Utopie Kulturforum

The Neue Nationalgalerie’s large, open glazed hall is a space that offers special opportunities for time-based action and performance art. As part of Utopie Kulturforum, a reenactment of an artistic intervention exploring the architecture of the museum will take place:

In his performance Skin and Bones, the Spanish artist Alvaro Urbano (b. 1983) sets in motion the defining elements of the Neue Nationalgalerie. First performed in 2014, shortly before the museum was closed for renovation, the work anticipated the dismantling that was to take place during the refurbishment. Urbano reproduced characteristic elements of the upper hall: the steel pillars that support the roof, the cloakrooms in brown oak, and the two marble-clad elements that have no structural function but serve to cover the ventilation shafts. In the new iteration of the performance, these copied characteristic elements of the Neue Nationalgalerie will be found walking throughout the entire area of the Kulturforum — an allegory for the interplay between the freshly refurbished Mies building and the surrounding grounds, which continue to bring forth visionary power through ongoing development, currently with the erection of a new structure for the Nationalgalerie.

As part of Utopie Kulturforum the performance Skin and Bones by Alvaro Urbano will take place on 12.09. at the Neue Nationalgalerie (terrace and surroundings). Free of charge