Right-wing extremist parties across Europe have discovered art and culture as a political battle zone. The aim of the conference “The Power of Art: Defending a Transnational Understanding of European Culture” is to analyse in detail the potential of artistic cooperation, the different approaches to cultural policy and their influence on cultural institutions and thus on the freedom of art. In English.

The exhibition is dedicated to the experience of nothingness and to the broad spectrum of meanings of the colour white, emptiness and silence. Works by 75 international artists adress the relationship between material composition and surface and context, tone and silence, fullness and emptiness, complexity and simplicity, meaning and meaninglessness.

On 13 November 2021, the members of the Akademie der Künste once again elected filmmaker Jeanine Meerapfel as President. The writer and playwright Kathrin Röggla was again elected Vice-President. The Directors and Deputy Directors of the six sections were also newly elected. Elected members will only be announced once they have confirmed their election.

In the middle of the political "Tauwetter-Periode” (thaw period), the master students of the German Akademie der Künste celebrate carnival in the coal cellar in 1957 and 1958. The works by the master students Manfred Böttcher, Harald Metzkes, Ernst Schroeder, Werner Stötzer and Horst Zickelbein are unique testimonies to a youthful post-war awakening. In German.

Contributions by Aleida Assmann and Max Czollek on memory, art and archives continue the "work on memory" in issue 16. The themes of the European Alliance of Academies founded by Jeanine Meerapfel resonate, among others, in an essay by Radka Denemarková. "Void/White/ Silence" are the keywords in the issue’s focus on the exhibition "NOTHINGTOSEENESS".

Bertolt Brecht's study, Helene Weigel's conservatory, Anna Seghers' "crow's nest": Regular tours offer visitors a fascinating insight into the homes and studies of the writer Bertolt Brecht, actress and theatre director Helene Weigel and the writer Anna Seghers. The Brecht-Weigel Museum in Berlin-Mitte and the Anna Seghers Museum in Berlin-Adlershof are both part of the Akademie der Künste.

The Akademie der Künste is an international community of artists that currently totals 398 members in its six Sections (Visual Arts, Architecture, Music, Literature, Performing Arts, Film and Media Arts). It is an exhibition and event location. A key component of the Akademie are its archives, which collectively form one of the most important interdisciplinary archives on 20th century art.