemnitz.de

From 7 May to 30 August 2026, the Kunstsammlungen am Theaterplatz, Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz are showing the exhibition Traces of Proximity. Käthe Kollwitz and contemporary photography. The focus is on the dialogue between the work of Käthe Kollwitz and current artistic positions, which impressively demonstrates the continuing relevance of her themes.

The starting point for the exhibition is the museum's own extensive collection, from which a comprehensive presentation of the artist's work is being created for the first time in almost four decades. On display are drawings as well as etchings, lithographs and woodcuts from the years 1892 to 1938, with central groups of works such as A Weavers' Revolt, Peasants' War and War alongside self-portraits, portraits of workers and depictions of mothers and children. The exhibition also includes works on loss and death as well as social and political motifs and posters. The presentation is complemented by reliefs and sculptures from the Käthe Kollwitz Museum Berlin.

The exhibition is being organised in cooperation with Heidi Specker's photography class at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig. The students have intensively analysed Kollwitz' visual world and developed their own artistic works from it. Photographs, graphics and sculptural and film installations take up central themes such as self-expression, the body, motherhood, war, violence and protest and translate them into the present.
the present.

Käthe Kollwitz is one of the most important artists of the 20th century. Her work is characterised by a haunting, unmistakable visual language and a deep interest in people. Against a backdrop of personal loss and historical upheaval, she explored existential experiences, social inequality and human vulnerability.
Born in Königsberg in 1867 and influenced by a liberal family, Kollwitz developed her artistic expressiveness at an early age. Her life was closely linked to the political and social changes in Germany, from the German Empire to the Weimar Republic and the National Socialist era. She left Berlin in 1943 and died in Moritzburg near Dresden in 1945.

>>> events accompanying the exhibition

Venue:
HGB, Raum 3.45


Julia Blume talks about the research project, the exhibition and publication "HGB 33-45". The talk is open to the university public and takes place as part of Susanne Keichel's project seminar "Right-wing continuities, the NSU and the present".

Participating artists:
Organised by Gideon Liebmann, Rebecca Häfner and Arne Müller

Venue:
HGB entrance hall
Wächterstraße 11
04107 Leipzig

On the occasion of the Museum Night, fashion design from Berlin and Halle (Saale) is presented as a freely choreographed production. Carried by performers and dancers and framed by live sound design and a picturesque, graphic backdrop, fashion and graphics merge into a wordless theatre of light and movement.

Venue:
Museum für Druckkunst Leipzig
Nonnenstraße 38
04229 Leipzig

On the occasion of the Museum Night on 9 May 2026, the director of the Museum für Druckkunst Leipzig will be holding an artist talk with Heidi Specker and Pete Jones as part of their current exhibition "The World of Music on Banknotes. A visual concert".

The exhibition presents around 50 banknotes and invites visitors on a journey of discovery through sounds, cultural heritage and national identity. Similar to an orchestra in which different instruments work together in harmony, the banknotes are divided into five thematic areas to emphasise different aspects of the content. Heidi Specker's work "Noten, 2018", macro shots of a 100 DM note with Clara Schumann in four different colours, is also on display.

Venue:
HGB, Raum 2.34

>>> More information about Prof. Maureen Mooren

In the lecture series "Positions", the professors present their artistic / design practice every Monday from 17:00-19:00. The lectures are open to members of the HGB.

Venue:
Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig
Wächterstraße 11
04107 Leipzig

As a continuation of the series "A look behind the scenes at the HGB", the board of the Friends of the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig invites you to a guided tour of the 3DXR workshop followed by a 3-course meal.

Together with the responsible professors Mitra Wakil and Fabian Hesse, the workshops and their work will be presented. Prof Torsten Hattenkerl, Vice-Rector for Teaching and Artistic Practice, will provide exciting insights into the concept of teaching at the HGB.

The 3-course menu by Felix Bielmeier in the Workshop for Art and Cookery will round off this eventful evening, which will be commemorated by a small work of art designed by Fabian Hesse.

