Application

Portfolios at HFBK Hamburg; photo: Klaus Frahm

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All international applicants are most welcome to send their portfolio to the HFBK Hamburg! The application and selection process is practically the same for foreigners as it is for German applicants (swith to the German site). There are however some additional documents to be submitted, such as translations of certificates, and the proof of proficiency in the German language.

The next application period for the semester 2023/24 is from the 1st of February to the 6th of March 2023, 4 p.m. (deadline).

Any open questions regarding the application procedure?

Ask away on our Q&A page.

Two visitors in front of a screen, video work by Max Pilger is running.

Graduate show 2018, master work by Max Pilger; photo: Lukes Engelhardt

Binge Watching

It's semester break at the HFBK Hamburg - the perfect time to go through our numerous recordings. We have compiled a small selection here.

Examination of the submitted portfolios

How to apply: study at HFBK Hamburg

From February 1 to March 6, 2023, 4 p.m., you can apply to study at HFBK Hamburg. Please find all important info here.

Jahresausstellung 2023, Arbeit von Toni Mosebach / Nora Strömer; photo: Lukes Engelhardt

Annual Exhibition 2023 at HFBK Hamburg

From February 10-12, students from all departments will present their artistic works at Lerchenfeld 2, Wartenau 15 and AtelierHaus, Lerchenfeld 2a. At ICAT, Tobias Peper, Artistic Director of the Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, curates an exhibition with HFBK master students. Also 10 exchange students from Goldsmiths, University of London will show their work there.

Symposium: Controversy over documenta fifteen

With this symposium on documenta fifteen on the 1st and 2nd of February, the HFBK Hamburg aims to analyze the background and context, foster dialogue between different viewpoints, and enable a debate that explicitly addresses anti-Semitism in the field of art. The symposium offers space for divergent positions and aims to open up perspectives for the present and future of exhibition making.

ASA Open Studios winter semester 2021/22; photo: Marie-Theres Böhmker

The best is saved until last

At the end of the year, once again there will be numerous exhibitions and events with an HFBK context. We have compiled some of them here. You will also find a short preview of two lectures of the professionalization program in January.

Non-Knowledge, Laughter and the Moving Image, Grafik: Leon Lothschütz

Festival and Symposium: Non-Knowledge, Laughter and the Moving Image

As the final part of the artistic research project, the festival and symposium invite you to screenings, performances, talks, and discussions that explore the potential of the moving images and the (human and non-human) body to overturn our habitual course and change the dominant order of things.

View of the packed auditorium at the start of the semester; photo: Lukas Engelhardt

Wishing you a happy welcome

We are pleased to welcome many new faces to the HFBK Hamburg for the winter semester 2022/23. We have compiled some background information on our new professors and visiting professors here.

Solo exhibition by Konstantin Grcic

From September 29 to October 23, 2022, Konstantin Grcic (Professor of Industrial Design) will be showing a room-sized installation at ICAT - Institute for Contemporary Art & Transfer at the HFBK Hamburg consisting of objects designed by him and existing, newly assembled objects. At the same time, the space he designed for workshops, seminars and office workstations in the AtelierHaus will be put into operation.

Amna Elhassan, Tea Lady, oil on canvas, 100 x 100 cm

Art and war

"Every artist is a human being". This statement by Martin Kippenberger, which is as true as it is existentialist (in an ironic rephrasing of the well-known Beuys quote), gets to the heart of the matter in many ways. On the one hand, it reminds us not to look away, to be (artistically) active and to raise our voices. At the same time, it is an exhortation to help those who are in need. And that is a lot of people at the moment, among them many artists. That is why it is important for art institutions to discuss not only art, but also politics.

Merlin Reichert, Die Alltäglichkeit des Untergangs, Installation in der Galerie der HFBK; photo: Tim Albrecht

Graduate Show 2022: We’ve Only Just Begun

From July 8 to 10, 2022, more than 160 Bachelor’s and Master’s graduates of the class of 2021/22 will present their final projects from all majors. Under the title Final Cut, all graduation films will be shown on a big screen in the auditorium of the HFBK Hamburg. At the same time, the exhibition of the Sudanese guest lecturer Amna Elhassan can be seen in the HFBK gallery in the Atelierhaus.

Grafik: Nele Willert, Dennise Salinas

June is full of art and theory

It has been a long time since there has been so much on offer: a three-day congress on the visuality of the Internet brings together international web designers; the research collective freethought discusses the role of infrastructures; and the symposium marking the farewell of professor Michaela Ott takes up central questions of her research work.

Renée Green. ED/HF, 2017. Film still. Courtesy of the artist, Free Agent Media, Bortolami Gallery, New York, and Galerie Nagel Draxler, Berlin/Cologne/Munich.

