Based on Cage’s statement in his famous provocation “4’33”” on the impossibility of perfect silence, the program will also indulge in the simultaneous intoxication of all sensory impressions, as experienced by Cage, Cunningham and Twombly on their travels in the Mediterranean region and for which a museum provides the ideal setting.
Surrounded by the very expressive Twombly paintings, especially the large-format rose paintings, the quartet aims to forge a connection between the theme of (unattainable) silence and the colorful and multi-layered music of Ravel.
The concert accompanies the exhibition “Five Friends: John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly.”
€ 18 | 10 | Tickets available via Museum Brandhorst 

Curatorial Guided Tour with Anke Hoffsten
| Dates: 08.05.2025, 27.05.2025, 24.06.2025, 22.07.2025, 23.09.2025 (in each case at 16:00)
Video installation by Daniel Asadi Faezi and Mila Zhluktenko - 8 May to 19 October 2025
overexposed/underexposed investigates eight locations in different parts of Munich that are imbued with the experience of terrorist violence. These are places where people were killed, injured, or traumatized. Some of the crimes have become well known far beyond the city limits, others still do not have a permanent place in the collective memory.

“Nostralgia” stretches space and time through subtle interventions at the often overlooked thresholds of the building. Starting from the staff entrance of Haus der Kunst, Gülbin Ünlü invites visitors to explore the institution anew through closed but present doors. The work unfolds as a silent choreography of immobility - activated by the liveliness of its traversal. The Soft Opening on 8.5.25 marks the start of a series of performative events. As part of Open Haus - on the last Friday of every month - “Nostralgia” will henceforth be activated by sound, movement and presence in ever new forms.

Join artist Mercedes Azpilicueta on a performative walk through Munich, retracing the footsteps of Anna Mary Howitt as described in her book "An Art Student in Munich" (1850). This collective, embodied act unfolds through key locations, where selected passages from Howitt’s writings will be read aloud, bridging her reflections with the present. The walk includes a visit to Azpilicueta’s exhibition at Luitpoldblock, where she expands this dialogue, before concluding at Bayerischer Hof, where Howitt stayed in 1873.

Lothringer 13 Halle resets its program and visual identity under the direction of artist and curator Kalas Liebfried. The inaugural CURRENT, titled “Anarchic Animism,” and its first PHASE, “ECOCIDE,” officially begin with an opening ceremony featuring a keynote by Dr. Julian Zuber, who will address ecological justice and environmental destruction. This is followed by a hybrid set by Rotterdam-based duo Animistic Beliefs, exploring sound as a space for ritual and resistance.

In the series "Voices Unbound: Artists in Conversation" by Magnus Elias Rosengarten in cooperation with Lenbachhaus Munich
In cooperation with the Lenbachhaus, Magnus Elias Rosengarten curates a series of personal conversations with artists. Set in the artists’  studios, their exchanges address existential concerns, including questions of belonging, identity, and migration. Woven into the artists’ creative processes, "Voices Unbound: Artists in Conversation" charts an emotional approach to the works and affords public audiences more intimate insights than a conventional interview situation could. All participants share a strong focus on the human body as their medium and point of reference.
The series opens with SERAFINE1369. The artist describes dance and movement as an "oracular practice" and continually works to raise awareness of the artificially shared space between performer and audience. Their creative practice is informed by their interest in the invisible systems and structures that guide our bodies in life. To create immersive atmospheres, they often employ sculptures, music, videos, storytelling, and states of trance.
Additional interlocutors include Jimmy Robert (Germany/France/Guadeloupe) and Julien Creuzet (France/Martinique). The first conversation with SERAFINE1369 will be held at the Lenbachhaus; the conversations with Jimmy Robert and Julien Creuzet will be streamed in videos on the Lenbachhaus’s YouTube channel.

German guided tour
RSVP: info_espace.de@louisvuitton.com
The Espace Louis Vuitton München is proud to dedicate its new show KATINKA BOCK / NICK MAUSS. RESONANCE to German artist Katinka Bock (*1976, Frankfurt am Main) and German-American artist Nick Mauss (*1980, New York). Carrying out the Fondation Louis Vuitton’s commitment to mount international projects and reach a broader audience, selected works from Bock and Mauss are presented within the framework of the “Hors-les-murs” programme which unfolds at the Espaces Louis Vuitton in Tokyo, Munich, Venice, Beijing, Seoul and Osaka.

The ballet company of the Gärtnerplatztheater presents two of Cunningham’s choreographies in the Rose Room of Museum Brandhorst. “How To Pass, Kick, Fall and Run” from 1965 is a lively piece with a playful, sporty character, but without any specific reference to any particular sport. The dance is set to one-minute stories read by two performers. “The effect,” said Cunningham, “was a bit like watching a playground full of children with these two crones in the corner talking about things that were completely irrelevant.” The texts are taken from John Cage’s talk “Indeterminacy,” which was held in Brussels in 1958.
The performance accompanies the exhibition “Five Friends: John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly.” 
€ 25 | 18 | Tickets available via Museum Brandhorst 

The performance “ATTENTION” is the third site-specific iteration of an ongoing project that premiered in 2023 as “HUNGRY” at Wilhelm Hallen in Berlin and was adapted as “SOLITUDE” in 2024. The production is conceived as a reflection on the body and its form. “ATTENTION” is a hyper-assemblage, an archive of bodily postures, engaging with the transformation and optimization of the body, as well as the artificiality and fascination of this self-determined act.

