Culture News
The cultural day in brief: news, premieres, exhibitions and all the latest contributions from our sections – newest first.
Saturday, 31. October
- FILM · BACKGROUND
Film Criticism Between Engagement and Judgement
Five nominations, one prize and an old question: how do you judge a film without letting it win you over?
- STAGE · BACKGROUND
Three at the top: How is responsibility shared in theatre?
From Basel’s drama division to Munich: what shared leadership changes, and how to recognise genuine participation.
- LITERATURE · PROFILE
Sonja Sophie Kreis: A long-standing practice comes into view
A first novel, but not a start from scratch: Sonja Sophie Kreis and the attention surrounding her ahead of the Swiss Book Prize.
- FILM · PREVIEW
After the festival, the battle for the big screen begins
Lübeck puts Nordic cinema in the spotlight. Whether the films subsequently reach German cinemas depends on distributors, programming slots and audiences.
- MUSIC · BACKGROUND
Who speaks for nature when it becomes music?
Wien Modern makes rivers, forests and insects audible. This background feature asks how environmental sounds become a musical perspective.
- VISUAL ARTS · PREVIEW
Who captures the movement – and who disappears from the picture?
From Degas to performance: Mannheim’s new exhibition asks how dance becomes visible in the visual arts – and who takes centre stage.
Friday, 30. October
- STAGE · REPORT
Ballet’s Avant-Garde: Tradition in Motion
From the Ballets Russes to three world premieres in Dresden: how ballet continually transforms its own language.
- FILM · ESSAY
Who guides our gaze? Wim Wenders films Peter Zumthor’s architecture
Wenders’ 3D portrait of Peter Zumthor turns spaces into a cinematic experience. But guided perception is not the same as moving through architecture for ourselves.
- STAGE · PREVIEW
The Vampire Dances: Bodies Between Seduction and Immortality
Two choreographers approach Dracula in different ways: in Munich, Edward Clug explores origins and ritual time, while Krzysztof Pastor turns to love and loss.
- STAGE · REPORT
Ballet without a single accent
Three choreographic perspectives, one ensemble: “Different Grounds” opens a dialogue in Dresden about ballet today.
- FILM · PROFILE
Ulrike Ottinger: Cinema begins long before the camera rolls
Photographs, drawings, fabrics: to mark the release of “Die Blutgräfin” (The Blood Countess), a portrait of Ulrike Ottinger’s filmmaking through the visual arts.
- LITERATURE · BACKGROUND
Another prize for Bazyar: How does literary consensus emerge?
Two juries, the same novel: Bazyar’s awards show how literary judgements take shape and gain traction in the book trade.
- VISUAL ARTS · PREVIEW
What world did the Folkwang’s founder collect?
“Nach Damaskus …” (To Damascus …) examines the Islamic arts in the early Folkwang — and the European gaze that selected them.
- STAGE · REPORT
When Childhood Casts Its Shadows
Christmas classic or uncanny childhood tale? Christian Spuck’s Berlin ‘Nutcracker’ takes Marie’s perception as its starting point.
- STAGE · PREVIEW
Who has the right to speak for the common good?
A finding is not yet a political mandate: Sapir Heller’s Munich premiere of Ibsen leads into a dispute over truth and the common good.
- VISUAL ARTS · PREVIEW
Sophie Calle: Who writes a museum’s memories?
Vanished GDR symbols, an abandoned hotel and a new gift: Sophie Calle encounters a museum’s politics of memory.
- FILM · BACKGROUND
Saving buildings does not necessarily mean preserving a city
Who gets to stay when an old hall lives on? On the Buser film: a look at the contracts behind the conversions.
- EDITORIAL
The Freedom of Uncertainty
On the fragility of artists’ lives, the responsibility of institutions and the courage to relinquish certainties.
Thursday, 29. October
- EDITORIAL
On Art, Thought and the Future of the Digital
Bernd Bartolome works at the intersections of art, philosophy and artificial intelligence. His work combines artistic research with new forms of knowledge, communication and publishing.
- STAGE · PREVIEW
Suzie Miller: How much certainty can the stage bear?
