Akademie Talks
The Akademie Talks discuss cultural policy and art aesthetics. They address current topics, feature prominent guests, and are specially staged.
Akademie Talk on 17 July 2024: Helmut Oehring, composer and member of the Music Section, Johanna M. Keller, Head of Programming at the Akademie der Künste, Dagmara Kraus, author and member of the Literature Section, Manos Tsangaris, composer and Akademie President, Valery Tscheplanowa, actress and member of the Performing Arts Section, Hanna Hartman, composer, sound artist and member of the Music Section, and Anh-Linh Ngo, architectural publicist and Akademie Vice-President (f.l.t.r.)
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Akademie President Manos Tsangaris and Vice-President Anh-Linh Ngo invite visitors to the Akademie Talks. The talks alternate between cultural policy and aesthetic issues or aspects of artistic practice. Artists, politicians, academics and journalists engage in discussion with one another. The Akademie’s Plenary Hall on Pariser Platz, with its view of the Brandenburg Gate, becomes the stage for a lively exchange of ideas. The event itself is set in motion, with podiums, catwalks, and unusual seating arrangements distributed throughout the space.
Since 2006, initiated by the then Akademie President Klaus Staeck, the Akademie Talks have addressed artistic, political and cultural policy topics. From 2015 to 2024, Akademie President Jeanine Meerapfel was responsible for the series, which she expanded in 2017 with the Akademie Dialogues.
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Im Vorfeld der Wahl zum Berliner Abgeordnetenhaus im September 2026 luden der Rat für die Künste und die Akademie der Künste am 11.6.2026 die Spitzenkandidat*innen der demokratischen Parteien zu einem öffentlichen kulturpolitischen Gespräch ein. Begrüßung: Manos Tsangaris, Präsident der Akademie der Künste und Komponist; Sabine Kroner, Sprecherin Rat für die Künste Berlin; Es diskutierten: Elif Eralp, Die Linke; Stefan Evers, CDU, Senator für Finanzen und Senator für Kultur und Gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalt; Werner Graf, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen; Steffen Krach, SPD; Moderation: Anne Schneider, Rat für die Künste Berlin
© Literaturhaus Berlin
At the Akademie Talk on 11 June 2026, the leading candidates of the democratic parties for the September election to the Berlin House of Representatives were invited by the Rat für die Künste Berlin and the Akademie der Künste to take part in a discussion. The lively debate on the topic “How much does Berlin value culture?” centred, amongst other things, on the parties’ cultural policy priorities, the qualities required of a future Senator for Culture, the financial and social situation of artists, and the Cultural Promotion Act.
You can watch the entire talk in the video (in German).
The recent Akademie Talks focused on the paradoxes of our time (with Navid Kermani, Diedrich Diederichsen and Eva Menasse). The Akademie presidents discussed the cultural struggle and the question of whether one should engage with current polarisation or reject it, in conversation with Annett Meiritz, Sasha Marianna Salzmann and Wolfgang Ullrich. Gerhart Baum’s posthumously published work Besinnt Euch! served as the starting point for a discussion on art, crisis and democracy with Renate Liesmann-Baum, Durs Grünbein and Andres Veiel.
Akademie Talk on 11 June 2026: Werner Graf, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, Stefan Evers, CDU, Senator for Finance and Senator for Culture and Social Cohesion, Anne Schneider, Rat für die Künste Berlin, Steffen Krach, SPD, Elif Eralp, Die Linke (f.l.t.r.)
© Timm Kölln
Akademie Talk on 4 November 2025: Anh-Linh Ngo, architectural publicist and Akademie Vice-President, Sasha Marianna Salzmann, writer and curator, Annett Meiritz, foreign and security affairs correspondent for the Handelsblatt, and Wolfgang Ullrich, art historian and author (f.l.t.r.)
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Akademie Talk on 11 June 2025: Simon Steen-Andersen, composer, performer, sound artist and Akademie member, Manos Tsangaris, composer and Akademie President, and Anh-Linh Ngo, architectural publicist and Akademie Vice-President (f.l.t.r.)
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Akademie Talk on 26 February 2025: Małgorzata Walentynowicz on the piano and Caspar Johannes Walter on the cello (f.l.t.r.)
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Akademie Talk on 27 September 2024: Tabaré Perlas, General Manager of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra and CEO of the Daniel Barenboim Foundation, and Anh-Linh Ngo, architectural publicist and Akademie Vice-President (f.l.t.r.)
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Akademie Talk on 27 September 2024: View from the roof terrace onto Pariser Platz and the Brandenburg Gate
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Akademie Talks, 2015–2024 and Akademie Dialogues, 2017–2023
In the 24 Akademie Talks held during Jeanine Meerapfel’s presidency, topics included the political situation for artists in various countries around the world, the catchwords “integration”, “community of values” and “floods of refugees”, cultural film funding, art and AI, the climate catastrophe and the Last Generation, the future of public broadcasting, and the political shift to the right in Germany.
In the Akademie Dialogues, Jeanine Meerapfel engaged in intensive dialogues with renowned personalities from the arts, sciences, politics and cultural policy. Guests included Wolfgang Benz, Hazel Rosenstrauch, Klaus Lederer, Wilfried Wang, Max Czollek, Anna Schapiro, Deborah Feldman, Peter Lilienthal, Delphine Horvilleur, Natan Sznaider, and Lea Wohl von Haselberg.
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Akademie Talks, 2006–2015
In a total of 62 Akademie Talks, the then Akademie President Klaus Staeck discussed topics such as changes in copyright law, the cultural mission of public broadcasters, the role of art in the social upheavals of 1968 and 1989, the design of Berlin’s Museum Island, the murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, the power and influence of Google, a condemnation of the death penalty, climate change as a global threat, poverty in Germany, Europe’s refugee policy, and the situation of threatened artists such as Ai Weiwei and Roberto Saviano.