The portrait—both as a medium of human individuality in the classical sense and in its abstract and varied forms—remains a central theme in contemporary art. In our exhibition IM PORTRAIT, we present works by Ilit Azoulay, Phoebe Derlee, Hannes Heinrich, Gregor Hildebrandt, Karin Kneffel, Oliver Laric, Janina Roider, Eva Schlegel, Sybille Springer, Juergen Staack and other artists who explore the face as an artifact in diverse ways.
We warmly invite you to the opening of the exhibition at our gallery. Join us on May 9 at 7 PM to celebrate the artists and their works. We look forward to seeing you there.

On the occasion of Various Others, nouveaux deuxdeux is presenting a duo exhibition featuring Mona Schulzek and Thomas Feuerstein, in collaboration with Galerie Elisabeth & Klaus Thoman. Their works oscillate between natural science, utopia, and collective transformation, questioning the interconnection of life, matter, and time.
Both positions stimulate societal transformation and challenge hierarchies in art and society. Feuerstein explores the biological information processing of non-human organisms, while Schulzek draws on speculative and mystical forms of knowledge that predate the development of systematic scientific methods. Schulzek stages possibilities for cosmic contact with extraterrestrial life, while Feuerstein co-produces sculptures with living organisms as material visions of possible futures. Through the aesthetic translation of complex knowledge, they make intricate relationships tangible and design collective utopias.

Opening of the exhibition "Roztopy" (Thaw) featuring work by Polish artists, Dominika Olszowy, Klaudia Figura, Julia Woronowicz, Czaro Malinkiewicz, Paweł Marcinek, Przemysław Piniak, Zuza Piekoszewska, Maryna Sakowska, Karolina Szwed. The exhibition is curated by Przemek Sowiński (Łęctwo, Poznań, Poland) in collaboration with Magdalena Wiśniowska (GiG Munich) and hosted by The Tiger Room. The curators and some of the artists will be present.

Opening: my galaxy
09.05. 5 -9 pm

Opening + Artist Talk with Anna Raczyńska and Michał Zawad
"Between Wilderness and Civilization – Hybrid Spaces in Art and Identity"
The artists will present their works and discuss their connection to the concept of the "Inner Frontier." The talk will be followed by an open discussion with the audience on the societal relevance of the themes explored in the artworks.

As part of Various Others 2025, space n.n. will show the work of choreographer and dancer Osamu Shikichi. Born in Japan (1994), currently based in Tokyo and Brussels, Shikichi begins their practice by questioning the human body, which we often take for granted, and challenging the notion of bodily self-possession. Their work explores the idea of an anonymous body, blurring and remixing our ways of identifying with human bodies. This creates a new perspective on human bodies while focusing on the politics and violence of the gaze.
"When the eyes lick images" will open on Friday May 9th with a performance by Osamu Shikichi. Further performances will happen through the opening weekend. Opening and performance hours will be announced soon. 

The title of the exhibition, grünende (greening), refers not only to green as a color but also to greening as an activity in nature—and an expression of growth and transformation. Ovid’s Metamorphosis vividly describes Daphne’s transformation into a tree: “...Her hair to leaves, her arms extend to boughs...” Rößner presents paintings and ceramics in shades of green.

Remi Ajani’s method of working, meticulously accumulating marks on the surface only to annihilate them with palette knife, sponge, and brush, is comparable to an actor who rehearses her lines and actions on the empty stage for weeks, and then before an audience improvises as she performs. These are pictures of life lived; pictures of what has been lost. This new body of work, evocatively entitled “Still Life”, offers a doubled reference to both the earliest traditions of the Dutch “stilleven” or “vanitas”, humble meditations on the transience of life, but also the attempt of each of these pictures to “still” time, understood as a verb rather than an adjective. Whether wildflowers lost in the excesses of summertime abandon, or athletic bodies pushed to the very extremity of contorted grace, we find ourselves glimpsing a moment of these breathing, sweating things, summoned from some empty space. (excerpt from an essay by Matthew Holman)

Following his acclaimed installation in the Hungarian Pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale, we are now representing Márton Nemes and presenting his first solo exhibition in Germany for Various Others. His works operate at the intersection of painting, sculpture, and spatial installation, transcending media boundaries to unfold as an immersive Gesamtkunstwerk. Deeply embedded in techno subculture, Nemes’ visual language is characterized by a dynamic fragmentation of pictorial space, creating a trance-like effect. His compositions draw on the aesthetics and lighting of contemporary club culture, transporting viewers into pulsating, color-intense spheres. In addition to traditional painting, Nemes incorporates materials such as steel, automotive lacquer, projections, lights, and speakers. This interplay of light, movement, and sound generates a multisensory experience that dissolves pictorial space and manifests as a kinetic, architectural installation.