Finkenwerder Art Prize 2022

The Finkenwerder Art Prize, initiated in 1999 by the Kulturkreis Finkenwerder e.V., has undergone a realignment: As a new partner, the HFBK Hamburg is expanding the prize to include the aspect of promoting young artists and, starting in 2022, will host the exhibition of the award winners in the HFBK Gallery. This year's Finkenwerder Art Prize will be awarded to the US artist Renée Green. HFBK graduate Frieda Toranzo Jaeger receives the Finkenwerder Art Prize for recent graduates.

Amanda F. Koch-Nielsen, Motherslugger; photo: Lukas Engelhardt

Nachhaltigkeit im Kontext von Kunst und Kunsthochschule

Im Bewusstsein einer ausstehenden fundamentalen gesellschaftlichen Transformation und der nicht unwesentlichen Schrittmacherfunktion, die einem Ort der künstlerischen Forschung und Produktion hierbei womöglich zukommt, hat sich die HFBK Hamburg auf den Weg gemacht, das Thema strategisch wie konkret pragmatisch für die Hochschule zu entwickeln. Denn wer, wenn nicht die Künstler*innen sind in ihrer täglichen Arbeit damit befasst, das Gegebene zu hinterfragen, genau hinzuschauen, neue Möglichkeiten, wie die Welt sein könnte, zu erkennen und durchzuspielen, einem anderen Wissen Gestalt zu geben

New studio in the row of houses at Lerchenfeld, in the background the building of Fritz Schumacher; photo: Tim Albrecht

Raum für die Kunst

After more than 40 years of intensive effort, a long-cherished dream is becoming reality for the HFBK Hamburg. With the newly opened studio building, the main areas of study Painting/Drawing, Sculpture and Time-Related Media will finally have the urgently needed studio space for Master's students. It simply needs space for their own ideas, for thinking, for art production, exhibitions and as a depot.

Martha Szymkowiak / Emilia Bongilaj, Installation “Mmh”; photo: Tim Albrecht

Annual Exhibition 2022 at the HFBK

After last year's digital edition, the 2022 annual exhibition at the HFBK Hamburg will once again take place with an audience. From 11-13 February, students from all departments will present their artistic work in the building at Lerchenfeld, Wartenau 15 and the newly opened Atelierhaus.

Annette Wehrmann, photography from the series Blumensprengungen, 1991-95; photo: Ort des Gegen e.V., VG-Bild Kunst Bonn

Conference: Counter-Monuments and Para-Monuments.

The international conference at HFBK Hamburg on December 2-4, 2021 – jointly conceived by Nora Sternfeld and Michaela Melián –, is dedicated to the history of artistic counter-monuments and forms of protest, discusses aesthetics of memory and historical manifestations in public space, and asks about para-monuments for the present.

23 Fragen des Institutional Questionaire, grafisch umgesetzt von Ran Altamirano auf den Türgläsern der HFBK Hamburg zur Jahresausstellung 2021; photo: Charlotte Spiegelfeld

Diversity

Who speaks? Who paints which motif? Who is shown, who is not? Questions of identity politics play an important role in art and thus also at the HFBK Hamburg. In the current issue, the university's own Lerchenfeld magazine highlights university structures as well as student initiatives that deal with diversity and identity.

photo: Klaus Frahm

Summer Break

The HFBK Hamburg is in the lecture-free period, many students and teachers are on summer vacation, art institutions have summer break. This is a good opportunity to read and see a variety of things:

ASA Open Studio 2019, Karolinenstraße 2a, Haus 5; photo: Matthew Muir

Live und in Farbe: die ASA Open Studios im Juni 2021

Since 2010, the HFBK has organised the international exchange programme Art School Alliance. It enables HFBK students to spend a semester abroad at renowned partner universities and, vice versa, invites international art students to the HFBK. At the end of their stay in Hamburg, the students exhibit their work in the Open Studios in Karolinenstraße, which are now open again to the art-interested public.

Studiengruppe Prof. Dr. Anja Steidinger, Was animiert uns?, 2021, Mediathek der HFBK Hamburg, Filmstill

Unlearning: Wartenau Assemblies

The art education professors Nora Sternfeld and Anja Steidinger initiated the format "Wartenau Assemblies". It oscillates between art, education, research and activism. Complementing this open space for action, there is now a dedicated website that accompanies the discourses, conversations and events.

Ausstellungsansicht "Schule der Folgenlosigkeit. Übungen für ein anderes Leben" im Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg; photo: Maximilian Schwarzmann

School of No Consequences

Everyone is talking about consequences: The consequences of climate change, the Corona pandemic or digitalization. Friedrich von Borries (professor of design theory), on the other hand, is dedicated to consequence-free design. In “School of No Consequences. Exercises for a New Life” at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg, he links collection objects with a "self-learning room" set up especially for the exhibition in such a way that a new perspective on "sustainability" emerges and supposedly universally valid ideas of a "proper life" are questioned.