The board of the Friends of the HGB is very much looking forward to your participation, which will support the work of the workshops with a contribution of 150 euros (the amount is made up of a donation of 100 euros and a contribution of 50 euros towards the cost of food and drinks).

The number of participating guests is limited to 20, so please send your binding registration by 6 May 2026 to Steffen Woyth's email address: swlux[at]gmx.de and transfer the contribution to the Friends' account.

Participating artists:
Susanne Keichel, Susanne Kriemann, Tobias Zielony, Anna Orłowska, Jadwiga Janowska, Jonas Höschl, Arwed Messmer and Wojciech Wilczyk

Venue:
Gallery of Potocki Palace
Rynek Główny 20
33-33 Kraków

Poland, Germany, and Polish–German relations within the broader context of Central Europe will form the central focus of the upcoming 23rd Month of Photography in Krakow. Under the title “Unreal Estate”, from 14 May to 14 June 2026, the program will include three exhibitions in the main programme, alongside a range of accompanying events – discussions, guided tours, meetings and screenings – featuring artists and experts. 

As part of this wide-ranging exhibition, the interior of the Bunkier Sztuki Contemporary Art Gallery will bring together artists from Poland and Germany. 

The personal photographs and poems of the German-Vietnamese artist working under the pseudonym Fungi touch upon issues of integration and growing up in Germany’s multicultural society, whilst Eiko Grimberg’s visual diary of the 2020s poses the question of whether the present moment in history can truly be photographed. To this end, the artist travels, among other places, to the eastern borders of the European Union. Ines Schaber investigates historical narratives, examining the different ways in which the 16th-century Peasants’ War was and is commemorated in the former West and East Germany. Whilst Arwed Messmer examines the very beginnings of the so-called German reunification in the landscape, Tytus Szabelski-Różniak explores how neoliberal capitalism transformed the capitals of Poland and Germany during the period of political transition. 

Andrzej Steinbach explores a similar theme through “Hellingerian constellations” of consumer goods, revealing the desires, aspirations and limitations hidden within their relationships. Arne Schmitt drew inspiration from Max Frisch’s famous questionnaires and set out to explore the extent to which our relationships with cities resemble our relationships with people: at the organisers’ invitation, he created a portrait of Krakow understood as a complex network of relationships in which social values are reflected. The photographs by Paweł Starzec and Karolina Gembara, meanwhile, invite us on a visual journey through Lower Silesia – a part of contemporary Poland whose current identity has been shaped by resettlements unprecedented in general history. 

Chapter II examines various arrangements of objects, bodies and spaces to explore the tangled relations between Poland and Germany, whilst also touching upon areas of shared experience.

More information...

Participating artists:
Paweł Bownik, Fungi (Phuong Tran Minh), Karolina Gembara, Eiko Grimberg, Jonas Höschl, Ines Schaber, Arne Schmitt, Paweł Starzec, Andrzej Steinbach and Tytus Szabelski-Różniak

Venue:
Bunkier Sztuki Gallery
3a Szczepański Square
31-01 Kraków

Poland, Germany, and Polish–German relations within the broader context of Central Europe will form the central focus of the upcoming 23rd Month of Photography in Krakow. Under the title “Unreal Estate”, from 14 May to 14 June 2026, the program will include three exhibitions in the main programme, alongside a range of accompanying events – discussions, guided tours, meetings and screenings – featuring artists and experts. 

As part of this wide-ranging exhibition, the interior of the Bunkier Sztuki Contemporary Art Gallery will bring together artists from Poland and Germany. 

The personal photographs and poems of the German-Vietnamese artist working under the pseudonym Fungi touch upon issues of integration and growing up in Germany’s multicultural society, whilst Eiko Grimberg’s visual diary of the 2020s poses the question of whether the present moment in history can truly be photographed. To this end, the artist travels, among other places, to the eastern borders of the European Union. Ines Schaber investigates historical narratives, examining the different ways in which the 16th-century Peasants’ War was and is commemorated in the former West and East Germany. Whilst Arwed Messmer examines the very beginnings of the so-called German reunification in the landscape, Tytus Szabelski-Różniak explores how neoliberal capitalism transformed the capitals of Poland and Germany during the period of political transition. 