Galerie Rüdiger Schöttle is pleased to open the group exhibition “Breaking the walls, Dino appears”, curated by Leiko Ikemura. The theme-based interdisciplinary exhibition unites visual artists and architects who find or create a poetic approach to the world by using similar methods. 
“The 'house' is an obsession since my childhood. I often dreamed of houses and stretches of water and I made notes of them. Some are fascinatingly lucid, others more traumatic… Why this is so deeply embedded in me is that even as a child I wanted to build houses and this is probably to do with experience of our house being destroyed by a typhoon… so the houses are protection and danger at the same time. They are between human needs against the nature.” – Leiko Ikemura

Sperling is excited to present Malte Zenses as part of Various Others 2025 in the gallery’s new location in Munich-Maxvorstadt. The exhibition is a two-part show in collaboration with Pequod Co., Mexico City, where the artist will simultaneously have his first solo presentation following a residency in autumn 2024. Pt. 1 Pinturas para perros: Durchhalten galore! Pequod Co. Mexico City Opening April 11th Pt. 2 Durchhalten galore! Pinturas para perros. Sperling, Munich Opening May 9th
Malte Zenses (b. 1987, Solingen, Germany) lives and works in Berlin. He holds a Dipl. from HfG Offenbach (2014) and was a Meisterschüler at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (2016). Recent and upcoming exhibitions include Pequod Co. (Mexico City), G2 Kunsthalle (Leipzig), Sperling (Munich), Damien & The Love Guru (Brussels), and Kunstverein Kassel & Nürnberg.

On the occasion of Various Others 2025, BRITTA RETTBERG presents a group exhibition in collaboration with THE BREEDER (Athens) and RAVNIKAR (Ljubljana). The exhibition brings together the works of female artists Nina Čelhar, Laura Ní Fhlaibhín, Kyriaki Goni, Caro Jost, Malvina Panagiotidi, and Helena Tahir, offering a nuanced exploration of personal and collective narratives. Through sculptures, paintings, drawings, and video, the exhibition examines how history and identity are shaped and reinterpreted across time and space. From the intimate connections we form with everyday objects to the ideological landscapes of space exploration, from forgotten traces of the past to hybrid bodies in flux, the works unravel tensions between material and immaterial worlds. Each artist engages with language, myth, and memory to challenge dominant narratives and propose alternative perspectives. 

On the occasion of Various Others 2025, max goelitz, in collaboration with alexander levy, presents a group exhibition featuring Julius von Bismarck, Anne Duk Hee Jordan, and Haroon Mirza. Titled everything, entangled, all at once, the exhibition brings together works that explore processes of transformation, the limits of perception, and the interplay between humans and their environment. The artists develop narratives that center on the transformation of temporal and ecological structures while highlighting the ambivalence between human control and symbiotic relationships. By layering synthetic, technological, and organic materials, their works challenge existing orders—ranging from micro to macro levels. They intervene in natural systems, modify their mechanisms, and render the hidden tangible.

A selection of editioned works by John Cage flanked by 
Martin Assig, Jenny Brosinski, Carsten Fock, Buckminster Fuller, Leonhard Hurzlmeier, Robert Motherwell, Bruce Nauman and a prelude by Lena Grossmann on April 19 to 21
an invitation to participate in an homage to Cage: 
The structure of the show will be based on the "events" systematic by Merce Cunningham. The early John Cage is meant to show up in the intermediary lines of the exhibition. The start of Cage's artistic upbringing is interwoven with the "Blue Rider" protagonists. A musical intervention during the show will be announced. 
 

The second exhibition "Serial Thoughts" of the three-part series "Shades of Thought" at Metropol Kunstraum shows sculptures and series by Bill Bollinger, Hanne Darboven, Donald Judd, Imi Knoebel, Sol Lewitt, Robert Mangold, David Rabinovitch, Fred Sandback and James Turrell. The works were created between 1962 and 1992 and work very differently on the theme of series and the concept of repetition, be it numbers, shapes, time or light. Sol LeWitt, for example, favours the repetition of geometric shapes and a precise structure; in an interview from 1967, he explains his concern as "the aesthetic concept. Dimensions, sequences of geometric units, simple systems. Spiritual playgrounds. Beauty."

Life is made up of references. Antje Engelmann and Klaus vom Bruch are two artists who locate themselves in a network of relationships within their autoethnographic investigations. Societies are held together by conventions like a corset. They create moral frameworks that can extend to existential breathlessness. "In a Body" presents new work compositions that thematise breaking out of norms. It is the absent bodies that make a transcendent appearance.
"... long live the war, isn't it?"

On the occasion of Various Others, nouveaux deuxdeux is presenting a duo exhibition featuring Mona Schulzek and Thomas Feuerstein, in collaboration with Galerie Elisabeth & Klaus Thoman.Their works oscillate between natural science, utopia, and collective transformation, questioning the interconnection of life, matter, and time.
Both positions stimulate societal transformation and challenge hierarchies in art and society. Feuerstein explores the biological information processing of non-human organisms, while Schulzek draws on speculative and mystical forms of knowledge that predate the development of systematic scientific methods. Schulzek stages possibilities for cosmic contact with extraterrestrial life, while Feuerstein co-produces sculptures with living organisms as material visions of possible futures. Through the aesthetic translation of complex knowledge, they make intricate relationships tangible and design collective utopias.

Simon Lässig and Vera Lutz Romeo's eyes May 10 – August 17, 2025
Kunstverein München presents "Romeo's eyes" the first institutional exhibition of Simon Lässig and Vera Lutz. The duo show brings together newly conceived filmic, photographic, and installative works by the artists, which explore the politics of seeing and showing. In this way, the exhibition also serves as framework for the ongoing dialogical practice between the two artists, which began in Munich in 2015. While Lutz's works are often created in correspondence with spatial structures, taking up questions of self-referentiality and focusing on the conditions of systems of representation, Lässig negotiates mimetic processes and conditioned forms of seeing with reference to historical film material.