Annual Exhibition 2021 at the HFBK

Annual exhibition a bit different: From February 12- 14, 2021 students at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts, together with their professors, had developed a variety of presentations on different communication channels. The formats ranged from streamed live performances to video programs, radio broadcasts, a telephone hotline, online conferences, and a web store for editions. In addition, isolated interventions could be discovered in the outdoor space of the HFBK and in the city.

Katja Pilipenko

Semestereröffnung und Hiscox-Preisverleihung 2020

On the evening of November 4, the HFBK celebrated the opening of the academic year 2020/21 as well as the awarding of the Hiscox Art Prize in a livestream - offline with enough distance and yet together online.

Exhibition Transparencies with works by Elena Crijnen, Annika Faescke, Svenja Frank, Francis Kussatz, Anne Meerpohl, Elisa Nessler, Julia Nordholz, Florentine Pahl, Cristina Rüesch, Janka Schubert, Wiebke Schwarzhans, Rosa Thiemer, Lea van Hall. Organized by Prof. Verena Issel and Fabian Hesse; photo: Screenshot

Teaching Art Online at the HFBK

How the university brings together its artistic interdisciplinary study structure with digital formats and their possibilities.

Alltagsrealität oder Klischee?; photo: Tim Albrecht

HFBK Graduate Survey

Studying art - and what comes next? The clichéd images stand their ground: Those who have studied art either become taxi drivers, work in a bar or marry rich. But only very few people could really live from art – especially in times of global crises. The HFBK Hamburg wanted to know more about this and commissioned the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences at the University of Hamburg to conduct a broad-based survey of its graduates from the last 15 years.

Ausstellung Social Design, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg, Teilansicht; photo: MKG Hamburg

How political is Social Design?

Social Design, as its own claim is often formulated, wants to address social grievances and ideally change them. Therefore, it sees itself as critical of society – and at the same time optimizes the existing. So what is the political dimension of Social Design – is it a motor for change or does it contribute to stabilizing and normalizing existing injustices?

Application

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Any open questions regarding the application procedure?

Binge Watching

Artist Talks in the media library of the HFBK

Listening: die Mute/Unmute Podcast-Empfehlung

: Im Gespräch mit / Talking to

VR in Art: Vortragsreihe zu den Themen Virtual und Augmented Reality und Immersion in der aktuellen Kunst- und Designproduktion

Non-Knowledge, Laughter and the Moving Image presents: Brain Science and VR

spiel/raum:kunst

Recordings of the conference Counter-Monuments and Para-Monuments

How to apply: study at HFBK Hamburg

Application

→ FAQ - Application

Advice Service for Study Applicants

Students interview students: studying Fine Arts at the HFBK Hamburg

Annual Exhibition 2023 at HFBK Hamburg

Annual Exhibition 2023

Digital room plan : Who exhibits where?

Performance program @ the Annual Exhibition 2023

Film program of the Annual Exhibition 2023

9. – 12.2.2023 relate to... HFBK Master students at ICAT, curated by Tobias Peper

9. – 11.2.2023 Exhibition exchange during the Annual Exhibition 2023

9. – 12.2.2023 Artist in Residence-Space during the Annual Exhibition 2023

9. – 12.2.2023 Living Room Program by COLLECTIVE ART LABORATORY

360°-Aufnahmen zur Annual Exhibition und Graduate Show im 3D-Modell

Symposium: Controversy over documenta fifteen

1.2.2023, Wednesday 18:00 Uhr 1st day of the symposium: Controversy over documenta fifteen: Background, Interpretation, and Analysis

2.2.2023, Thursday 10:00 Uhr 2nd day of the symposium: Controversy over documenta fifteen: Background, Interpretation, and Analysis

Recording: Keynote by Prof. Natan Sznaider

Wenn nicht hier, wo dann? Interview mit Martin Köttering und Bettina Uppenkamp zur Berufung der Gastprofessoren Reza Afisina und Iswanto Hartono

The best is saved until last

5.12.2022, Monday 17:00 Uhr lumbung radio live broadcast

7.12.2022, Wednesday 18:00 Uhr (De)conduct. Art and Governance

8. – 9.12.2022 Imagining Accessibility

15. – 17.12.2022 Open Studios of the Art School Alliance in summer semester 2022

16.12.2022 – 22.1.2023 Selbst und Zweck

17.12.2022 – 22.1.2023 Nominees, Hamburger Arbeitsstipendium 2023

19.1.2023, Thursday 11:00 Uhr Verena Issel: Zeitmanagement

17.1.2023, Tuesday 11:00 Uhr Peter Müller: Cost and financing plan. An unknown quantity?

