Calendar

Venue:
HGB, Raum 2.34

>>> More information about Prof. Thomas M. Müller

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):
Fridays 4 - 7 pm, Saturdays + Sundays 2 - 5 pm

Venue:
Artists Unlimited
August-Bebel-Straße 94 (Eingang über Viktoriastraße 24)
33602 Bielefeld

Partner:
With the kind support of Sparkasse Bielefeld

Between 1964 and 1989, VEB Pentacon Dresden had political prisoners manufacture camera housings in the Cottbus prison facility. Of around 800 to 1,200 prisoners, around 250 to 300 worked for the company under duress. The main task was punching and deburring aluminium parts. The work led to injuries and eczema on the hands. The prison was cold and smelly. Violence from guards and other prisoners was part of everyday prison life. 62.8% of the 8 million SLR cameras produced by VEB Pentacon, 80% of which were produced in the prison facility, were exported to the West - a significant proportion for the GDR's foreign currency procurement.

The new SED Injustice Rectification Act increases the SED victims' pension and decouples it from the means test - but this recognition comes too late for those affected and for society. To this day, society as a whole has yet to come to terms with the forced labour of political prisoners in the GDR.

The work "Praktica (1964-1989)" by Hugo Hilpmann from the Photography and Media class places the example of Pentacon/Cottbus in the context of state-organised repression and economic exploitation. At the same time, it reflects on the role of photography in the GDR as an ideologically charged medium and part of a repressive system.

Programme:

10.01. 12 noon Lecture by Dr Peter Keup, former political prisoner and research associate of the Union of Victims' Associations of Communist Tyranny (UOKG) e.V.

Topic: Forced labour of politically imprisoned women in the Hoheneck prison for ALDI

Before the fall of the Berlin Wall, ALDI purchased products from the GDR that were manufactured by political prisoners in forced labour, among others. Millions of women's tights made their way from the VEB Esda Thalheim production centre in the GDR women's prison in Hoheneck to the ALDI supermarket shelves. There they were sold under the name "Iris" at ALDI North and "Sayonara" at ALDI South in the low-price segment. The women, who were often imprisoned for political reasons, worked under inhumane conditions. ALDI is committed to fair working conditions and labour rights in its Code of Conduct. However, the company does not want to know anything about the shadows of the past. Despite solid evidence, ALDI is not prepared to approach those affected by forced prison labour in the GDR. A slap in the face for those who had to toil for the company's profits (in: Union der Opferverbände kommunistischer Gewaltherrschaft e.V., Haft-Zwangsarbeit im Frauengefängnis Hoheneck für ALDI)

Venue:
HGB, Raum 2.34

>>> More information about Prof. Anna Ehrenstein

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:
PLUS
Weißenfelser Straße 6
04229 Leipzig

Once a month, students from Prof Michael Riedel's painting and printmaking class present a selection of their work in the PLUS exhibition space at Weißenfelser Str. 6.

There will be a reading at 7 pm.

Venue:
Felix-Klein-Hörsaal
Neubau der Leipziger Universität am Augustusplatz 10-11
04109 Leipzig

The Institute for Theory HGB and the Institutes for Philosophy and Cultural Studies at Leipzig University invite Prof Dr Thomas Bedorf to give a lecture.

Who feels called to speak about what? Being situated is a prerequisite for being able to perceive and act. But are only those who are situated in a certain way allowed to take a position? Phenomenology is of particular importance in answering this question because "situation" is one of its basic concepts. Heidegger and Sartre, Beauvoir and Merleau-Ponty used it to describe the horizon of possibilities of the experiencing ego. Thomas Bedorf follows on from this and develops a new, differential philosophical understanding of situatedness. It leads to a political phenomenology that reconfigures the space between speaking position and the spoken word - against certain tendencies in the heated debates about standpoints and privileges.

Venue:
gfzk - Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig
Karl–Tauchnitz–Str. 9-11
04107 Leipzig
gfzk.de

In the early 20th century, the rapid development of industrial production, the supposedly endless increase in profits, but also the need to improve working conditions, led to attempts to optimise work processes. Sandra Schäfer's video created for the exhibition Robotron. Code and Utopia, Sandra Schäfer's video work Where Gravity Fades tells of people and machines, the energy they expend and the raw materials they need for production.