Wonder and marvel: at the refined natural shape of a nautilus shell engraved with love scenes by an artist's hand. Or discover the red-brown flaming of the rare squid creature in a contemporary oil painting, which is transformed into old-masterly fabric laces. At ERES Projects, inlaid cabinets and filigree goblets from the Renaissance and Baroque periods meet contemporary positions that refer to the sophistication of craftsmanship and a profound admiration for phenomena from nature, art and technology. Works of Wonder invite you to stop time, discover hidden details and learn to marvel again. Because wow effects make you alert, relaxed and focussed.

The legendary musician Limpe Fuchs, a seminal influence on the kosmische Musik of the 1960s and 1970s and the psychedelic underground, creates her own instruments as part of her durational and unpredictable performances.

The private office of NA&NE invites you for coffee and conversations about big visions. Alpha dogs get a double shot – enough to make their teeth chatter. The exhibition takes place at two different venues located in walking distance.

Artists Ruscha Voormann and Milen Till welcome guests to the temporary Filter Café. Beneath the impressive glass dome of the atrium, they create an open, casual space at the heart of the hotel. Throughout the day, the conversation series “A Piece of Cake by …” hosts different artist-curator-talks. Coffee and cake are served in a setting that invites visitors to continue the conversations beyond the scheduled talks.

Salta art, in collaboration with BMW, presents the screening of Crash (2023), a film by Rio de Janeiro–based artist Gabriela Mureb. The screening will be followed by a conversation with the artist, moderated by Christiane Pyka, Spokesperson for Cultural Engagement at BMW Group.

Crash was developed during Mureb’s residency at AIR-M Ebenböckhaus in Munich in 2023, in partnership with the City of Munich’s Department of Arts and Culture. The film was made in collaboration with the BMW Recycling and Dismantling Centre (RDZ) in Unterschleißheim, where the artist was granted access for filming and research.

In Crash, Mureb offers a striking reflection on efficiency, sustainability, and the afterlife of machines. The video documents the disassembly of a test vehicle, transforming industrial processes into a visceral meditation on mortality and materiality. Using the immersive perspective of a GoPro camera, the work blurs the boundary between human and machine, prompting viewers to reconsider the agency of matter in a world shaped by circular economies and mechanical force.

Free entry, limited capacity.

A section of the Hotel Bayerischer Hof lobby will be transformed into a postcard stand installation drawing on the longstanding tradition of postcards in contemporary art – explored by artists such as Karin Sander, Roman Ondak, Isa Genzken and Milen Till. The postcards, selected through a global open call, present a wide range of perspectives on themes such as unfamiliar homelands and encounters. Visitors are invited to write and send these cards out into the world. This participatory project references the legacy of Mail Art and creates a space for personal exchange.

"Hybrid identities through art" with Anna Raczyńska and Michał Zawada
Inspired by the works of Anna Raczyńska and Michał Zawada, participants will try out artistic approaches in the media of sculpture and painting in dialogue and theory. The focus is on exploring hybrid aesthetics. The target group are art students, artists and teachers.
 

Opening: Elias Saile
10.5.25 | 12 -5 pm

Relying on the audience to participate as crew - operating cameras - prop styling - script monitoring - making coffees - pouring beers and enjoying a bit of bavarian movie magic.

Synopsis: 
Kyle & Leander, estranged cousins, spent the night at a suite at Bayerischer Hof, awaiting the arrival of a lawyer who is to read the last will and testament of their great Bavarian aunt.

"Presse Mobile" consists of a wheeled folding structure supporting a printing press and a series of magnetic surfaces for the creation of temporary matrices. It was completed by Katerina Stefanidaki and Zafos Xagoraris at Maison d'Artistes - Françoise Heitsch, St. Raphaël and first presented at the École Freinet in Vence, 2024.

FOXY PARK, a garden project with sculptures by Judith Hopf, Jonas Monka, Nils Norman and Nicole Wermers.
Opening 10.05., 2 – 6 pm

“I no longer write scores,” John Cage wrote in 1959 to critic Peter Yates, “but only pieces that can be performed in any order. I intend to transfer this method to the theater as well. Naturally, every performance is unique, although no part is improvised. Each person simply does what they have to do and connects with everyone else, without anyone planning or controlling it.”
Director FX Mayr and Residenztheater actors embrace this principle of chance, using it as a guide through John Cage’s extensive correspondence. 
The reading accompanies the exhibition “Five Friends: John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly.”
Included in museum admission
On Wednesday, May 21, at 8:00 PM, the Marstall Salon once again invites you to this staged reading.

Texte, a reading by Maria VMier & Companions in the context of Maria VMier's gallery exhibition Bilder.
3 – 4 pm

‘How To Live' is the story of a little boy growing up, seen through the eyes and hair of a young woman.

Memories are filmed in the places where they happened, including Lenzie Academy, Glasgow, where current-day students of the school act in scenes from the classroom of bullying, misbehaviour and sports. John McEnroe, Martin’s boyhood hero, features in one fantastical scene on a tennis court.

The film is a coming-of-age story, a collage of episodes which spans from conception across the very earliest memories of infant-hood — the first word and the first drawing —to high school, art education and first love. An interwoven parallel story of clothes moves up the body from socks and shoes through trousers to hats. Along the way some helpful guides to sides of life are offered in the form of chapters on “The Trouser Problem” and “What are Moustaches For?”.