Festival and Symposium: Non-Knowledge, Laughter and the Moving Image

The Images Are Alive: Interview with Prof Annika Larsson

24. – 27.11.2022 Festival & Symposium: Non-Knowledge, Laughter and The Moving Image

Geontologien: Das Konzept und seine Territorien

Recordings of previous events

→ Complete program

Wishing you a happy welcome

Wenn nicht hier, wo dann? Interview mit Martin Köttering und Bettina Uppenkamp zur Berufung der Gastprofessoren Reza Afisina und Iswanto Hartono

2022/10/07: Statement of the Presidential Board of the HFBK Hamburg on the DAAD Visiting Professorship of Reza Afisina and Iswanto Hartono

Adina Pintilie: Wie lässt sich Intimität erforschen?

Talking to Tobias Zielony, Professor of Photography

Dr. Tom Holert

Gilly Karjevsky

Information for First-Years

Lecture Timetable

Solo exhibition by Konstantin Grcic

29.9. – 23.10.2022 Irgendwas ist immer

„Als Designer trage ich Verantwortung“

Im Gespräch mit / Talking to Prof. Konstantin Grcic

2022/09/21: Konstantin Grcic - Irgendwas ist immer

Speculative Triggers: S.O.S. Chairs

Art and war

Artists Who Risk Their Lives

Nabila, was machst du hier?

Versehrte Landschaften

A Plea for Visual Disarmament

Graduate Show 2022: We’ve Only Just Begun

Graduate Show 2023

8. – 10.7.2022 Final Cut 2022

2022/07/08: Graduate Show an der HFBK Hamburg mit Preisvergabe eröffnet

Digital room plan : Who exhibits where?

June is full of art and theory

Never Ready: A Congress on the Visuality of the Internet

14.6.2022, Tuesday 18:00 Uhr Wartenau Assembly #11 freethought: Spectral Infrastructure

16. – 19.6.2022 Open Studios of the Art School Alliance in summer semester 2022

30.6.2022, Thursday 11:00 – 19:00 Uhr Es lebe die Dividuation! Symposium zum HFBK-Abschied von Prof. Dr. Michaela Ott

23.6.2022, Thursday 18:00 Uhr Buchvorstellung: Die Unruhe der Schrift

Finkenwerder Art Prize 2022

2022/05/18: Vergabe des Finkenwerder Kunstpreises 2022 an der HFBK Hamburg Ausstellung mit den Prämierten Renée Green und Frieda Toranzo Jaeger eröffnet Galerieprogramm im Atelierhaus

Grand Theft Auto. Kristian Vistrup Madsen about Frieda Toranzo Jaeger's artworks

9. – 12.2.2023
relate to... HFBK Master students at ICAT, curated by Tobias Peper

9. – 11.2.2023
Exhibition exchange during the Annual Exhibition 2023

9. – 12.2.2023
Artist in Residence-Space during the Annual Exhibition 2023

9. – 12.2.2023
Living Room Program by COLLECTIVE ART LABORATORY

1.2.2023, Wednesday 18:00 Uhr
1st day of the symposium: Controversy over documenta fifteen: Background, Interpretation, and Analysis

2.2.2023, Thursday 10:00 Uhr
2nd day of the symposium: Controversy over documenta fifteen: Background, Interpretation, and Analysis

5.12.2022, Monday 17:00 Uhr
lumbung radio live broadcast

7.12.2022, Wednesday 18:00 Uhr
(De)conduct. Art and Governance

8. – 9.12.2022
Imagining Accessibility

15. – 17.12.2022
Open Studios of the Art School Alliance in summer semester 2022

16.12.2022 – 22.1.2023
Selbst und Zweck

17.12.2022 – 22.1.2023
Nominees, Hamburger Arbeitsstipendium 2023

19.1.2023, Thursday 11:00 Uhr
Verena Issel: Zeitmanagement

17.1.2023, Tuesday 11:00 Uhr
Peter Müller: Cost and financing plan. An unknown quantity?

24. – 27.11.2022
Festival & Symposium: Non-Knowledge, Laughter and The Moving Image

29.9. – 23.10.2022
Irgendwas ist immer

8. – 10.7.2022
Final Cut 2022

14.6.2022, Tuesday 18:00 Uhr
Wartenau Assembly #11 freethought: Spectral Infrastructure

16. – 19.6.2022
Open Studios of the Art School Alliance in summer semester 2022

30.6.2022, Thursday 11:00 – 19:00 Uhr
Es lebe die Dividuation! Symposium zum HFBK-Abschied von Prof. Dr. Michaela Ott

23.6.2022, Thursday 18:00 Uhr
Buchvorstellung: Die Unruhe der Schrift