Exhibition of the Villa Aurora Art-Fellows 2022

For the first time, Villa Aurora & Thomas Mann House presents an exhibition of its art fellows at Haus Kunst Mitte - House for Contemporary Art in Berlin-Mitte: Ali El-Darsa, Silke Fischer, Anna Haifisch, Antje Majewski, Lukas Schilling, Sonya Schönberger, Siska and Clemens von Wedemeyer.

The exhibition is curated by Curator: Dr. Anna Havemann, Artistic Director at Haus Kunst Mitte.

The exhibition Rooms with a View brings artistic ideas and inspirations from Los Angeles to Berlin and provides an insight into the projects created by the fellowship holders of Villa Aurora. The eight artists lived in Los Angeles for three months in 2022, developing new artistic approaches and perspectives. Through the works on display in the exhibition, the fellows engage in a dialogue with each other and present their different artistic perspectives on California – from billboard advertising to the Hollywood film industry, from reflections on the Pacific Ocean to the earthquake risk in the metropolis of Los Angeles. At the same time, the artists also raise questions about topics such as social change, migration, and exile. For the exhibition, the artists further developed their artistic approaches in Germany, thus deepening their cross-Atlantic perspective.

The Villa Aurora is an artist residency in Los Angeles. For more than 25 years, it has been a place of inspiration and artistic creation for fellows in the fields of film, literature, composition, and visual arts. Villa Aurora's mission is to promote cultural exchange between Germany and the United States and to contribute to an open society by engaging with issues such as migration and exile. This thematic focus originates in the history of the house: During the Nazi era, the writer Lion Feuchtwanger and the salonist Marta Feuchtwanger found refuge in the United States. In 1943, they purchased the Villa Aurora in Los Angeles, which soon became a meeting place for German speaking exiles: their guests and visitors included Bertolt Brecht, Thomas Mann or Alma Mahler-Werfel.

Today, Villa Aurora continues to be a meeting place for artists and a center of creative exchange. The focus is on the fellows, their artistic concepts and their engagement with the dynamic U.S. culture and the unique Californian landscape.

Upcoming events:

November 26, 2023, 4 - 6 p.m. (CET)
Finissage & Artist Talk with the artists Antje Majewski and Sonya Schönberger

On 26 November at 16:00 p.m. (MEZ) we invite you to an artist talk as part of the exhibition "Rooms with a view". The two artists Antje Majewski and Sonya Schönberger will talk with the curator Anna Havemann about the works shown in the exhibition and about their time in Los Angeles.

Admission for the closing event is free.

Place:

Haus Kunst Mitte

House for Contemporary Art

Heidestraße 54
10557 Berlin

Learn more about Haus Kunst Mitte here.