Before the term ‘revolution’ was used in the 18th century – under the influence of the Haitian and Caribbean, French and North American revolutions – to describe a ‘violent overthrow of the existing political or social order’, it was used in astronomy to describe the rotation of celestial bodies.
The essayistic group exhibition Genossin Sonne (Comrade Sun), 13. September 2025 – 18. January 2026, is dedicated to artistic works and theories that link the cosmos and in particular the sun, the energy supplier for life on earth, with social and political movements. Against the background of the decentring of the human being as a historical subject, we ask to what extent not only the environment on earth but also the cosmos plays a part in historical processes. Is there, as the Soviet cosmists – in particular Alexander L. Chizhevsky in 1924 – claimed, a connection between solar storms and terrestrial revolutions? And what speculative, pleasurable considerations can be found in contemporary art and poetry?
On loan from the Kunstsammlung der Berliner Volksbank, the painting “Sonnenstraße III” from 1990 by Wolfgang Mattheuer is on display.