Back to Press Release List > 12/12/2007 - Informative Panel Discussions and Exhibits During Berlin in Lights Festival

As part of Carnegie Hall’s first major international festival, Berlin in Lights, Carnegie Hall will offer a wide variety of panel discussions and exhibits, in partnership with The American Academy in Berlin, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the German Consulate General New York, Goethe-Institut New York, and the Center for Architecture. Events include exhibits by emerging and established Berlin-based photographers; an architecture exhibition and symposium on urban design in Berlin and New York; and panel discussions on film, literature, visual art, architecture, and politics, with prominent panelists including Academy-Award winning filmmakers Volker Schlöndorff and Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, award-winning visual artists Tacita Dean and Thomas Demand, former US Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jeffrey Eugenides, and architect Daniel Libeskind.

Panel Discussions at Carnegie Hall:

•   Screening Berlin: Filmmakers’ Views of the City
    In recent years, Berlin has again become a center of attraction for great filmmakers
    of contemporary cinema. On Saturday, November 3 at 2:00 p.m. in Weill Recital Hall,
    stars of today’s film industry, including Academy Award-winning filmmakers Volker
    Schlöndorff (The Tin Drum) and Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (The Lives of Others),
    with Sony Pictures Classics Co-President Michael Barker, present their perspectives on
    Berlin and some of the most famous directors associated with the city, including Fritz
    Lang, Billy Wilder, and more. New Yorker film critic David Denby moderates the panel.

•   Berlin Stories: Literary Journeys through the City
    For centuries, writers and poets have attempted to capture Berlin’s hypnotic spirit in
    words. In this panel on Sunday, November 4 at 2:00 p.m. in Weill Recital Hall, four
    acclaimed novelists, including Pulitzer Prize winner and author of Middlesex Jeffrey
    Eugenides, best-selling German novelist Daniel Kehlmann, Brooklyn-based American
    writer Nicole Krauss, and author of the legendary novel Lenz Peter Schneider, reflect on
    the city’s many faces and its continuing appeal to new generations of authors. Michael
    Naumann moderates.

•   Canvas Berlin: Europe’s New Capital of the Visual Arts
    With its vibrancy and eccentricity, Berlin has become the center of Europe’s
    cutting-edge visual-arts scene. In this panel discussion on Sunday, November 4 at
    4:30 p.m. in Weill Recital Hall, some of today’s most ingenious artists, moderated
    by New York Times art critic Michael Kimmelman, will discuss the German capital as
    a creative breeding ground. Panelists include recent Hugo Boss Prize recipient Tacita
    Dean, whose paintings were recently the subject of an exhibition at the Guggenheim
    Museum; German sculptor and photographer Thomas Demand; Ethiopian-American
    painter and former American Academy in Berlin Fellow Julie Mehretu; and Museum of
    Modern Art Curator of Media Klaus Biesenbach.

•   Berlin Architecture Panel Discussion
    No city in Europe has been so radically transformed in recent years as Berlin. From
    1991 until 2006, the controversial city building director Hans Stimmann guided the
    reconstruction of Berlin, bringing high-profile new architecture to the city, but with strict
    controls. Where will the city move architecturally in the years to come? Barry Bergdoll,
    The Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at MoMA, hosts a panel of
    leading architects in a discussion of Berlin’s remarkable building boom and its future on
    Sunday, November 4 at 7:00 p.m. in Zankel Hall. Panelists include David Chipperfield,
    Louisa Hutton, Jürgen Mayer H., and Jan Kleihues.

•   Political Berlin: Germany and the United States
    Following the 1999 return of the parliament to its traditional seat along the Spree
    River, Berlin has again become the international face of Germany. In a panel discussion
    on Sunday, November 11 at 7:00 p.m. in Weill Recital Hall moderated by former US
    Ambassador to the United Nations Richard C. Holbrooke, eminent public figures and
    experts of transatlantic diplomacy, including former US Secretary of State Henry A.
    Kissinger, German politician Karl-Theodor Freiherr zu Guttenberg, Editor and Publisher
    of Die Zeit Josef Joffe, and former US Ambassador to Germany John C. Kornblum will
    explore Germany’s most important strategic partnership—its relationship with the United
    States.

Berlin-New York Dialogues at the Center for Architecture (with related events):

Two of the world’s most dynamic urban centers, Berlin and New York City, are making radical transformations in their streets and skylines. Berlin–New York Dialogues—on view November 8, 2007, through January 26, 2008—investigates the current conditions, the processes, and the related issues that define urban planning and architecture in these two cities. The exhibition will describe social, political, economic, and cultural processes through current works of architecture and urban planning, highlighting themes such as culture as catalyst, community activism, gentrification, open space, and legislative intervention.

The exhibition and related programming will explore lessons learned through the cross-fertilization of ideas between citizens, policy makers, institutions, and design professionals in Berlin and New York. The exhibition is organized in collaboration with the German Center for Architecture (DAZ) in Berlin and is presented as part of the Center for Architecture’s Global City Dialogues series exploring differences and commonalities between distinctive international cultural centers and New York City.