Together with Clemens von Wedemeyer, she will present her work and talk about her artistic practice.

Sandra Schäfer deals with the production processes of urban and transregional spaces, history and image politics in film, photography and artistic research. She completed her artistic PHD on militant image and spatial politics at the HfbK Hamburg in 2018. Schäfer is a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich and an associate member of the feminist film distributor Cinenova in London. Her work is regularly shown at festivals such as the 66th and 67th Berlinale (Forum Expanded), Berlin, and in exhibitions in Germany and abroad. She has published numerous books, including Archive Books Berlin, Camera Austria Graz and Spector Books.

Clemens von Wedemeyer is an artist and professor of expanded cinema at the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig. His films and video installations have been shown in numerous international exhibitions, including at dOCUMENTA(13) 2012, at skulptur projekte münster 2007 and at MoMA, New York. Major solo exhibitions have taken place at the GfZK Leipzig and Kunstmuseum Luzern (2019), the Hamburger Kunsthalle, the nbk Berlin (both 2016), the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2015); Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo, Rome (2013); Barbican Centre, London (2009); PS1, New York (2006).

Participating artists:
Alina Yakovenko, Chasper Altmann, Charlotte Rot, Constantin Krueger, Elias Lange, Emma Toennessen, Florence Kallenborn, Jannes Elkner, Jannis Bletsos, Lars Benjamin Schmitz, Luise Radig, Marie Baumann, Moritz Nierste, Olena Sabadakh, Rosa Jakobi, Valentina Friederichs

Venue:
HGB entrance hall
Wächterstraße 11
04107 Leipzig


The typographic messages in and around the atrium are addressed to future students of the HGB. They were placed throughout the building by first-semester students of Book Art / Graphic Design. The starting point of the works are the Truisms by artist Jenny Holzer from the 1980s. These short statements function as messages and address themes of power, norms, perception, and responsibility. Each message was set in a self-designed typeface created using the Grid Type tool. The works explore typography as an open, rule-based system that can be adapted, varied, and further developed through digital tools. The works were created as part of the seminar “Typographic Time Machine – Typography for Time Travelers” taught by Prof. Marion Kliesch.

Venue:
HGB, Raum 2.08

Jule Flierl and Anna Zett jointly lead the class for performative arts and focus in their teaching on inter-vocality, the body as a medium, experiments with performance conventions and the framing of situations as a live process. On this evening, they will present their artistic positions one after the other.

In her lecture performance "I intend to sing- revisited", Jule Flierl presents her research from a physical and historical perspective, exploring voice performance as dance, moving in her practice between a heavy and disembodied voice, a brute and disobedient voice; as well as the voice as a moderating and explanatory organ. The format crosses lecture, installation and performance.

The artist, filmmaker and author Anna Zett will then present the performative aspect of her work using the modernist tarot card set Gestalt & Stimme, which she originally designed in 2016/17 as a script replacement for a radio play and is currently preparing to publish as a deck. Dialogical (group) improvisation plays an important role in Anna Zett's artistic work and teaching, and her presentation develops into a participatory associative space in which her own experience in the dark and the light of analytical observation alternately support each other.

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.

Participating artists:
Bianca Hisse, Dalia Al-Kury, Eli Cortiñas, Mona Hatoum, Pınar Öğrenci und Regina José Galindo

Venue:
Tromsø Center for Contemporary Art
Mellomvegen 82
9007 Tromsø

Siren is a group exhibition surrounding artistic strategies of resistance in a time of political polarisation, war and democratic decline. In the face of a global erosion of democratic values and the resurgence of authoritarian rhetorics, Siren convenes a polyphony of artistic voices that navigate the politics of alarm, voice, and resistance.

The exhibition takes its starting point in the siren—a sound we know as a warning. The siren can signal danger and control, but also attention and gathering. Here it is understood as both: an expression of state power and, at the same time, a voice that refuses to be silenced. Through film, sound, and performance, the artists explore how people are monitored, disciplined, or silenced in political and social systems. Many of the works are based on experiences of militarization, migration, occupation, and care—and on the role of the body in encounters with power.

