Aspects of Presence. Art in Times of Militarization

The project Aspects of Presence, a collaboration between the Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), Vilnius, the Akademie der Künste, Berlin, and the Goethe-Institut in Lithuania, takes the current deployment of the German Brigade to Lithuania as a starting point. This deployment is part of NATO’s strategy to reinforce its eastern borders in response to Russia’s ongoing military aggression against Ukraine. Over the coming years, approximately 5,000 soldiers, alongside civilians and families, will relocate to Lithuania, with the brigade expected to reach full operational readiness by 2027.

Focusing on the brigade’s presence in Lithuania, the project opens up discussions on the broader context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its global implications. This deployment marks a significant geopolitical shift, reflecting profound transformations and historical continuities. The invasion of Ukraine reveals itself as deeply entangled with political negligence in ecological and economic policies, uncritical cooperation with authoritarian regimes, particularly in the energy sector, and the increasing influence of opaque (dis)information technologies. It also brings to the forefront shifting perceptions and global entanglements, cultural conflicts, and anxieties that extend far beyond the military sphere.

Through artworks, discussions, and texts, Aspects of Presence explores how contemporary life is affected by militarisation, reflecting on what led us here and the future that lies ahead. The project seeks to create space for artists and audiences to engage with the complexities and contradictions of this ongoing geopolitical shift.

The project unfolds in three stages: a symposium at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin, an exhibition at CAC Vilnius, and ultimately, a publication.

Symposium: 5 – 6 June 2025, Akademie der Künste, Berlin
Exhibition: October 2025 – January 2026, Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius
Publication: Summer 2026

Aspects of Presence is a project by the Goethe-Institut in Lithuania, the Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), Vilnius, and the Akademie der Künste, Berlin.

       

494h 29m 53s
The collection of the n.b.k. Video-Forum, sorted by running time by Karin Sander

Karin Sander's project 494h 29m 53s comprises 1,254 videos from the collection of the Video-Forum of the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.), all screened in the Akademie der Künste`s studio at Hanseatenweg. The videos, by 574 different artists and artist collectives, will be shown in sequence — from the shortest to the longest — in a 494-hour screening. The programme in the studio follows a defined structure — with 12-hour screenings every day and 24-hour screenings at the weekend — and will take place over 31 days starting on July 3, 2025.

Founded in 1971 on the initiative of artists and cultural creators, the n.b.k. Video-Forum is the oldest video art collection in Germany, and one of the largest. The collection is particularly focussed on the Fluxus art movement, feminist video practice, historical and contemporary video art from Berlin, and media-reflective approaches. The artist Karin Sander, a member of the Akademie der Künste, sees the collection as an opportunity to restage it in its entirety and present it in the academy as “great cinema”.

494h 29m 53s provides an overview of more than 50 years of international video art and presents all the artists equally side by side — regardless of origin, gender, or period of activity. This gives rise to new and unexpected juxtapositions, in an unique experience determined by arrangement, sequence and time.

Visitors can enter and leave the screenings at any time they choose. A programme booklet provides orientation with information about the specific artists, videos and schedules. A summer bar in the courtyard of the Akademie der Künste invites you to enjoy drinks and snacks.

Curated by Marius Babias and Anna Lena Seiser

An exhibition of the Akademie der Künste in cooperation with n.b.k.

Supported by Hauptstadtkulturfonds Berlin

Every Artist Must Take Sides – Resonances of Eslanda and Paul Robeson

With “Every Artist Must Take Sides – Resonances of Eslanda and Paul Robeson”, the Akademie der Künste explores the legacy of two extraordinary figures of the 20th century. The political and artistic endeavors of Eslanda Cardozo Goode Robeson (1895 – 1965) and Paul Robeson (1898 – 1976) were an expression of a way of thinking that understood the world in relations and of an uncompromising resistance to all forms of oppression. An exhibition and a festival both present contributions by contemporary artists and musicians, as well as materials from the Paul Robeson Archives of the Akademie der Künste.

“Every artist, every scientist, every writer must decide now where he stands. He has no alternative. [...] The artist must take sides. He must elect to fight for freedom or for slavery.” This urgent appeal was made by Paul Robeson on 24 June 1937, during a solidarity concert at the sold-out Royal Albert Hall in London, in support of the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. The African American singer, actor, trained lawyer, and activist reached a global audience through numerous films, theater and concert performances, political rallies, radio broadcasts, records, and newspapers. African American author, anthropologist, UN correspondent, artist manager, and activist Eslanda Robeson wrote about her travels to Southern, Eastern, and Central Africa and was actively involved in reconstituting the “world community” after World War II, focusing on internationalist women's organizations. Together, the couple linked the anti-racist struggle for civil and human rights in the United States with anti-fascist freedom movements in Europe, international labor movements, and anti-colonial liberation struggles in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean in the spirit of socialist internationalism.

Paul Robeson’s concerts and engagements, alongside Eslanda Robeson’s research, allowed both to engage with the Black diaspora worldwide, seeing themselves both as part of this diaspora and as global citizens. Eslanda Robeson regarded her writing, and Paul Robeson his voice and keen ear (which likely enabled him to sing in over 20 languages), as “weapons” they strategically deployed. Their stage performances, films, recordings, publications (such as the newspaper Freedom, founded with W.E.B. Du Bois in 1950), as well as postal services and telephone lines, became vital media for their transnational activism and tireless, creative resistance – even against the anti-communist repression, surveillance, and intimidation by the U.S. government during the 1940s and 1950s.

In 1965, in the midst of the Cold War, the Paul Robeson Archives was founded at the former Academy of Arts of the GDR as the first systematic collection of material on the life and work of a Black American artist and on the work of a Black activist and intellectual. Today, the Paul Robeson Archives represent a productive interface of current post-socialist and post-colonial discourses. On the occasion of the archive's 60th anniversary, the project “Every Artist Must Take Sides” opens up a resonance space to relate the legacy of the Robesons and their struggles to the pressing questions of our present.

Head of project: Johanna M. Keller, Tomke Braun

Artistic Directors: Anujah Fernando, Lina Brion

Curatorial team: Tomke Braun, Lina Brion, Ibou Diop, Aidan Erasmus (The Centre for Humanities Research at the University of the Western Cape), Anujah Fernando, Julia Gerlach, Baruch Gottlieb, Johanna M. Keller, Katharina Schultens (Haus für Poesie)

Archival support: Peter Konopatsch

Project coordination: Anja-Christin Remmert, Denise Baumeister, Luise Langenhan

Artistic-technical direction: Roswitha Kötz

Exhibition assistance: Matthias Appelfelder

Contributions by Heiner Goebbels, George E. Lewis, Robert Machiri, Neo Muyanga, Shana L. Redmond, Kirsten Reese, Matana Roberts, and many more.

“Every Artist Must Take Sides – Resonances of Eslanda and Paul Robeson” is a project by Akademie der Künste, Berlin, in collaboration with Centre for Humanities Research at the University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, and Haus für Poesie, Berlin.

 

 

Funded by the German                      Funded by the Federal Government
Federal Cultural Foundation             Commissioner for Culture
                                                             and the Media