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The picture shows a work of art by Mary Flanagan depicting floating walls in front of a blue sky over a blue sea.

Mary Flanagan, [borders: chichen itza], 2010

Access Kafka

Exhibition

Kafka comes to Berlin! One hundred years after the death of Franz Kafka, the Jewish Museum Berlin is providing new insights into his work with its exhibition Access Kafka: manuscripts and drawings from Franz Kafka’s estate come together with contemporary art by artists such as Yael Bartana, Maria Eichhorn, Anne Imhof, Martin Kippenberger, Maria Lassnig, Trevor Paglen and Hito Steyerl. The focus is on universal and timeless questions concerning access.

13 Dec 2024 to 4 May 2025

Map with all buildings that belong to the Jewish Museum Berlin. The Old Building is marked in green

Where

Old Building, level 1
Lindenstraße 9–14, 10969 Berlin

In its broadest sense, the term “access” refers to the permission, freedom and ability to enter or leave a place – including an imaginary or virtual space. Questions of admission and affiliation are a recurring motif in Kafka’s literary texts. His unsettling descriptions of disorientation, surveillance and meaningless rules are relevant in a different way today than they were in Kafka’s era: the boundaries between private and public spheres are blurring in our age of widespread digitization, in which social networks, artificial intelligence and algorithms control access anonymously. These circumstances define the conditions for social participation. The contemporary artworks reflect these questions, also with reference to the role of art and artistry itself. The exhibition Access Kafka and accompanying program invite you to follow, participate in and further develop these reflections.

Artists: Cory Arcangel, Yuval Barel, Yael Bartana, Guy Ben-Ner, Marcel Broodthaers, Marcel Duchamp, Maria Eichhorn, Mary Flanagan, Ceal Floyer, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Tehching Hsieh, Anne Imhof, Fatoş İrwen, Uri Katzenstein, Lina Kim, Martin Kippenberger, Maria Lassnig, Michal Naaman, Trevor Paglen, Alona Rodeh, Roee Rosen, Gregor Schneider, Hito Steyerl

Who is Franz Kafka?

Franz Kafka (1883–1924), a prominent modernist author, born in Prague into a German-speaking family of assimilated, liberal Jews

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Exhibition Information at a Glance

  • When 13 Dec 2024 to 4 May 2025
  • Entry Fee 10 €, reduced 4 €
  • Where Old Building, level 1
    Lindenstraße 9–14, 10969 Berlin
    See Location on Map

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