Opening: December 4, 2025
Exhibition dates: December 5, 2025 – January 25, 2026

Writing as part of artistic practice is currently gaining significant attention at art academies, within the art world, and in art criticism. Writing plays an important role both in the conception and the realization of artistic works, and becomes visible on stage, in film, in performances, or as part of installations and visual artworks.

The public symposium and the corresponding exhibition explore different approaches to texts and writing practices within the context of art. Through exchanges between artists and authors, transitions as well as interferences in the writing and staging of a text become apparent. In addition to examining the relationship between visual art and literature, five panel discussions focus on further connections—such as institutional, technological, or poet(olog)ical relationships—all of which resonate toward possible futures of writing.

With contributions by: Bernhard Cella, CAConrad, Anja Dietmann, Jason Dodge / Fivehundred Places, Asana Fujikawa, Jutta Koether, Lila-Zoé Krauß, Mitko Mitkov, Matt Mullican, Artur Neufeld, Joana Atemengue Owona, Gerhard Rühm, Cemile Sahin, Kinga Tóth, Annette Wehrmann

Curated by: Anne Meerpohl

Opening: September 25, 7 p.m.
Exhibition period: September 26 – November 2, 2025

Repetitive gestures, movements, activities. A place of social interaction, of daily exchange. The kitchen is a multifaceted space—a symbolic place for negotiating or actually establishing norms through work with feminine connotations. Its inherent activities are just as multifaceted: those repetitive actions or everyday encounters that often go unnoticed but are always present in both art and the domestic environment.

Click here for the accompanying program.

Artists: Sonja Alhäuser, Anna and Bernhard Blume, Cecilie Carlsen, Amna Elhassan, Paula Erstmann, Kitchen Comrades (Daria Maiier, Kristina Shuster, Vladyslava Shuster), Fabio Prosdocimi, Niclas Riepshoff, Martha Rosler, Gioanna Scarlini, Aleen Solari, Carlos León Zambrano

Curated by Anne Meerpohl

Opening: May 14, 2025, 7 p.m.
Exhibition period: May 15—June 22, 2025

One light goes out, the other goes on. In the case of film, the projection itself. In the theater—and later film theaters—switching off the auditorium lights usually means getting in the mood for anticipation and tension: in a few moments, something begins on stage or on the screen. Film as an artistic medium is not only expressed in the movie theater. Since the advent of the moving image and its entry into artistic explorations, cinematic methods have repeatedly been linked to questions of space and thus also to the exhibition context and its installation possibilities. Where is the image projected, what role does the image itself play, who is behind or in front of the camera, where do the viewers stand and what kinds of relationships are captured?

Following on from the symposium Cine*Ami*es, organized by Prof. Elisa Linseisen, the exhibition of the same name examines current issues surrounding the moving image in space using works from the HFBK Hamburg environment that were created between 2005 and 2024.⁠ ⁠The nine artistic positions and their images revolve around figurations of projection, playful deconstructions of their forms of presentation through to destruction, as well as the collaborative nature of filmic work. Under what conditions can film be created, how is documentary material used and staged, how can relationships between humans and animals, the protagonists and filmmakers, the camera and the image be depicted?

With a total length of all video works of just over 90 minutes, the exhibition refers to the duration of a feature-length film and plays the medium back to its most popular venue in the exhibition context—the cinema.

With works by Yalda Afsah, Jakob Engel, Jeanne Faust, Annika Kahrs, Pauline Hafsia M’barek, Elisa Nessler, Tanita Olbrich, Paul Spengemann, Moritz Walker

Curated by Anne Meerpohl

Opening: April 2, 2025, 7 p.m.
Exhibition period: April 3–27, 2025
Finissage with artists’ party: April 25, 2025, from 7 p.m.

Artists’ parties create social and cultural spaces of evasion, debauchery and resistant moments of community. The exhibition will focus on aspects such as hosting, community-building practices, participation and the creation of such temporary spaces. The exhibition concludes with a finissage and artists’ party, which ties in with the long tradition of LiLaLe festivals at the HFBK Hamburg in the 1950s.

