As Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart rolls out ‘Berlin Beats’ – its music-driven summer series highlighting DJs like Ellen Allien and Orson Sieverding – the museum’s directors reflect on their core missions. Shows featuring mavericks like Christina Quarles, Fred Sandback, and Zineb Sedira have set the stage for uncovering local and global histories and opening the doors to a growing collection. Here’s what on their minds and their radar.

Sam Bardaouil: We believe in art with complete openness and transparency. We think art should be experienced with joy and be a reason for coming together. Our exhibitions place a lot of emphasis on artists on the cusp of a breakthrough with a discipline or medium.

Currently on view through September, Fred Sandback’s sculptures blur the line between where the artwork begins and where space begins, and how the two relate to each other. He’s a great historical example of an artist pushing boundaries. But the same applies to Christina Quarles, whose work combines the digital and the analogue to explore the visible and invisible planes that confine the body and the signifiers it conveys related to identity, gender, and race.

Then there are artists such as Zineb Sedira, whose work addresses important contemporary issues – including racism, discrimination, and being of a migratory background – all of which are relevant within the Berlin context. And on view now in Hamburger Bahnhof’s main hall is the show ‘Devouring Lovers’, by Barcelona-born artist Eva Fàbregas, whose work examines touch as a source of knowledge. Reminiscent of human organs, her sculptures also evoke nonhuman life forms such as coral.

Till Fellrath: In mid-June, Hamburger Bahnhof hosted an open house, sending a strong signal of care to the city and its communities. The event drew 32,000 people over three days – an insane number by any standards! Everybody could take part in activities, see an exhibition, or have a drink in the museum garden and listen to great music. All the doors, even those to the directors’ offices, were literally open.

SB: We want to allow people to use the building in different ways – to not just see the art, but to live with it.

TF: We also want to have different temporalities in the museum: The long-term exhibitions of works from the collection anchor the institution and evidence the fact that we have a collection which is growing into the future. But we also have temporary shows as well as short-term, one-off events, like ‘Berlin Beats’ – a series carefully curated series with different communities in mind. Every Thursday evening this summer, local musicians will play techno in the garden, free of charge. Connected to the collection, ‘Berlin Beats’ is heavily rooted in and a homage to sound art, given that the city is a major hub globally for sound and music. We started with legendary Berlin DJ Ellen Allien on June 16 while Aérea Negrot will perform technoid groove and abstract pop on July 13. In August, the lineup will include Orson Sieverding and, from Kosovo, Oda Haliti. These kinds of projects are something we’re planning to develop further in the future.

SB: Co-curated by Catherine Nichols, the new collection exhibition ‘Nationalgalerie. Eine Sammlung für das 21. Jahrhundert’ (A Collection for the 21st Century) which opened on June 16 and will remain on view long-term, features artists from all over the world. They bring stories, worldviews, and lived experiences that might be rooted in other geographies, cultures, or lineages, but which are translated through the reality of living, breathing, and feeling things here in Berlin.

Still, when you talk about Berlin, you must also talk about division – its scars. Although it fell in 1989, the Berlin Wall once stood just in front of the museum, and the east-west paradigm is still at play in both politics and the economy. So, while it’s important to focus on global issues such as decolonization, we shouldn’t forget that there is another problem staring us right in the face.

The show features work by East German artists such as the photographers Manfred Paul and Tina Bara, whose images serve as personal reflections on the German Democratic Republic before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Bara’s video Lange Weile (2016), which comprises historical footage from the era, is a new acquisition that has evoked strong reactions from museum visitors. Another addition to the collection is Sabine Hermann’s abstract painting Bewölkter Traum, 1995. Talking about these histories, and other stories that fell off the margins, is something that we will continue to do as part of our program.

TF: The Hamburger Bahnhof collection belongs to everyone and, while it’s rooted in history, it also looks to the future. Our aim is to generate a program of exhibitions and events that align closely to the city and its communities. This is an open and inclusive institution that needs to be about an open and inclusive collection.

Kimberly Bradley is a writer, editor, and educator based in Berlin. She is a commissioning editor at Art Basel Stories.

Currently on view at Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart are Fred Sandback’s ‘Simple Facts’; Eva Fàbregas’s ‘Devouring Lovers’; Christina Quarles’s ‘Collapsed Time’; Zineb Sedira’s ‘Dreams Have No Titles’; and several permanent exhibitions.

‘Berlin Beats’ runs free of charge in the museum garden every Thursday from 7–10pm until August 31, 2023.

Published on July 13, 2023.

Caption for full-bleed images: 1. Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath © FOTOSTUDIO "ALL EYES ON YOU". 2. Tina Bara, Exhibition view, „Nationalgalerie. Eine Sammlung für das 21. Jahrhundert“, Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, 2023 © the artists / Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin / Jacopo La Forgia. 3. Mandred Paul, Exhibition view, „Nationalgalerie. Eine Sammlung für das 21. Jahrhundert“, Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, 2023 © the artists / Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin / Jacopo La Forgia.