Publications

The first issue of Journal der Künste under the presidency of Manos Tsangaris and Anh-Linh Ngo focuses on artistic freedom. Texts by Lena Gorelik, Ralf Michaels, Carsten Wurm and others as well as a conversation with Kristóf Kelemen and Gergely Nagy from Hungary address the defence of artistic autonomy from various perspectives. Further contributions provide insights into the genesis of the current exhibitions and the work of the archive.

What do Putzi, a children’s toothpaste, the Leipzig Zoo and eating yoghurt have in common? They are advertised in the posters selected for the 2025 Calendar of GDR Posters. The Akademie der Künste houses an extensive collection of posters from the early German Democratic Republic, which provides the basis for the annual calendar.

Candida Höfer’s oeuvre, which has grown over five decades, ranks among the photographic avant-garde of the present day. The large-format images show public and semi-public spaces such as libraries, storage rooms, museums and opera houses – places of encounter, communication, memory and knowledge. They are not architectural photographs, but rather portraits of spaces. Höfer uses them to explore architectural concepts and how they form the human experience. The exhibition catalogue contains numerous illustrations and an essay by Matthias Sauerbruch.

Works by the 2023 recipient of the Käthe Kollwitz Prize, Sandra Vásquez de la Horra, focus on conflicts with which societies all over the world are currently grappling. She tackles questions relating to gender and sexuality, intercultural reflections and spiritual practices, confronting them with archetypes of our collective consciousness and social taboos. Human existence is at the centre of her poetic visual world – explicitly, women and the female body. The exhibition catalogue contains numerous illustrations and an essay by Siegfried Zielinski.

The exhibition catalogue encompasses all the work studies and paintings in the show – including completely unknown works on paper – investigating for the first time the potential of a single motif running through Bridget Riley’s creative oeuvre: the circle as form. In a brief history, the texts explore this “strictest of all forms” within the scope of its dynamic ability to unfold, the significance of studies, and scalability.