Andrzej Steinbach explores a similar theme through “Hellingerian constellations” of consumer goods, revealing the desires, aspirations and limitations hidden within their relationships. Arne Schmitt drew inspiration from Max Frisch’s famous questionnaires and set out to explore the extent to which our relationships with cities resemble our relationships with people: at the organisers’ invitation, he created a portrait of Krakow understood as a complex network of relationships in which social values are reflected. The photographs by Paweł Starzec and Karolina Gembara, meanwhile, invite us on a visual journey through Lower Silesia – a part of contemporary Poland whose current identity has been shaped by resettlements unprecedented in general history. 

Chapter II examines various arrangements of objects, bodies and spaces to explore the tangled relations between Poland and Germany, whilst also touching upon areas of shared experience.

More information...

Participating artists:
By Heike Geißler, Anna Lena von Helldorff with Charlotte Puder and accompanied by Barbara Bausch

Venue:
Lettrétage
Veteranenstraße 21
10119 Berlin

Partner:
Cooperation event/project with the EXC 2020 Temporal Communities (Freie Universität Berlin) [as part of the project READING READING by Barbara Bausch].

Read everything, read nothing more. A reading diary, a transcript, notes from and about a utopian, exquisite, well-read, as yet unread place. A lecture, an attempt forward, from a low, from a high and always into another text, into the memories of texts or the observation of the world.

Encountering the world and all its events by reading, responding by reading, escaping and coming to terms with them by reading. What are you reading? I read everything and nothing, both at the same time. A lecture performance made of traces, creating further traces. Fragments, pieces of reading, scraps, networks of a (co-)divided whole (with fringes and snails). Reading as a way of travelling. Reading as a search for acts of solidarity, for paths and trails. An evening about z/reading life in a z/read world.

Venue:
HGB, Raum 2.34

>>> More information about Prof. Tina Bara

In the lecture series "Positions", the professors present their artistic / design practice every Monday from 17:00-19:00. The lectures are open to members of the HGB.

Period (opening hours):
Tue.-Fri. 14:00-18:00 & by appointment

Venue:
HGB gallery
Wächterstraße 11
04107 Leipzig
www.hgb-leipzig.de/galerie
instagram.com/hgbgallery

When dialogue is not just seen as a way to pass on information, but as a space where stories, identities, and public meaning are shaped, it becomes a way of producing “inter-views”- an understanding that knowledge is always relational and never finite.

Inter(-)Views brings together artistic approaches that use interviews and conversations in new ways. The exhibited works explore how interview formats can challenge traditional research methods in contemporary art. The interviews in the exhibition are not fixed or neutral. They unfold as open, performative encounters shaped by differences in power, expectations, and ways of speaking to one another. The works in the exhibition—radio programs, performances, films, and installations—are based on interviews that involve research, early conversations, planning, and attention to legal concerns. They move between keeping people anonymous and making certain elements visible. At times, the recording process itself can be seen or heard. This raises questions about transparency: does showing how something is made help us think more critically about representation, or does it risk repeating the same structures it aims to question?

The Inter(-)Views exhibition engages conversation and interviewing as artistic methods, bringing together students from the foundation year in media art: 

Nil Al-Hashimy, Philipp Albrecht, Ehsan Azali, Hyenjin Cho, Andrei Dmitrenko, Felix Duerler, Teresa Flanderka, Anafi Kordatzaki, Yool Kwon, Seongmin Lee, Emma-Belinda Mueuersepp, Yeonwoo Park, Jannis Weu, Corinna Marie Wolff, Shirley Zama, Lijin Zhou, Yixuan Zhuang, and Alexandra Zubritskaya, from two cohorts of the Media Art program at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig (HGB), together with guest artists Candice Breitz and Adrian Paci and their professors Stine Marie Jacobsen, Eli Cortiñas and Mareike Bernien – in collaboration with Ilse Lafer, curator of the HGB Gallery; Carsten Möller and Max Schneider from the HGB Audio-Video Department; Juri Groß from HGB Radio; and Radio Blau.

