Between Autonomy and Collaboration
22. May – 22. August 2026
Opening: 21. May 2026, 6 – 10 p.m.
The exhibition explores artist couples from the fields of art history, gender history and social history, and juxtaposes historical perspectives with those of contemporary couples. Haus Kunst Mitte has already hosted two exhibitions focusing on a single artist couple.
Artistic creation often arises through dialogue, whether through closeness or friction. This offers a unique perspective on couple dynamics as a dialogical process: love, rivalry, mutual criticism and support act as productive forces that are reflected in style, motifs and artistic stance. Networks of relationships function as resonant spaces in which personal experiences, social conditions and aesthetic decisions visibly coalesce – art history becomes readable as a history of relationships.
The Kunstsammlung der Berliner Volksbank is the main lender and is exhibiting works by historical pairs in the exhibition. These loans provide the art-historical background and create an interesting dialogue with the works of contemporary artist couples.
The exhibition includes works by: Gudrun Brüne, Tony Cragg, Christa Dichgans, Soufia Erfanian, Ingo Fröhlich, Sylvia Hagen, HELMA, Tirdad Hashemi, Bernhard Heisig, Sabine Herrmann, K.H. Hödicke, Ingeborg Hunzinger, Simin Jalilian, Barbara Keidel, Klaus Killisch, Franziska Klotz, Annette Krisper-Beslic, Christ Mukenge, Wolfgang Petrick, Wolfgang Peuker, Manuela Sambo, Daniel Sambo-Richter, Lydia Schellhammer, Michael Schmeichel, Ulrike Seyboth, Christina Renker, Robert Riehl, Sonya Schönberger, Michael Schoenholtz, Volker Seifried, Werner Stötzer, Katja van Ravenstein, Tatjana Valsang, Hans Vent, Michael Wutz, Christof Zwiener