325 Years Akademie der Künste

“Academy is a word that means an assembly of artists, who gather at a location assigned to them at certain times for the purpose of communicating their art in a friendly manner, sharing endeavours, insights and experiences, and learning from one another as they attempt to approach perfection.”

Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki, member of the Royal Prussian Academy of Arts from 1784. He wrote his Magna Carta of the artist society in 1783.

Calendar Pages

The Akademie der Künste is taking its 325th anniversary as an opportunity to remember and to examine the current situation. In the form of calendar pages, events that have shaped the life of the artistic community are highlighted as caesuras or offer snapshots of its history. Members and staff take individual calendar days as opportunities to look back.

Deutsche Akademie der Künste, Robert-Koch-Platz 7, 1973. Photo: Christian Kraushaar @ Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Archives

The history of the Akademie der Künste is not straightforward, but rather is punctuated by drama and change. It is marked by the transformation of an educational establishment into an international community of artists, by new departures and perseverance, by appropriation by the state and the claim to self-administration, as well as by discourses on the arts. The Akademie is taking its 325th anniversary as an opportunity to look back on the past and examine the present.

Calendar Pages will highlight watershed moments in the life of this community of artists and offer snapshots of its history. These include outstanding events such as the founding of the Academy on 11 July 1696, the Gleichschaltung, or forced standardisation under the National Socialists, the unification of the Academies in the East and West, and the return to Pariser Platz. But the Calendar Pages will also illuminate events which at first glance might appear unspectacular.

Specific dates provide an opportunity for retrospection by Akademie members and staff. The result is a series of personal miniatures and viewpoints that make no claim to being complete or to constituting a larger picture. The Calendar Pages will be published on the respective dates on the Akademie der Künste website and on its social media channels.

The Akademie der Künste – a voice of art in society

With the adoption of the Law on the Establishment of the Akademie der Künste by the German Bundestag on 18 February 2005, the artists’ society became a federal corporation under public law.
In the final contribution to the series “Calendar Pages”, Jeanine Meerapfel, President of the Akademie der Künste, gives insight into the significance of this milestone for the work of today’s Akademie der Künste.

Closed Performance.

The exhibition commemorating the Jewish Cultural League in Germany 1933-1941

With the exhibition that opened on 26 January 1992, the Archives of the Akademie der Künste brought the last chapter of German-Jewish cultural history before the Holocaust into public awareness.

Troubles with the national legacy

The Academy’s Barlach exhibition in 1951

“Ernst Barlach. Sculptor, graphic artist and poet” is the title of the exhibition that opens on 14 December 1951 at the Deutsche Akademie der Künste. The exhibition becomes caught up in the turbulence of the formalism-realism debate and contributes to the hardening of political (and cultural) frontlines in the East-West conflict.

Between tradition and modernity

The reconstitution of the Akademie der Künste in West Berlin

With its claim to continuing the tradition of the Prussian Academy of Arts, the Akademie der Künste (West) took on a legacy that also came with a burden.

Wonderful solidarity with Reiner Kunze.

The resolution of the Akademie der Künste (West) in November 1976

The title of Reiner Kunze’s 1976 book Die wunderbaren Jahre (The Wonderful Years) was sadly ironic. What the author, who at the time was still living in Greiz, Thuringia, offered his readers in succinct prose was anything but “wonderful”.

Honour and anguish.

Women artists of the modern era at the Academy

Nohren, Lisiewska, Tassaert, Chodowiecki – these pioneering women artists and honorary/full members of the Academy in its early days have lived long enough in the shadows of their male colleagues!

A competition between East and West

Georg Kaiser’s estate at the Akademie der Künste

On 5 October 1956, a competition between East and West was decided in favour of the Akademie der Künste in West Berlin. Herbert von Buttlar, presidential secretary of the Akademie, and Margarethe Kaiser, widow of the dramatist Georg Kaiser (1878–1945), signed the contract establishing a Georg Kaiser Archive.

The Jeep and the company or how Sinn and Form came to the Akademie der Künste

For over seventy years now, Sinn und Form has been the literary magazine of the Akademie der Künste. But that was not always the case.

KUNSTWELTEN – The Education Programme of the Akademie der Künste

“We want to share the treasure with others” Klaus Staeck

On 27 September 2012, the concept for the KUNSTWELTEN (Worlds of Art) education programme was confirmed at the Akademie der Künste. Since then, members and fellows of the Akademie have met primarily with children and young people to present their artworks and conduct art workshops together.

Vertigo of Reality

Metabolic Office for the Repair of Reality

The main programme “Vertigo of Reality” in autumn of 2014 turned the Akademie der Künste into a laboratory for aesthetic questions, a dynamic model, a place of exchange between artists, scientists and culture workers, a space for negotiating contemporary discourses.

Posts 1 to 10 from 26, Page 1 from 3

Older posts

Scroll