Venue:
ICI Berlin
Christinenstr. 18/19, Haus 8
10119 Berlin

This conference takes an interest in minutiae at the levels of aesthetics, ethics, and politics. It invites smaller-scale perspectives to interrogate the interrelations between form and content, and asks how aesthetics forms theory and how theory performs politics. Gravitating around those details that are often seen as inconsequential and unimportant, this conference gestures towards alternative ways of imagining and enacting form, performance, and the formless. Through the lenses of dust, drops, and gaps, reality looks different—blurred, unclear. Minima Formalia asks what role details play in understanding or altering our worldview, and whether one can make a grammar of small or empty gestures. Is the small, the unknown, the overlooked by definition better or more interesting than the big, the known, the noticed? Or does the devil lie in the details?

In English

With Antonia Baehr, Alvina Chamberland, Rebecca Comay, Nile Davies, Jule Flierl, Julian Isenia, Esther Leslie, Natascha Sadr Haghighian

Organized by Nicolas Helm-Grovas, Jasmine Pisapia, Angelica Stathopoulos, and Verónica Stedile Luna

How to Attend
At the venue (registration required): Registration opens on 5 May 2026. No online attendance / no livestream available
(in-person only). More information & registration...

Venue:
Art Exhibition Hall. Kunsthalle der Sparkasse Leipzig
Otto-Schill-Straße 4a
04109 Leipzig

We invite you to the festive presentation of "Sparbuch - Original Edition 2026" by the painting and graphics class led by Prof Ivana de Vivanco and Elena Kovylyaeva. The edition was created by Risotop Verlag on the occasion of the exhibition "Im Angesicht der Zeiten".

A limited edition in an original format was curated and printed by Ben Lasse Pawelzik, Børge Lehmberg, Elena Kovylyaeva, Emma Resch and Tony Bartos.

Participating artists: Tony Bartos, Maria Bayer, Jared Cooper Cobain, Eliane Diur, Anastasia Dodeva, Børge Lehmberg, William Liebelt, Sofi Mchedlishvili, Ben Lasse Pawelzik, Emma Resch, Victor Stinglhamber, Camilla Suckfüll, Paul Weiher, Maria Wagner.

Participating artists:
Luke Carter, Anne Chpakovski, Franziska Dathe, Niklas Dietzel, Leon Friederichs, Toni Gerhardt, Kristina Hajduchova, Luna Haser, Selma Kan, Mathilda Köhler, Marthe Lallemand \ Felix Lorenz, Klara Schöll, Anali Vakili from the HGB Leipzig

Rike Bewer, Ben Billhardt, Sarah Goerke, Henning Gundlach, Nina Hach, Paula Hacker, Luca Japkinas , Youjeong Kim, Yerina Lee, Louisa Pieper, Naomi Pietros, Tom Plehn, Michelle Sorin, Johanne Iris, Kyrilla Steiner, Elektra Tzamouranis from Burg Giebichenstein Halle

Period (opening hours):
Fri - Wed 10am - 5pm, Thu 1pm - 8pm

Venue:
ZAK (Zentrum für Aktuelle Kunst) // Zitadelle Spandau
Am Juliusturm 64
13599 Berlin

Welcome: Dr Carola Brückner, District Councillor for Culture, Dr Ralf F. Hartmann, Artistic Director ZAK.
Speakers: Prof. Tilo Baumgärtel, Prof. Heide Nord, Birgit Effinger

Clear the runway for current works by students, graduates and post-graduate students of the painting and graphics class of Prof. Kerstin Drechsel at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig and the painting class of Prof. Tilo Baumgärtel and Prof. Heide Nord at Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle. The participating artists work classically with painting and also explore the boundaries of the medium: from artistic graphics, video and comics to object art and installations. The panorama of selected works provides a comprehensive insight into the vitality and freshness of the classical medium as it is taught today at two of the most important art academies in East Germany with their great traditions. With Kerstin Drechsel and Tilo Baumgärtel, two very different painterly positions characterise the work in the specialist classes and make the exhibition a fascinating all-round view of young painting and its prospects for the artistic future.

