KOENIGmuseum Landshut and 1014 gave guided a tour of Fritz Koenig’s most famous sculpture, the Sphere, at the Word Trade Center/Liberty Park. Curator Dr. Holger A. Klein and KOENIGmuseum Director Dr. Alexandra v. Arnim dove into the life and work of sculptor Fritz Koenig as well as the marking and saving of the Sphere which today is placed at the park right next to Ground Zero.

Thursday, June 27th was the opening night at 1014 Fifth Avenue of the exhibition commemorating the 100th anniversary of sculptor Fritz Koenig, creator of the Sphere which was damaged but not destroyed in the 9/11 attacks. His public sculptures became influential abstract monuments on both sides of the Atlantic. The exhibition is accompanied by public tours of the exhibition at 1014 and at the sculpture at ground zero.

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From Anish Kapoor’s The Bean (Chicago) and Banksy’s Balloon Girl (London), to Alexander Polzin’s Celan (Paris) and Dmitri Vrubel’s Fraternal Kiss (Berlin), public art is everywhere. While deeply integrated into our culture and aesthetics of common spaces, it is also oftentimes the object of controversy. Curator, writer, and politician Adrienne Goehler; composer and musician Sidney Corbett; sculptor, artist, and curator Alexander Polzin; and theater director and performer Mark Jackson joined us to discuss the complexities, limitations, and future of public art in the United States and Germany. Moderated by performer and political affairs officer Omar El-Okdah.

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Freedom of the arts is essential for any democracy, but what role do the arts play when democracies come under pressure? This concert and dance performance by Miro Magloire’s New Chamber Ballet took a leap from mid-century composers into the present. Featuring music by Ursula Mamlok, Tania León, and Alyssa Regent. Moderated by Carl Bettendorf.

Freedom of the arts is essential for any democracy, but what role do the arts play when democracies come under pressure? This performance at the Austrian Cultural Forum New York for Songs from Exile presented works of Ruth Schonthal and Erich Zeisl.

Freedom of the arts is essential for any democracy, but what role do the arts play when democracies come under pressure? This concert performance brought us to the Center for Jewish History, Leo Baeck Institute New York for Songs from Exile with works by Rosy Geiger-Kullmann, Paul Aron, and Ernst Toch - introducing two German-Jewish composers in American exile: Paul Aron and Rosy Geiger-Kullmann, with world premiere performances.

Freedom of the arts is essential for any democracy, but what role do the arts play when democracies come under pressure? Kai Hinrich Müller joined us at Goethe-Institut New York for “Opera and Democracy” to explore the past and present of being forced out of a country or a home and the struggles to continue artistic practices elsewhere. Featuring Brigid Cohen, Associate Professor of Music at New York University; Gracie Golden, Artistic Freedom Initiative’s Senior Officer for Strategic Initiatives & Relocation; and Michael P. Steinberg, professor of history and music, German studies, and author of “The Afterlife of Moses: Exile, Democracy, Renewal”.

On identity, racism, and perceptions of sexuality in Germany, North Africa and the U.S.

German-Moroccan journalist and author Mohamed Amjahid writes about identity, racism, and perceptions of otherness in his books and columns. His latest book “Let’s Talk about Sex, Habibi” takes a look behind closed doors and examines love and desire in Morocco, Germany – and the many (sometimes false) perceptions of it. The American Council on Germany joined 1014 in an intimate discussion with Mohammed exploring these very topics.

Artists Annette Cords (“Delirious Disruptions”) and Villa Albertine Fellow Euridice Zaituna Kala engaged in conversation about how urban spaces, architecture, and culture influence their art during Open House New York and Archtober.

What determines the value of a piece of art? What makes the essential value of art? And what is the difference? Curated by Claudia Mahler, this Salon style evening offered perspectives from various experts in the field of visual art.

Why are people all around the world attracted to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach? To answer this question, we brought together painter and sculptor Alexander Polzin, leading Bach specialist Laurence Dreyfus (Oxford University), distinguished artistic manager Hanna Gaifman (New York), evolutionary biologist Richard O. Prum (Yale University) and the mathematician Michael Harris (Columbia University). 

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We indulged in an evening of rhythmic excellence, as world-renowned percussionist Christian Benning and internationally recognized solo performer Oliver Xu combined precision, passion, and innovation during their concert performance at 1014.

From Bach and Albeniz, to the rhythms of Marino, Cangelosi, Markovich, Glentworth, Reifeneder, Xenakis, and even The Beatles, the repertoire took us on a musical journey.

Berlin-based Ukrainian artist Anton Kats and New York-based musicians Takuya Nakamura, Olivia Lucy Phillip, and Matt Evans completed a short term performance-residency at 1014 in June. The project traced the relationship between transmigration and music through collaborative readings, improvisations, listening sessions, storytelling, and cosmic relationality and invites the audience to unlearn predetermined relational models during a public concert on June 9th.