Free entry, limited capacity.

Contemporary art festivals, gallery weekends, and art fairs play a defining role in shaping the cultural identity of their cities. The Gallery Weekend Berlin, Art Basel in Basel, and TEFAF in Maastricht are historic examples of this impact. Various Others is an innovative format that has gained international recognition in recent years through its collaborative approach and diverse network of participants. It reinforces Munich’s position as a vibrant cultural city where museums, galleries, and the local community work together to cultivate a sustainable and inclusive cultural ecosystem. Which international examples are pioneering new approaches? Are these formats sustainable models for activating cultural and creative networks? And what are the most important success factors and driving forces behind the individual formats?

Panel speaker: Joanna Witek-Lipka (Warsaw Gallery Weekend), Robert Danch (DC Open), Mona Stehle (Berlin Art Week), Catinca Tăbăcaru (Rad Art Fair).

Moderation: Kate Brown (Artnet).

ATMO, Lothringer 13 Halle’s monthly series, focuses on listening as a perceptual field where sound expands through space and resonates with bodies. For its first edition, ATMO collaborates with FORUM, a collective listening format initiated in 2022 by Orbital Reflector.
The program features a workshop by Voin de Voin, a live set by Pollyester, and DJ sets by Kettalynne and Kosmas Ðinh. Curated by Orbital Reflector, the evening is designed as a collective listening experience, complemented by a thematically curated buffet. 

GUIDED TOUR in ENGLISH
RSVP at: info_espace.de@louisvuitton.com.
The Espace Louis Vuitton München is proud to dedicate its new show KATINKA BOCK / NICK MAUSS. RESONANCE to German artist Katinka Bock (*1976, Frankfurt am Main) and German-American artist Nick Mauss (*1980, New York). Carrying out the Fondation Louis Vuitton’s commitment to mount international projects and reach a broader audience, selected works from Bock and Mauss are presented within the framework of the “Hors-les-murs” programme which unfolds at the Espaces Louis Vuitton in Tokyo, Munich, Venice, Beijing, Seoul and Osaka.

In his site-specific installation, Ossian Fraser responds to the historical and architectural context of the Bayerischer Hof and subtly disrupts the viewer’s familiar perception. He activates the building and its rooftop terrace with a large, floating balloon that marks the airspace above the hotel and reclaims the sky as a temporary artistic site. 

At the same time, the work references the balloon’s historical functions – from meteorological observation to surveillance – and draws a fine connection to the site’s transformation into a highly protected zone during the Munich Security Conference.

In the conference rooms of Bayerischer Hof, characters of the memorial walking theater “Au au au Hi hi hi” meet and negotiate Germany's politics of reparation after 1945. Among them are the director of the Bavarian State Reparations Office Dr. Philipp Auerbach, who takes his own life in 1952 after a show trial in Munich; the sculpture professor Anton Hiller, who navigates the regime changes between the monarchy, the Third Reich and the Adenauer period with ease; the concentration camp survivor Jerzy Wisniowski, whose applications for restitution are rejected by the German state; several professional producers of Hitler busts; and a life-size nude made of bronze.  Following the scenic reading at Bayerischer Hof, performers and visitors will go on a walk to several historical locations surrounding Lenbachplatz. 

By/with: Samuel Fischer-Glaser, Astrid Schmetterling, Angela Stiegler, and Magdalena Wisniowska

The pop music and performance art antics of the critically costumed art collective synthesize into a tv show, club event and political reflection, merging today’s surreal realities as manifestation in a live hybrid streamart parade with a special philosophical Jane Fonda inspired IDEOBICS warm up by Sophia Efstathiou.

With Kathi Glas, Liz Dom, Chloe Tolmer, Roman Dziadkiewicz, UKRAiNAtv, Unnur Andrea Einarsdóttir, Sophia Efstathiou, Alina Belyagina, Tor-Ada Solberg, Kangela Tromokratisch & Alex Murray-Leslie. 

Pylons specially designed for this event are located directly in front of and inside the Hotel Bayerischer Hof. They don't guide guests, but rather direct their attention to other messages.

Aqua Monaco and Public Possession present their latest collaboration which unites graphic design, music and product culture. This joint project by two Munich-based institutions, titled Oase, features a spring edition of Aqua Monaco’s 0.33-liter mineral water bottles designed by Public Possession, an audio cassette by People Waving and a curated selection of merchandise and print goods. The PP-AQ Oasis at Bayerischer Hof offers a moment of refreshment inviting visitors to immerse themselves in blue light, mineral water and an audiovisual sound bath loop.

OASE, 2025
An installation by Aqua Monaco & Public Possession

Words: James Joyce, Public Possession
Sound: People Waving
Graphics: Public Possession
Animation: Aqua Monaco

On the first floor of Palais Montgelas, Various Others presents a selection of contemporary art from Munich private collections. Works from Sammlung Goetz, beacon and the collection of Markus Michalke find their place in the historic rooms of the Palais. On the first floor of Palais Montgelas, Various Others presents a selection of contemporary artworks from Munich-based private collections. Works from the Sammlung Goetz, beacon, and the collection of Markus Michalke are placed within the historic rooms. Complementing the presentation, Rosanna Marie Pondorf creates a site-specific installation conceived especially for the Red Salon.

With works by Cindy Sherman, Hannah Levy, Pol Taburet, Michel Francois, Charlotte Posenenske, Fred Sandback, Barry Le Va and Rosanna Marie Pondorf.