When your own family becomes a test of your convictions: what makes Suzie Miller’s ‘Inter alia’ compelling material for the stage.
- STAGE · REPORT
Off Axis, Into the Pulse: Ballet Between Forsythe and Eyal
Classical technique in a state of emergency: Ballett am Rhein pairs William Forsythe’s “In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated” with Sharon Eyal’s “Strong”.
- VISUAL ARTS · BACKGROUND
Lee Ufan: How an art prize becomes a museum acquisition
Lee Ufan is to receive the Wolfgang Hahn Prize. Behind it lies a model that combines an honour with an acquisition for a collection.
- CULTURAL POLICY · BACKGROUND
Who decides which cultural assets are saved in an emergency?
Priority lists determine what should be salvaged first. How museums, archives and libraries prepare rescue operations – and what remains unresolved.
- VISUAL ARTS · PREVIEW
Exhibiting women artists – and then collecting differently?
“HER STORY” explores the women artists in the Albertina’s collection. Donations and knowledge of the holdings reveal what lasting visibility depends on.
- FILM · BACKGROUND
How much artistic individuality can cinema afford?
Three countries, public funding and personal commitment: what Ottinger’s “The Blood Countess” reveals about the costs of artistic freedom.
- EDITORIAL
Accessible, but not ownerless
Listening to a work, opening an archive, using data: why we should distinguish more carefully between the things we are entitled to ask of art.
Wednesday, 28. October
- EDITORIAL
Against the finished story
Not every gap needs to be filled. On a culture that looks closely without defining people and history once and for all.
- EDITORIAL
An open door is not an invitation
Free admission helps. But socially inclusive cultural policy must also consider time, travel and the feeling of being welcome in a museum.
- EDITORIAL
Being There Is Not Yet Participation
Art depicts people; institutions invite them in. But who sets the rules? A case for participation that goes beyond visibility.
- MUSIC · BACKGROUND
When a concert changes the exhibition
bela is to develop a site-specific performance for Kunsthalle Friart. A concert as an additional event – or as an intervention in the exhibition?
- LITERATURE · PROFILE
Shida Bazyar: The village as contested memory
An invented place, a suppressed past: Shida Bazyar’s novel asks what home conceals and what literature can bring to light.
- VISUAL ARTS · PROFILE
Anouk Lamm Anouk: Expectations of an Artistic Persona
Pared-back painting, queer visibility and the pressure to present an artistic persona: Anouk Lamm Anouk comes to Linz.
- FILM · ESSAY
The stage does not remain. Its traces do.
A film drawing on recordings and images approaches Einar Schleef. Yet theatre also consists of what no archive can capture.
- CULTURAL POLICY · BACKGROUND
Between commissions: who bears the earnings risk of freelance art?
A new KSK pillar is intended to cushion gaps in income. The Bundesrat is calling for it – but specific rules and funding remain undecided.
- VISUAL ARTS · PREVIEW
Showing illness without defining people by it
Forty portraits and conversations bring Koelbl’s project to the Kunstmuseum Bonn — and raise questions about image selection, voice and interpretation.
- ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN · REPORT
Longevity takes more than a durable piece of furniture
An exhibition in Cologne makes the case for repairable, circular design. What matters is not just the material, but also what remains possible after purchase.
- STAGE · PREVIEW
Fallada’s ordinary people and the big question of security
In Fallada’s novel, a young couple fight to avoid sliding into poverty. Luise Voigt stages the novel in Frankfurt as a revue spanning an era of crisis and the present.
- FILM · BACKGROUND
A machine as a friend: Who pays for human connection?
An artificial friend is meant to ease loneliness. Ishiguro’s story asks who orders this intimacy – and who bears its cost.
- STAGE · BACKGROUND
Erfurt’s new theatre leadership: transition is part of the programme
Rota is expected to take over in 2028, Jagels as early as 2026. In between, Theater Erfurt will not simply be keeping things running, but preparing for its future leadership.
- EDITORIAL
The appearance is not the achievement
What remains after a premiere, an award or a temporary exhibition is decided behind the scenes. That is where cultural policy should look more closely.