Artists: Omid Arabbay, Benyamin Bakhshi, Marie-Theres Böhmker, Café Miao, Paula Erstmann, Jil Lahr, Luzie Katzorke, Julia Koch, Lulu MacDonald, Mark Morris, Pablo Schlumberger, Nora Strömer, Young Valley Soil

Curated by Lisa Alice Klosterkötter and Anne Meerpohl

Opening: 12.12.2024, 7 p.m.
Duration of the exhibtion: 13.12.2024 – 26.1.2025

Contradictory expectations of time determine our everyday lives and also artistic production. We are expected to be mindful of ourselves and our own work, to slow down and at the same time remain productive and constantly develop something new. It is not uncommon for the working realities of young artists in particular to become entangled between the fixed structures of paid work and the fluid timetable of artistic endeavours.

What different perceptions and perspectives on time and temporality move artists in the environment of an art academy and what aesthetic questions develop from this? What artistic perspectives emerge on the current ambivalences of deceleration and productivity?

Six artistic positions question working conditions, time pressure, linearity and finiteness at the ICAT—Institute for Contemporary Art & Transfer of the HFBK Hamburg in the exhibition 9 to 5—A Question of Time.

Participating artists: Eda Aslan & Nurgül Dursun, Luca Laurora, Nicholas Odhiambo Mboya, Tanja Nis-Hansen, Fion Pellacini, Asma ben Slama

The exhibtion is curated by Anne Meerpohl.
Here you find the whole program.

Opening: 2.12.2024, 7:30 p.m.
Duration of the exhibition: 3.-13:12.2024

It is not unusual for artistic positions to relate to a problem. Formally, in terms of content, aesthetically, abstractly, theoretically, there are numerous ways of dealing with the request to work through a problem. An elephant in the room describes a problem that is not discussed directly and immediately. The metaphorical taking of space seemingly leaves no room for being overlooked and brings about a kind of collective not-seeing. How do artists dedicate themselves to such abstractly invisible, unspoken assumptions? How is a space filled both symbolically and physically? How do spaces and bodies relate to each other?

Participating artists:
Omid Arabbay, Alexis Brancaz, Michael Bremner, Anna de Courcy, Victoria Stigkjær, Jule Heinrich & Mie Mie Rygh Reianes, Jianan Ning, Raffaele Pola, Pia Pospischil, Charlie Spiegelfeld, Ko Sin Tung, Sudabe Yunesi

The project The Elephant in the Room—Sculpture Today consists of a symposium and this exhibition. Conceived by Prof Pia Stadtbäumer and Prof Martin Boyce.

While art academies did not open up to women until the Weimar Republic, artistic training for female students was usually possible earlier at arts and crafts schools, including the Staatliche Kunstgewerbeschule zu Hamburg, the predecessor institution of the HFBK Hamburg. The exhibition brings together works by 14 former female students of the Kunstgewerbeschule Hamburg who seized this opportunity and were able to assert themselves as artists and designers at a time when this was not at all the norm.

Alma del’Aigle, Anni Albers, Marianne Amthor, Ruth Bessoudo, Elise Blumann, Jutta Bossard-Krull, Maya Chrusecz, Grete Gross, Elsbeth Köster, Alen Müller-Hellwig, Marlene Poelzig, Hildi Schmidt-Heins, Trude Petri Sophie Taeuber-Arp

The exhibtion is curated by Dr. Ina Jessen.

The exhibition is generously sponsored by the Hubertus Wald Stiftung.

Furthermore the exhibtion is accompanied by a digtal publication.
The complete accompanying programme for the project can be found here.

Opening: 18.4.2024, 6 p.m.
Duration of the exhibition: 19.4. – 8.5.2024

On the occasion of a new partnership with the School of Arts at the University of Haifa, the HFBK Hamburg is presenting an exhibition by artists Birgit Brandis, Sharon Poliakine and students. As part of an experimental workshop, they explore the diverse relationships and connections of artistic practice—between materials, themes, artists, the world around them and art itself. A network of diverse viewing positions and mutual resonances is negotiated and experienced in we only see what looks at us.