Mehmet and Kazim Akal – known as the artist duo "Kissing Cousins" – expand the painterly process by integrating virtual reality technology as a tool in their art. Their red and white dominated visual world leaves the canvas and continues in digital space: through expansive installations, digitally painted images and animated VR videos, they take painting out of the two-dimensional surface and their painted figures and motifs become animated plasticine that moves and seems to come to life. The Lenbachhaus collection includes works by Mehmet & Kazim and, at the invitation of the museum, the two are showing a selection of their red-colored videos as part of Various Others.

The cousins' hip-hop and graffiti-influenced aesthetic radically disrupts the historicist style of the Palais Montgelas in the Hotel Bayerischer Hof – the temporary exhibition space. The videos, which only last a few minutes, show two similar figures that appear to have grown together at the arms and are in different situations, such as under water or on a horse. The two figures represent the "Kissing Cousins" themselves and appear constantly in the paintings, drawings and videos by Mehmet & Kazim. In this way, the humorous references to art-historical role models, themselves and the art world are put on display for a weekend in the opulent Bayerischer Hof.

Artist Lea Vajda responds to the historic Mirror Hall of Bayerischer Hof, transforming its ornate stucco setting with two spatial works.

Jieun Park is a young artist from South Korea. After attending Chungbuk National University in Cheongju, she studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich under Jorinde Vogt and received her diploma from Johanna Reich in 2021. In addition to painting and drawing, Jieun Park also finds her expressiveness in performances, which she records and projects on walls as video works.

Munich is home to a number of renowned museums. Yet, a truly dynamic and sustainable creative economy requires more than just great institutions  –  it thrives on a vibrant, market-driven ecosystem that enables artists and cultural practitioners to live, work, and push boundaries. Experimental formats and market-driven models are essential for artists to build lasting careers beyond public funding structures. Internationally, a generation of galleries with alternative approaches has emerged, whose concepts combine artistic visions with economic sustainability. In the future, they will play a crucial role in shaping a resilient cultural infrastructure and enabling artists to realise their projects. This panel will examine what it takes to establish a gallery, strengthen the commercial framework in the long term and create lasting market opportunities for artists.

Panel Speaker: Nicolaus Schafhausen (KIN Brüssel), Anna Schwanz (Office Impart, Berlin), Paulina Caspari (Munich), Ursula Krinzinger (Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna)
Moderation: Lisa Gersdorf(Frieze)

In her performance gestures in space, Düsseldorf-based artist Daniela Georgieva physically and choreographically explores the historic Montgelas Hall at the Bayerischer Hof. She weaves gesture into gesture transforming them into sculptural movements and embodied forms. Focusing intently on one body part at a time, Georgieva investigates its relationship to the body as a whole as well as to movement and space. Through this process she creates, restructures or discards physical and choreographic patterns and radically reconceptualizes them.

Daniela Georgieva is originally from Bulgaria and now lives and works in Düsseldorf. Since 2016 she has focused exclusively on dance and performance art and created mostly solo pieces and original choreographies.

The performance will be followed by an artist talk and was suggested by Kunstraum München for the Unconference. 

As part of a film program for the opening of Various Others 2025, Sammlung Goetz is showing a selection of works by Chinese artists Cao Fei (*1978) and Lu Yang (*1984) in the Astor Cinema Lounge of the Hotel Bayerischer Hof.

Cao Fei's RMB City Opera (2010) is an experimental theater piece inspired by the propaganda operas of the Chinese Cultural Revolution that explores the connection between real and virtual identities. Physical and digital spaces serve as a stage for the interaction between actors and avatars.

In DOKU the Self (2022), “Doku”, Lu Yang's non-binary avatar, assumes six different virtual identities. These correspond to the six realms of existence of the Buddhist wheel of life, death and rebirth.

At the Bayerischer Hof, a singer performs and presents one of the Review Sonatas. Each Sonata consists of five reviews. In total, there are five Sonatas, which are presented every half hour.

Isabelle Graw, author and art historian, teaches at the Städelschule in Frankfurt and is co-editor of Texte zur Kunst. For Too Soon To Say – The Unconference, she will read from her book “Angst und Geld“ (Fear and Money) which is based on individual and social fears of loss and money worries.

In collaboration with Monopol Magazin.

Presented by NEBYULA as part of Various Others, this intermedia screening offers a dialogue between the evolving relationship of image, space, and body. Curated and organized by Karim Daniel Mourad, with the support of the NEBYULA team, the program features a selection of local and international video works organized into four thematic blocks, Body and Fragmentation, Memory and Archive, Virtual Spaces and Immersion, and Political Spaces and Social Structures. Together, these groupings reflect diverse aesthetic and conceptual strategies within expanded video practice. Live performances extend the works beyond the screen, creating a porous interface between the physical and the virtual, the personal and the collective, the documented and the imagined.

As part of the Various Others opening weekend, community radio station Radio80000 will take over the Cocktailhalle at Hotel Bayerischer Hof on the evening of May 10. At 11 PM, Alex – member of the iconic punk band Chicks on Speed – opens the evening with a DJ set. From midnight onwards, a selection of Radio80000 hosts will take over with eclectic electronic sets, carrying the night into the early morning hours.

Fire-Site Chat: Artist Talk Carla Filipe & Andrea Lissoni

 A pop-up karaoke bar conceived by artist Sam Lui's culinary alter-ego, Wendy.