The exhibition takes its title from Regina José Galindo’s Siren (2024), in which a police car is dismantled until the alarm falls silent. The work reflects several of the exhibition’s questions: Who has the right to make noise? Which voices are heard – and which are silenced?

Siren is shown in a former nursing home, a place with a history linked to care, silence and restitution. This setting invites reflection on healing, not as a quick fix, but as a shared process. In the face of grief, unrest, and political violence, the exhibition asks what art can do—and how listening can be a form of resistance.

More information...

Period (opening hours):
Monday to Thursday: 10:00-14:00 / 15:00-18:00, Friday: 10:00-15:00, Saturday: By appointment

Venue:
House of Chappaz
C/ Ca l’Alegre de Dalt 55, Baixos C
08024 Barcelona


If it Walks Like a Duck… is the first solo exhibition of artist Eli Cortiñas at House of Chappaz. The exhibition will focus on her recent video installation Surrender, Dorothy! and a room installation developed in situ for the gallery space.

Venue:
gfzk - Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig
Karl–Tauchnitz–Str. 9-11
04107 Leipzig
gfzk.de

In a video trilogy centred on the Taiwanese chip manufacturer TSMC, Su Yu Hsin tells of landscapes and their transformation through industrial production. For the exhibition Robotron. Code and Utopia, the artist is creating the third part, in which she explores the history of the region where Silicon Saxony is being developed today. It leads to Gittersee, not far from the Elbe, where at the end of the 1980s a uranium mining operation belonging to Wismut AG was to be converted into a hyperpure silicon plant as part of the GDR's microelectronics programme. However, the plan was cancelled due to protests in the context of the environmental movement.

On the occasion of the film premiere, Franciska Zólyom, director of the GfZK and co-curator of the exhibition, talks to the artist and media scholar Vera Tollmann.

Su Yu Hsin is an artist, filmmaker and graduate of the HGB Leipzig. In her research-orientated practice, she explores the relationship between ecology and technology. Her equally analytical and poetic narratives focus on the critical infrastructures in which humans and non-humans come together. Her video installations have been exhibited in museums and at international art biennials around the world, including the Bundeskunsthalle Bonn, the Centre Pompidou-Metz, the Museum of Contemporary Art Busan and the Taipei Biennale.

Vera Tollmann researches and teaches at the Centre for Digital Cultures at Leuphana University. The Centre focuses on digital media technologies and infrastructures in the context of social challenges such as climate change, global conflicts, digital divides and social injustices.

Venue:
HGB, Raum 2.34

>>> More information about V.-Prof. Jennifer König

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:
Kunstuniversität Linz / Kepler Salon
Rathausgasse 5
4020 Linz

Marc Rölli is a guest in the relatifs series, a series of events organised by the Art History/Art Theory and Cultural Studies departments at the University of Art and Design Linz.

Marc Rölli, Professor of Philosophy at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig, is dedicated to fabulation. His book "Fabulating: Ten Essays and an Excursus on Philosophy, Art and Criticism" was published by Campus Verlag in 2024.

The narrative practice of fabulation has found broad resonance in the field of contemporary art. Its exciting philosophical implications will be explained in the lecture by taking a closer look at the conditions of its transformative potential.

Venue:
Universität Tübingen
Hörsaal 21 im Kupferbau

Lecture by Dr Stefan Haupt, Professor of Copyright Law at the HGB, as part of the lecture series "Transsubstantiations - Transformations between money and the Eucharist in the tripodal cauldron of science, art and religion" at the University of Tübingen.

For thousands of years, "money" has been an almost "acquisitive" medium of communication in many respects - of material exchange, of the economy in particular and in general. "Money", the "filthy lucre", shows itself historically as a place of appearance of cultures and phases of history. We are initially dealing with purely intellectual, yet historically eminently effective processes of "transubstantiation".

Related to those in the emergence of a work of art or of creation in general - that the material gains a new, relevant meaning of its own and this now becomes the decisive one in theory and practice.

Reinforced by the advance of IT, new forms of money that intervene in economic and political processes, such as "cryptocurrency", are currently emerging and the dominance of AI has already led to a phase in which money in the traditional sense is being replaced by pure data. Or, to paraphrase G.W. F. Hegel, "a form of life has become old".