Opening
Welcome by Katharina Fegebank (Senator for Science and Second Mayor, BWFGB Hamburg), Dr Sonja Lahnstein-Kandel (Chairwoman of the Board of the German Sponsors’ Association and member of the Supervisory Board of the University of Haifa), Prof Sharon Poliakine (Dean of the School of Art, University of Haifa) and Prof Martin Köttering (President, HFBK Hamburg)

Exhibition period
18 April to 8 May 2024
Open daily from 2 to 6 pm, closed on Mondays

Program
April 18, 2024, 6 p.m.
Installing Identities: Jewish Experience in the Art of the 20th Century as a Case Study of Diasporism,
Lecture by Dr Osnat Zukerman Rechter followed by a discussion
moderated by Prof Dr Astrid Mania (HFBK Hamburg)

April 25, 2024, 5 p.m.
Guided tour and talk with Birgit Brandis and HFBK students

Opening: 8.2.2024, 7 p.m.
Duration of the exhibtion: 9.-11.2.24

What does it mean to produce art in times of multiple crises? How can visions for the future be created in the face of drastic geopolitical, ecological and social crises? And how can we use art to imagine new forms of exchange and togetherness? These questions are the focus of the exhibition THINK & FEEL! SPEAK & ACT!, which is a result of an open call.

On display are works by ten international Master’s students from the HFBK who question body politics and modes of representation, examine the appearance of public space, scrutinise neoliberal processes and the production of value, test new forms of collectivity, break up Western-centric perspectives or deal with the resistive potential of fiction. The artists take a critical look at the world that surrounds them and show that not only the personal is political, but the political is highly personal.

Participating artists:
Emma Bombail, Carolina Lehan, Sasha Levkovich, Anqi Li, Leena Lübbe, Paula Hoffmann & Laura Mahnke, Lioba Kappel, Priyanka Sarkar, Julia Wolkenhauer, Yuan Yuan

The exhibition is curated by Nadine Droste. She is a curator and part of the artistic team of La Salle de bains in Lyon. From 2019–23 she was director of the Kunstverein in Bielefeld. The exhibition’s assistant curator is Nikoloz Mamatsashvili.

Guided tour with the curator Nadine Droste und the artists:
Friday, 9 February, 2 p.m.

Opening: 14.12.23, 7 p.m.
Duration of exhibition: 15.12.23 – 21.1.24

Thresholds, phases and periods permeate our understanding of the individual, society and history, often accompanied by a belief in progress. Probably the most ubiquitous example is the eponymous transition to adulthood, which has been an expression of manifold spiritual, cultural and legal conventions since antiquity. This is neither the first nor the last phase that structures human life.

The exhibition brings together eight artistic positions that deal with spaces and processes of search, change and failure. Turning away from a linear logic, the multimedia sculptures, paintings, drawings, photographs and videos in their individual approaches often testify to moments of universality.

Artists: Karo Akpokiere, Keren Cytter, Simon Fujiwara, Vicente Hirmas, Saray Purto Hoffmann, Richard Magee, Tobias Zielony, Karla Zipfel

The exhibition was curated by Sjusanna Eremjan.

A comprehensive online publication has been created to accompany the exhibition. Concept, design and development by Karen Czock and Maja Redlin.

Opening: 27.9.23, 7 p.m.
Duration of exhibition: 28.9. – 05.11.23

With paintings, drawings, film and performance, the solo exhibition And Still I Rise presents the multifaceted work of the American artist Rajkamal Kahlon to the art audience in Hamburg for the first time. For over 20 years, Kahlon, who has been professor of painting at the HFBK Hamburg since 2021, has been interested in the connections between aesthetics and power, which are organized primarily through violence across historical and geographical borders. She examines ongoing consequences of colonial and ethnographic narratives. Kahlon’s works have their starting point in historical photographs, books and archival materials, which she subjects to a process of disruption and transformation. The artist encounters the classifying and stereotyping representations that turn people into nameless, powerless and marginalized projection surfaces with beauty, humor and sensuality. With her artistic practice, Kahlon, who understands drawing and painting as a form of care work, resists this violent anonymization and attempts to restore humanity and individuality.

Curated by Rajkamal Kahlon and Sjusanna Eremjan.

Here you find the booklet of the exhibition.

Opening: 31.5.23, 6 pm
Duration of exhibition: 01.—18.6.23

Imagining Health 2 is the continuation of a multi-year artistic and scientific research project between the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg (HFBK) and the Centre for the Study of Health, Ethics and Society (CHES) of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Hamburg (UHH), which points to the intersections and potentials of mutual enrichment of disciplines that are supposedly difficult to reconcile. The ten projects developed specifically for the exhibition deal with the mental, physical and structural dimensions of health from an artistic perspective. In a broad range of content and form, they negotiate questions of injury, healing and change. Whether based on their own bodies, personal experiences or socio-historical developments, the artists share a critical and analytical view of the present.