A site-specific tea performance that engages both with the physical location itself and our positioning in time and space. Artist Anna Maja Spiess invites you to a calming cup of tea in turbulent times.

The tea ceremony will take place in German. At 1:30am there will be another one in English.

In “A Piano Plays In Another Room And It’s Raining” (2022), Paul Valentin takes us into a melancholy fugue of computer-generated spaces that overwhelm us with their abundance of references to film, painting, and computer games, as well as the carefully designed “digital objects”, leaving us initially speechless. The aesthetics of this work, which oscillates between cinematic philosophy and spatial installation, refers to the design of so-called “liminal” spaces – transit spaces – that evoke feelings of eeriness, nostalgia, and anxiety in us. What we see is not what we think we see, know, or understand. Each scene demands that we take different perspectives, jump between worlds and “realities,” abandon projections and allow for new possibilities. Ultimately, we understand that we are seeing our seeing itself here, contemplating the making of meaning, and pursuing the philosophical search for the nature of the world.

Drawing inspiration from the "Global-Art-Fusion" project by Beuys, Higashiyama and Warhol (1985), this FAX ART project brings together three artists to send each other fax drawings that interact with each other. Based in Munich, Tokyo, and New York, SORRY FAX ONLY creates a global artistic production, live and direct, that can whisper down the lane, compose cadavres exquis… t’s an exchange with one rule only: no rules. Unless, maybe, that each artist has to react to the faxed drawing within 5 minutes.

It is scheduled to happen on two Saturdays: May 3 and May 10 2025. These dates are not arbitrary: On May 3, Masanao Hirayama will be faxing from TOKIO in Tokyo. On May 10, Martin Fengel will be faxing from Bayerischer Hof in Munich. Both interventions, one at a book fair, one during the art festival marathon ‚too soon to say‘, take place in a hotel setting, they are performative and open to public. Latter will also lead to an almost immediate show at Sorry Square in Munich that will start in the second half of the Various Others program and open already on May 11.

But wait, there’s more: Sorry Press will publish SORRY FAX ONLY as an art book which will be launched at the Tokyo Art Book Fair in December 2025. In sum, this project is an artistic interaction, a performance, one or many exhibitions and an art book. And perhaps perhaps the beginning of a non ongoing book series.

The lecture traces its origins to a series of watercolour works inspired by Virgil’s Aeneid. In October 2023, Berthold Reiß wrote to Sinem Tekel in Istanbul about one of these works, Aeneid I, 338: This is a city in danger—captured in a single line that lies between dunes or waves. The inhabited place may well be a mirage. Aeneas is in search of a new city, after his homeland, Troy, has been destroyed. His greatest hope, Carthage, turns out to be his deepest disappointment.

The fourth book of the Aeneid, which tells the story of Aeneas and the Carthaginian queen Dido, is considered a tragedy. In the 2nd century BCE, Marcus Porcius Cato famously ended his speeches in the Roman Senate with the words: Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam – Furthermore, I consider that Carthage must be destroyed. In the 18th century, Voltaire wrote of his estate Les Délices near Geneva: Carthage must be refounded. Between these two poles—and over the course of approximately 30 minutes—the lecture KARTHAGO explores the city as a space of possibility. 

Since 2021 Raphael Weilguni and Vincent Scheers have been composing and performing their electronic strain of free jazz storytelling alongside their practices as visual artists. 

For this year’s Various Others event at Hotel Bayerischer Hof, Weilguni (piano, modular synthesizer and vocals) and Scheers (modular synthesizer, xaphoon and one string guitar) will explore the history of the hotel through an electro-acoustic counterpoint improvisation, incorporating elements of baroque, blues and musique concrète.

Irma to Come in Earnest is a video portrait of Hurricane Irma and its aftermath. Through slow-motion images witnessing the major destruction caused by the category-five hurricane, which struck the U.S. state of Florida on August 30, 2017, Julius von Bismarck reveals the aesthetics of nature’s devastating force. The film transcends familiar images of disaster, capturing both the nature of the storm and the media presentation of the catastrophe in an otherworldly atmosphere. 

Olga Hohmann’s performance Off the record probes the less formal settings that exist alongside official conference proceedings and the unspoken rules that govern them. Together with the costume designer Sina Manthey she explores the politics of informal encounters at the Hotel Bayerischer Hof, the traditional venue for the Munich Security Conference.  While key decisions are usually taken around large tables behind closed doors and announced at lecterns in a formal choreography, important information informing and influencing those decisions is exchanged in more informal settings and in-between spaces. Whether during breakfast, a drink at the bar, or in the hotel corridors, this information exchange operates according to formulas of inclusion and exclusion. The economy of knowledge transfer likewise follows the principles of profit maximization. Olga Hohmann uses historical and local references as well as music to create a site-specific performance in the ministers’ room of the hotel, tracing the codes and strategies of diplomatic rhetoric. 

Invited by the Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism, Olga Hohmann's performance takes place as part of Various Others' Unconference.

"Presse Mobile" consists of a wheeled folding structure supporting a printing press and a series of magnetic surfaces for the creation of temporary matrices.

It was completed by Katerina Stefanidaki and Zafos Xagoraris at Maison d'Artistes - Françoise Heitsch, St. Raphaël and first presented at the École Freinet in Vence, 2024.

Limited capacity. 