This lecture series, with the participation of various disciplines, aims to reflect not only on the "essence" of money, but also on the currently emerging questions regarding the organisation of the exchange of material values in a broad spectrum of subjects and disciplines.

Participating artists:
Antonia Baehr, Jule Flierl, Hermann Heisig, Claire Vivianne Sobottke (Berlin/Leipzig)

Venue:
Schauspiel Leipzig: Residenz in der Spinnerei
Halle 18 (Aufgang E), Spinnereistraße 7
04179 Leipzig

Partner:
A co-production of Residenz Schauspiel Leipzig (DE), HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin (DE), Les Bazis (St.-Croix-Volvestre) with the support of the Marie-Thérèse Allier Endowment Fund for Contemporary Art (F).

What is the relationship between excellence and dilettantism andwhat might be more ingenious in dilettantism than in well-craftedexcellence? “Gut Gemacht!” refers to the system of judgments “wellmade,” “badly made,” and “not made” developed by French Fluxusartist Robert Filliou. Using this system, the choreographic workexplores tactless dances, defiant singing, absurd tutorials andperformed court transcripts.Drawing on their speculative autobiographies, the artists engage withworks by figures such as Gabriele Stötzer (Erfurt/GDR) and “DieTödliche Doris” (West Berlin), who have influenced them. On bothsides of the Wall, these artists challenged prevailing paradigms in art,music, lifestyle and social structures, resisting societal norms throughartistic gestures. Upon an oversized billiard table, the four authorsplay a game with the contemporary rules of art.

Dates:

17./18. Dez. 2025
29./30./31. Jan. 2026
Residenz in der Spinnerei
>>> Tickets

5./6. Feb. 2026
HAU2 Berlin
>>> Tickets

Participating artists:
Antonia Baehr, Jule Flierl, Hermann Heisig, Claire Vivianne Sobottke (Berlin/Leipzig)

Venue:
Schauspiel Leipzig: Residenz in der Spinnerei
Halle 18 (Aufgang E), Spinnereistraße 7
04179 Leipzig

Partner:
A co-production of Residenz Schauspiel Leipzig (DE), HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin (DE), Les Bazis (St.-Croix-Volvestre) with the support of the Marie-Thérèse Allier Endowment Fund for Contemporary Art (F).

What is the relationship between excellence and dilettantism andwhat might be more ingenious in dilettantism than in well-craftedexcellence? “Gut Gemacht!” refers to the system of judgments “wellmade,” “badly made,” and “not made” developed by French Fluxusartist Robert Filliou. Using this system, the choreographic workexplores tactless dances, defiant singing, absurd tutorials andperformed court transcripts.Drawing on their speculative autobiographies, the artists engage withworks by figures such as Gabriele Stötzer (Erfurt/GDR) and “DieTödliche Doris” (West Berlin), who have influenced them. On bothsides of the Wall, these artists challenged prevailing paradigms in art,music, lifestyle and social structures, resisting societal norms throughartistic gestures. Upon an oversized billiard table, the four authorsplay a game with the contemporary rules of art.

Dates:

17./18. Dez. 2025
29./30./31. Jan. 2026
Residenz in der Spinnerei
>>> Tickets

5./6. Feb. 2026
HAU2 Berlin
>>> Tickets

Participating artists:
Antonia Baehr, Jule Flierl, Hermann Heisig, Claire Vivianne Sobottke (Berlin/Leipzig)

Venue:
Schauspiel Leipzig: Residenz in der Spinnerei
Halle 18 (Aufgang E), Spinnereistraße 7
04179 Leipzig

Partner:
A co-production of Residenz Schauspiel Leipzig (DE), HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin (DE), Les Bazis (St.-Croix-Volvestre) with the support of the Marie-Thérèse Allier Endowment Fund for Contemporary Art (F).