The participating artists are Kyle Egret, Matthis Frickhœffer, Benjamin Janzen, Leo Elia, Jori Kehn, Sebastian Kommer, Andrea Laušević, Flora Fee Mayrhofer, Christiane Mudra, Juan Ricaurte-Riveros, Lea van Hall, Faun Vium.

The positions were selected on the basis of an internal open call by a jury consisting of Prof. Angela Bulloch and Prof. Dr. Hanne Loreck from the HFBK Hamburg and Prof. Dr. Ulf Schmidt and Dr. James Farley from the CHES of the UHH.

The exhibition was curated by Sjusanna Eremjan.

Opening: April 20, 2023, 6 p.m.
Duration: from April 21 to May 14, 2023

Artistic practice is always dependent on and shaped by the conditions in which it can unfold. The conflicts and crises worldwide, triggered by wars, repressive regimes or environmental catastrophes, influence and threaten artists and shape their artistic work both on a formal and content-related level. Global, local and individual contexts interplay and are closely interwoven. In this field of tension, artistic strategies assert and (trans)form themselves and articulate an important perspective on social conflict zones. How does art reflect the conditions under which it is created? How do contexts of global and local conflicts become visible in artistic production? What are the perspectives and positions that emerge against the background of these examinations?

Based on these questions, the group exhibition Situation\Condition\Position brings together eleven international artistic positions that take a very personal look at the sociopolitical conditions surrounding them. They deal with mechanisms of oppression and violence that have grown historically and are deeply rooted in our present. Their research-based, documentary, and participatory approaches not only create visibility of crises, but make them physically tangible.

With works by: Benyamin Bakhshi, Kyle Egret, Saba Emadabadi, Chung-hsien Ho, Rahel grote Lambers, Filipe Lippe, Mahjong Friends, Laura Mahnke, Monika Orpik, Daniel Suárez, Sudabe Yunesi.

Curated by Sjusanna Eremjan in collaboration with Stefan Aue.

Opening: February 9, 2023, 7 p.m.
Duration: February 10–12, 2023

The exhibition is based on an open call to master’s students at the HFBK. The focus was on the question of how art can be used to connect with the world. Art is closely linked to perception, perspective, and subjectivity. It has the potential to open up access to the previously unseen, to sharpen and change perception. A work of art can and may turn the world upside down in the best sense of the word and open up new perspectives.

The selected works use aesthetic strategies to express socio-political as well as personal experiences or to reveal and subvert structures. They communicate with visitors without articulating clear messages. The productive ambiguity of art is at the heart of the exhibition.

Participating artists: Ngozi Schommers, Lennart Mink Weber, Sara Malie Mikkelsen, Kenneth Lin, Belia Brückner, Maxime Chabal, Annika Grabold, Johannes Kuczera

Curated by Tobias Peper, artistic director of the Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof

Opening: December 15, 2022, 7 p.m.
Duration: December 16, 2022—January 22, 2023

Politics plays a significant role in art, especially in times of crisis. Whether as an expectation imposed from within or without to be socio-politically relevant, as a prescription for or conscious distancing from responsibility. Particularly since the early 20th century, phases of increased politicization have been observed repeatedly, not least in response to the developments of the time.

The group exhibition Selbst und Zweck brings together six artistic positions that deal with the cracks and fractures of the present. The works, some of which were developed specifically for the exhibition, are characterized by formal and thematic diversity. Multimedia sculptures, installations, and paintings are presented. In addition to research-based approaches that address specific socio-political issues, there are also approaches that deal with the tension between art and society on an abstract level. They address themes and mechanisms of power and resistance, care and identity from both political and poetic perspectives.

Participating artists: Anne Meerpohl, Katja Pilipenko, Merlin Reichart, Ngozi Schommers, Sung Tieu, Leyla Yenirce

The exhibition was curated by Sjusanna Eremjan.

Opening: September 28, 7 p.m. Exhibition dates: September 29–October 23, 2022, Tue–Sun 2–6 p.m.