1014 hosted a discussion and reception on Isabelle Graw’s latest book “On The Benefits of Friendship” that reflects on the purposes and struggles of friendship in a competitive society. By focusing on her own social milieu—the art world—Graw demonstrated how friendships are neither totally disinterested nor reduceable to their use. Featuring Isabelle Graw, Ewa Lajer-Burcharth and Renée Green.

Together with the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, Germany, 1014 and the festival NYCxDESIGN partnered to learn about Iwan Baan’s artistic practice, and how Baan’s works offer a broad panorama of human building that impressively demonstrates the existential importance of architecture and urban design.

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1014 and Contemporary And (C&) hosted an evening of powerful performances and discussions on the occasion of the magazine’s 10th anniversary. Featuring Margaret Morton, Director Creativity and Free Expression, Ford Foundation; Aldeide Delgado, curator and founding director WOPHA: Women Photographers International Archive; Enos Nyamor, art critic, Akademie Schloss Solitude alumna. Moderated by C&’s co-founder Yvette Mutumba. With performances by Mia Harrison and Steven Baboun, founder and creative director of the creative house, Studio Baboun.

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This concert by the Mivos Quartet—one of the leading ensembles of its genre on the international new-music scene—presented recent works by four composers who transcend cultural identity through their personal continual journeys. Saad Haddad and Carl Bettendorf both employ maqāmāt; Eren Gümrükçüoğlu’s piece depicts an imaginary journey from East to West; and composer Sivan Eldar expands the West-Eastern Divan.

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As part of the ongoing exhibition, Elias Wessel: It’s Complicated, Is Possibly Art, we hosted a discussion with Dr. Wendy Suzuki, Professor of Neural Science and Psychology in the Center for Neural Science at New York University; Sue Huang, a new media artist whose work addresses collective experience, and Elias Wessel, whose latest exhibition was on view at 1014. Moderated by the exhibition curator, Alina Girshovich.

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It’s Complicated, Is Possibly Art presented a selection of works by Elias Wessel that invert the digital space, playing with the seemingly non-corporeal, ephemeral, and magical forces tracking and shaping our experience. The exhibition gives visible, audible, and physical form to the orchestration behind the scenes, and the resulting fragmented, incomprehensible nature of language, individual identity, and digital communication. Can our perception of reality and ourselves really be trusted? Curated by Alina Girshovich. Including an audiowork by Natalia Kiës.

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In this panel, featuring Elizabeth Hamilton of Fort Valley State University, Lukas Feireiss of Berlin University of the Arts, and Damon Bradley of DeepSpace Technologies, speakers examined and discussed several works of space art and their import to human society at various times and places. What can these works tell us about those who produced them, their contemporary times, and now our own? Curated and moderated by Nick Travaglini (Liberal Studies - The New School), Co-Chair of New School Policy and Design for Outer Space (NSPDOS) of Students for the Exploration and Development of Space.

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The three installations by Mischa Kuball shown at 1014 illuminated historical research and interventions in built spaces. res.o.nant (2017) provides insights into a work that was exhibited in a more complex way in the new building of the Jewish Museum in Berlin designed by Daniel Liebeskind. In two further installations, Kuball dedicates himself to the Mnemosyne picture atlas (2021) by the art and cultural scientist Aby Warburg.

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Two of Mischa Kuball’s works on display at 1014 were the product of in-depth research into the work of the cultural scholar Aby Warburg, who developed his picture atlas Mnemosyne in the 1920s. This event entailed a conversation between artist Mischa Kuball and curator Norman Kleeblatt about art, memory, and the museum.

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Contemporary art installations evoke memories and create new contexts to buildings, places, and institutions. In view of the worldwide debate about the role of museums and the significance of art in public space, we invited practitioners and academics to discuss the role of temporary art installations in and around museums. With Kate Bonansinga (University of Cincinnati), curator and researcher in the fields of Contemporary art; Shanay Jhaveri, curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; and German Artist Mischa Kuball, whose work res.o.nant at the Jewish Museum Berlin serves as a reference point and context to this discussion. Moderated by curator Niama Safia Sandy.

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1014 invited Jochen Eisenbrand, Chief Curator at the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, to present the museum’s exhibition, “Plastic. Remaking Our World”, during NYCxDESIGN in New York City. The curator discussed the rise and fall of a material that has been elemental to the design world and become a symbol of modernity. Featuring Lola Ben-Alon, Assistant Professor at Columbia GSAPP; and Charlotte McCurdy, an award-winning designer and researcher.

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In this exchange, two New York-based creatives, painter and author, reflected on the concept of the collective self -- the many ways in which human identities are created, disassembled, and reconfigured. Featuring visual artist Cornelia Thomsen and renowned novelist and essayist Siri Hustvedt. Moderated by Eric Banks, Director, New York Institute for the Humanities. This talk was organized in collaboration with Deutsches Haus at NYU and the German Consulate General New York.

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