What is the relationship between excellence and dilettantism andwhat might be more ingenious in dilettantism than in well-craftedexcellence? “Gut Gemacht!” refers to the system of judgments “wellmade,” “badly made,” and “not made” developed by French Fluxusartist Robert Filliou. Using this system, the choreographic workexplores tactless dances, defiant singing, absurd tutorials andperformed court transcripts.Drawing on their speculative autobiographies, the artists engage withworks by figures such as Gabriele Stötzer (Erfurt/GDR) and “DieTödliche Doris” (West Berlin), who have influenced them. On bothsides of the Wall, these artists challenged prevailing paradigms in art,music, lifestyle and social structures, resisting societal norms throughartistic gestures. Upon an oversized billiard table, the four authorsplay a game with the contemporary rules of art.

Dates:

17./18. Dez. 2025
29./30./31. Jan. 2026
Residenz in der Spinnerei
>>> Tickets

5./6. Feb. 2026
HAU2 Berlin
>>> Tickets

Venue:
gfzk - Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig
Karl–Tauchnitz–Str. 9-11
04107 Leipzig
gfzk.de

In the summer of 1988, Tina Bara and a group of artists visit the Buna plant in Schkopau. "Plaste und Elaste" is the slogan for the plastic products made there. Bara is actually supposed to portray the artists. They have accepted an invitation from the Association of Visual Artists (VBK) to a "plein air" at the plant. The encounter with the workers is intended to shape their artistic work. But Bara succeeds in taking pictures of the ongoing environmental pollution and the conditions under which people work there. In 2025, Bara edited a photographic film from these documents, which can now be seen in the exhibition Robotron. Code and Utopia exhibition.

In this interview with Sabine Weier, co-curator of the exhibition, Tina Bara presents her work.

Tina Bara studied history and art history at the Humboldt University in Berlin and photography at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig. In the GDR, she worked as a freelance photographer and was active in the oppositional peace movement, including "Women for Peace". In July 1989, she moved to West Berlin. She has been a professor of artistic photography at the HGB since 1993. Since 2000, Bara has regularly taken part in exhibitions, published books and organised art and teaching projects in Germany and abroad.

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

Venue:
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart
Konrad-Adenauer-Str. 30–32
70173 Stuttgart

The Wüstenrot Foundation's Documentary Photography Prizes are the most important awards of their kind in Germany. Every two years, they are awarded to young artists from German universities and academies who question the present with contemporary documentary image strategies and forms of representation. After kicking off in Essen, the 15th edition of the awards will stop in Stuttgart for four months. The exhibition can be seen there in "THE GÄLLERY-Raum für Fotografie".

Malte Uchtmann from the photography and media class and the expanded cinema class is part of the award-winning exhibition. In the award-winning video and sound installation ANT*HOLOGY: De/Bugging the cultural history of ants, Malte Uchtmann uses the representation of ants to explore how our perception is influenced by our social embedding and the possibilities of acquiring knowledge. The cultural history of ants becomes the starting point for an examination of human social forms.

Period (opening hours):
Thu. 6:30pm, exhibitions until 10pm, building until 12pm, Fr. & Sat. 2pm-9pm, Sun. 12am-6pm

Venue:
Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig
Wächterstraße 11
04107 Leipzig

The winter semester at the HGB traditionally ends with the Rundgang: In a variety of exhibitions, performances, installations and work presentations, students, teachers and staff show what they have been working on during the current academic year. Works and projects from the four disciplines of book art/graphic design, photography, painting/graphics and media art will be presented, accompanied by a series of events. Once again this year, the entire university building will be used for the exhibitions and presentations, i.e. the ballroom, corridors and classrooms.

Parallel to the tour, the 2025/26 Study Prize of the Circle of Friends and Sparkasse Leipzig will be awarded.

Venue:
Leipziger Messe
Messe-Allee 1
04356 Leipzig

This year, the HGB Leipzig will once again be represented with its own stand at the Leipzig Book Fair. The stand is organised by a specialist class every year.

As part of the HGB Leipzig stand at the Leipzig Book Fair 2026, events will be held on the topic of "ununited/united": Friday, 20.03.2026 + Saturday, 21.03.2026: 2 - 4 p.m.

More information on the planned events will be published here in the run-up to the book fair.

Venue:
HGB, Raum 2.34

>>> More information about Prof Ondřej Báchor

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. Dr Ines Schaber

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. Christin Lahr & Sven Bergelt

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. 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:
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:
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.

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:
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.