With a series of seating elements, tables, and lamps, including classics such as Chair_ONE (2004) and the mobile lamp Mayday (1999), the solo exhibition Something is always happening provides an overview of the diverse work of designer and HFBK professor Konstantin Grcic (born 1965). In addition to industrially manufactured objects, development models are also on display.

For the exhibition, Grcic draws on furniture from the University of Fine Arts Hamburg (HFBK), which he repurposes as displays for the objects he has designed. Smeared, tagged, and scratched, the long-disused cabinets, table tops, and trestles are material testimonies to the history of the ICAT—Institute for Contemporary Art & Transfer at the HFBK Hamburg, which opened this year.

This combination illustrates the increasing relevance of scenography in Grcic’s 30-year career. Above all, however, it is an expression of his careful examination of space and his sensitivity to the potential offered by chance, experimentation, and processuality.

After training as a cabinetmaker at the John Makepeace School for Craftsmen in Wood, Konstantin Grcic studied design at the Royal College of Art in London. With his office Konstantin Grcic Design, he works from Berlin in various fields ranging from industrial, furniture, and exhibition design to collaborations. His designs have won numerous international awards and are represented in the collections of the world’s most important design museums. Konstantin Grcic has been Professor of Industrial Design at the HFBK Hamburg since 2020.

Opening: September 2, 2022, 6 p.m.
Exhibition period: September 3–15, 2022, daily from 2 to 6 p.m., closed on Mondays

Approaching the Unknown presents nine artistic positions that deal with the themes of exploration, upheaval, and transformation. The starting point for the exhibition is delta formations on Mars captured by NASA. With its mouth opening into new spaces as a result of ongoing erosion and displacement, the delta is a fundamental metaphor for the collective of the same name.

In their second joint exhibition, the artists take the red planet, which has been an object of fascination and research since ancient times, as an opportunity to pose a series of questions about the unknown. In their sculptural, cinematic, and installation works, they explore physical forces, social structures, and the relationship between humans and nature, among other topics. Processes of simulation, adaptation, and speculation play a key role in this. In addition to curiosity, the artistic positions share a belief in the knowledge gained from engaging with the unknown for the present and future realities of life.

Participating artists: Jessica Arseneau, Juan Pablo Gaviria Bedoya, Anneliese Greve, Jaewon Kim, Fritz Lehmann, Jakob Limmer, Snow Paik, Hara Shin, Siri Wirtensohn

Curated by Sjusanna Eremjan

Opening: July 21, 2022, 6 p.m.
Exhibition period: July 22-August 3, 2022
Finissage: August 3, 2022, 6 p.m.

The Hamburg University of Fine Arts cordially invites you to the opening of “Imagining Health I”, an exhibition series in cooperation with the “Centre for the Study of Health, Ethics and Society” of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Hamburg.

Within the framework of a call for entries, nine works developed specifically for the project and dealing with the mental, physical and structural dimensions of health were selected by a jury.

The participating artists* are Anna Bochkova, Maxime Chabal, Matthis Frickhœffer & Sebastian Kommer, Sanja Henning, Kristina Kröger & Lazar Stojić, Lena Kunz, Millie Schwier, Julian Slagman, Samuel Witt.

The jury was composed of: Dr. James Farley, Prof. Martin Köttering, Prof. Annika Larsson and Prof. Dr. Ulf Schmidt.

The exhibition was curated by Sjusanna Eremjan.

Opening: Thu, July 7, 2022, 7 p.m.
Exhibition period: July 8–17, 2022

Amna Elhassan (*1988, Khartoum, Sudan) is currently a guest lecturer within the Art School Alliance at the HFBK Hamburg. Her artistic work explores perceptions of the female body in the public and private spheres, drawing on a variety of media including printmaking and painting. Her recent exhibitions included: Egypt Int’l Art Fair in Cairo; Afriart Gallery in Kampala, Uganda; Journées d’Art Contemporain de Carthage JACC, Tunis or National Museum of Sudan, Khartoum among others.

The exhibition was curated by Sjusanna Eremjan

Exhibition: June 2–25, 2022
Opening: June 1, 2022, 6 p.m.

This year’s Finkenwerder Art Prize is awarded to US artist Renée Green. HFBK graduate Frieda Toranzo Jaeger receives the HFBK Hamburg’s Finkenwerder Förderpreis.

The exhibition was curated by Sjusanna Eremjan.