Art Sections

The Akademie is committed to the arts across the entire spectrum of their artistic expression. The division into six Sections, developed over the course of the Akademie’s history, facilitates the classification of members. Such a categorisation is not always easy, especially with interdisciplinary works by artists and the growing emphasis on cross-sectional projects.

The Sections are tasked with developing, coordinating, and carrying out the Akademie’s art projects, exhibitions and events. These include both specific projects in individual art forms and interdisciplinary projects in which several Sections collaborate. The Sections are led by directors, with secretaries responsible for implementing the programmes.

The Akademie’s roots lie in the founding of the Prussian Academy of Arts. Around 1700, the Prussian Academy was restricted solely to the fine or visual arts, which, at that time, also included architecture. Around 1800, music became increasingly important with the growing influence and vibrancy of middle-class cultural life. The founding of Berlin’s Sing-Akademie, thought to be the world’s oldest mixed amateur choir, was closely linked to the Akademie, not least through its long-serving director Carl Friedrich Zelter, who was also appointed professor of choral music at the Akademie in 1809. However, the Music Section was first established in 1833 and combined the representatives of liturgical music with those active in music for ceremonial and court life.

Since the Section was founded one year after Zelter’s death, he could only be made an honorary member of the Akademie. This was also the case for luminaries such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Johann Gottfried Herder, since a Section for the Poetic Arts (Dichtkunst, the Literature Section today) was only established in 1926, after years of deliberation.

Following the Second World War, when two Akademies were newly constituted in a divided Berlin, a Performing Arts Section, serving theatre and dance, was founded in both sectors of the city. In 1984, in response to the growing importance of film and media, the West Berlin Akademie established the Film and Media Arts Section, independent of the performing arts.