Venue:
HGB, Raum 2.34

>>> More information about Prof. Eli Cortiñas

In the lecture series "Positions", the professors present their artistic / design practice every Monday from 17:00-19:00. The lectures are open to members of the HGB.

Venue:
HGB, Raum 2.34

>>> More information about Prof. Kerstin Drechsel

In the lecture series "Positions", the professors present their artistic / design practice every Monday from 17:00-19:00. The lectures are open to members of the HGB.

Venue:
Schauspielhaus Bochum / Oval Office
Königsallee 15
44789 Bochum

What's the limit of this body
in this situation
in this dream
(...)
on and on and on and on for what?
who made the rules and how to exit?
I need a game change!
Game Changer!

Jule Flierl & Camille O, tIED tO tONES (excerpt)
An extraordinary sound space that touches, impresses and invites: musical craftsmanship is combined with a radical opening to new communities of listening.
"tIED tO tONES" is a collaboration between harp artist Camille O (fka Hans Unstern) and choreographer Jule Flierl. Together they build a harp installation made of piano wire that spans the room and is played with bodies, voices and tools made of construction and textiles. They juxtapose musical material from the Baroque period with songs written and composed especially for the spatial harp. Vulnerable, surprising, poetic texts slide through the harp strings, questioning how we perceive life, how we hear the world, how we talk and sing about it and how we can cry together or alone: "New thoughts need new tongues / New eyes need new tears". tIED tO tONES begins as a concert and then invites the audience to try out the impressive instrument for themselves and create a shared sound space without hierarchies. An expansive concert performance about future expectations of ecological and physical decay, the need for mourning, listening, community and a new beginning.

More information & tickets...

Venue:
Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt
Gabriel-Riesser-Weg 3
60325 Frankfurt

AI technologies are fundamentally changing how images are created, edited, distributed, described and viewed. Their influence on visual culture and contemporary art practice is one of the most visible phenomena in this field, which is dominated by opaque technical processes.

The comprehensive thematic exhibition will occupy both exhibition spaces of the SCHIRN with around 40 works, including video installations, graphics, sculptures and photographs. The SCHIRN is presenting around 25 international artists, including Prof. Clemens von Wedemeyer, Nora Al-Badri, Nouf Aljowaysir, Julian Charrière, Grégory Chatonsky, Kate Crawford & Vladan Joler, Holly Herndon & Mat Dryhurst, Agnieszka Kurant, Trevor Paglen, Hito Steyerl, Sasha Stiles and Taller Estampa.

A broad spectrum of topics is examined, including resources and environmental factors as well as questions of perception, machine vision or facial and emotional recognition. The works address topics ranging from micro-labour and the establishment of alternative histories to possible visions of the future. Other aspects include so-called AI slop and slopaganda (the use of AI-generated images as a new form of political propaganda). A series of time capsules - small cabinets of curiosities - link the present with the past in the show, thus embedding the current changes brought about by new technologies in a historical context.

An exhibition of the Jeu de Paume, Paris, in co-operation with the SCHIRN KUNSTHALLE FRANKFURT.

More information...

Venue:
HGB, Raum 2.34

>>> More information about Prof. Anna Lena von Helldorff

In the lecture series "Positions", the professors present their artistic / design practice every Monday from 17:00-19:00. The lectures are open to members of the HGB.

Venue:
HGB, Raum 2.34

>>> More information about Prof. Torsten Hattenkerl

In the lecture series "Positions", the professors present their artistic / design practice every Monday from 17:00-19:00. The lectures are open to members of the HGB.

Venue:
HGB, Raum 2.34

>>> More information about Prof. Joachim Blank

In the lecture series "Positions", the professors present their artistic / design practice every Monday from 17:00-19:00. The lectures are open to members of the HGB.