In 2019, museums and cultural spaces across Germany welcomed a record number of visitors. Then the pandemic hit and with it, an abrupt rupture in audience engagement. Only in 2023 did visitor numbers begin to approach pre-pandemic levels. Today, institutions face a dual challenge: staying socially rooted and publicly relevant while navigating increasingly severe funding cuts and adapting to new times. The panel explores the evolving role of museums and cultural venues in our society and the ways institutions can (re-)connect with audiences. What kinds of programmes, formats and platforms are needed to foster participation and debate? How can institutions open up to younger audiences without losing their existing visitors? How can contemporary art be presented both within and beyond museum walls to integrate it in the everyday? And, what does innovation in this context really mean? 

Panel speaker: Andrea Lissoni (Artistic Director Haus der Kunst), Natalia Sielewicz (Chief Curator MSN Warschau), Noura Dirani (Kunsthallen Sankt Annen, Lübeck). 

Moderation: Elke Buhr (Editor in Chief Monopol Magazin)

A lecture about the status of painting in Eastern Europe throughout the last decades, from the 1960s until nowadays. How has its perception changed as a medium in relation to politics, to censorship, to the change of regime, to new media?

Artists Ruscha Voormann and Milen Till welcome guests to the temporary Café Filter. Beneath the impressive glass dome of the atrium, they create an open, casual space at the heart of the hotel. Throughout the day, the conversation series “A Piece of Cake by …” hosts different artist-curator-talks. Coffee and cake are served in a setting that invites visitors to continue the conversations beyond the scheduled talks.

Program: 11am: Book Launch (the artist is present) 3pm: Curatorial Tour through the exhibition
Self-determined work is the logical foundation of the artist profession. In the exhibition »Unknown«, Benedikt Gahl describes the necessity of (artistic) autonomy. How can and will the Unknown still exist and become visible in the year 2025? This question of visibility contains a criticism of a cultural politics of representation. Here, the Unknown is set against the new and technically innovative, and understood as an investment into visual strategies capable of (re)forming us. What do I recognize on these canvasses, what is this Unknown? It transforms into a call to see and think differently. Dissent with the reality of our times can provide an opportunity to develop new forms.

Join artist Rosanna Marie Pondorf and curator Zakirah Rabaney for a talk centered on the site-specific installation, “the session dilemma [multipolarized].” Pondorf’s work challenges the spaces where power convenes – and where art can contest it. Hotel Bayerischer Hof, host to both the art festival Various Others and the annual Munich Security Conference, becomes the stage for her sculptural intervention and their discussion.

Art and culture are essential for the functioning of democratic societies. Museums, theaters and other cultural venues rank among the most trusted institutions in Germany: They create space for controversial debates and help foster social consensus. With the rise of right-wing politics and an increasingly politicised discourse on cultural policy, safeguarding these vital "as-if worlds" has become an ever more important responsibility. This panel looks at how cultural policy may sustainably strengthen the potential of art and culture and how cultural practitioners can navigate possible ideological threats. It raises some crucial questions: How should responsibilities be distributed between political, private, and commercial actors? What tools can be used to offset the decline in public cultural funding? What role does the philanthropic engagement of friend circles and foundations play? How do changing funding structures affect institutions? And how can we ensure that art and culture are firmly rooted in all parts of society?

Panel speakers: Michael Buhrs (Museum Villa Stuck), Maurin Dietrich (Kunstverein München), Kolja Reichert (K21 Düsseldorf), Katharina von Perfall (PIN)
Moderation: Sophie Neundorf (artnet)

"Media border spaces" with Marta Vovk and Alexander Scharf
Marta Vovk and Alexander Scharf will lead this workshop, which will teach techniques for reflecting on media representations and their influence on fears and ideologies. The target group are students and those interested in the field of media art and theory.

The evening explores the theme of human and non-human voices, with choirs as a metaphor for how human gathering and singing can resonate with the calls of non-human entities, expressing collective resonance across species. This is reflected in two interconnected releases.
The first is Fragments of Sonic Extinction (FOSE)’s debut 12” vinyl, Defragmentation, featuring 24 commissioned works from its first three editions (2022–2024), edited by Kalas Liebfried and Beni Brachtel. The release presents these works as interconnected fragments within a defragmented sonic terrain.
The second release is Positionen magazine’s issue #143, Extrem Gemischter Chor (Extremely Mixed Choir), exploring the contemporary discourse and aesthetics of choirs. It serves as a counterpoint to the FOSE vinyl, linking the choir metaphor with the idea of collective and more-than-human resonance.
The evening also includes a concert by Beni Brachtel and an input by artist and theorist Salomé Voegelin.

The ECOCIDE symposium presents a dynamic program of talks, workshops, and performances exploring the themes of ecocide, sound, and systemic change. This inaugural edition, part of an annual festival for live arts in the Anthropocene, brings together a range of artists and researchers addressing ecology, animism, rituals, and dystopian presents. Contributions include a keynote by Angela Melitopoulos, a workshop by Antoni Rayzhekov, a lecture by Petja Ivanova, a reading by Daniel Falb, a performance by Biliana Voutchkova, and a live set by Valerio Tricoli.
The event offers an evocative dialogue on the intersections of art and ecology, while examining our shared cultural and political responsibility in the midst of a cultural crisis. These contributions engage with the pressing issues of environmental destruction and systemic change, inviting reflection and action in a rapidly changing world.