Related events include:

•   The exhibition symposium “Cultural Kapital / Capital Kultur” on Saturday,
    November 10 as well as a Family Day@the Center on Sunday, November 11 at
    the Center for Architecture. (Center for Architecture, 536 LaGuardia Place)

•   A panel discussion on Monday, November 5 at 6:00 p.m., at the German Consulate
    General in New York titled “Urban Design & Memorials,” examining how Berlin and
    New York address issues of the politics of preservation, the connection between
    collective memory and commemoration, and the challenges of integrating memorials
    into the urban fabric. Panelists include architects Daniel Libeskind and HG Merz; City
    University of New York Professor Lance J. Brown; urban planner Ron Shiffman; and
    Susan Szenasy, Chief Editor of Metropolis magazine. Organized by the Center for
    Architecture and the German Consulate General in New York. (German Consulate
    General in New York, 871 United Nations Plaza; 1st Avenue at East 49th Street)

Berlin Alexanderplatz: Reading in German and English at the Goethe-Institut New York:

On Saturday, November 17 at 2:00 p.m., in conjunction with the city-wide celebration of Berlin and the Fassbinder: Berlin Alexanderplatz exhibition at P.S.1, the Goethe-Institut New York presents selections from Alfred Döblin's Weimar classic, Berlin Alexanderplatz, read by actors, writers, and prominent members of New York's artistic community. In commemoration of the 50th anniversary of his grandfather's death, Alfred Doblin will also make a special guest appearance.

For the exhibition at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, the 13 episodes and epilogue of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s monumental film Berlin Alexanderplatz, based on Döblin’s 1929 novel, will be screened in a continuous loop in 14 separate rooms. These simultaneous screenings will highlight Fassbinder’s impressive visual idiom and his artistically challenging and innovative use of images. The work will also be shown in its entirety on a large screen in the gallery, allowing visitors to view Berlin Alexanderplatz in part or as a whole. The exhibition, organized by Klaus Biesenbach, Chief Curator, Department of Media, will open on October 21, 2007 and runs through January 2008.

Exhibits at the Goethe-Institut New York, German Consulate General, and Carnegie Hall:

•   Talents: New Photography from Berlin
    During Talents, Goethe-Institut New York presents the work of eight up-and-coming
    German photographers in four exhibitions (featuring two at a time) in collaboration with
    C/O Berlin, a cultural forum that focuses on contemporary photography. The exhibitions
    explore aspects of the human presence in the urban environment. The second exhibition,
    featuring the work of Tobias Zielony and Frank Berger, opens Tuesday, November 6, and
    the entire show runs through January 26, 2008.
    Goethe-Institut New York, 1014 Fifth Avenue (at 83rd Street)

•   Berlin Hauptbahnhof 1999–2006 (Berlin Central Station 1999–2006)
    Berlin photographer Roland Horn spent eight years documenting, in images, the
    construction of the new Berlin Hauptbahnhof (Central Station). His photographs depict
    the complex logistical and technical process that went into building Europe’s largest
    railway hub. Beginning Wednesday, November 7 at the German Consulate General in
    New York, a selection of some 20 images—most of them in large format—will offer a
    remarkable view into the construction of this extraordinary structure. The exhibit is on
    display through December 21.
    German Consulate General in New York, 871 United Nations Plaza (1st Avenue at
    East 49th Street)

•   Berlin Today: An Exhibition of Photographs by Erik-Jan Ouwerkerk
    Throughout the Berlin in Lights festival a selection of evocative black-and-white
    photographs on contemporary Berlin will be exhibited in the front-of-house spaces in
    Carnegie Hall’s Zankel Hall. These photographs by Dutch-born photographer Erik-Jan
    Ouwerkerk create a visual essay of the city in a state of change and include images of
    architectural icons as well as lesser known sides of Berlin. The exhibition is curated by
    Andres Lepik, Curator, Department of Architecture and Design, The Museum of Modern
    Art.
    This exhibition is open to all Zankel Hall concert ticket holders.

•   Berlin in Lights: A Special Exhibit
    As part of Berlin in Lights, the Rose Museum at Carnegie Hall will feature an exhibit
    exploring Carnegie Hall’s connection to Berlin, going back to the Hall’s opening week
    Music Festival. Since then, many of the greatest artists associated with Berlin have
    graced the stages of Carnegie Hall: singers from Lille Lehmann to Lotte Lenya, pianist
    Arthur Schnabel, conductors from Bruno Walter to Otto Klemperer, and composer Paul
    Hindemith. Great ensembles like the Staatskapelle Berlin and the Berliner
    Philharmoniker—whose regular visits have become part of Carnegie Hall’s magnificent
    musical tapestry—have also enriched the local cultural landscape for decades. As part
    of this exhibition, two rarely seen manuscripts, Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera and
    Berlin in Lights will be on display by special arrangement with Universal Edition A.G.
    Rose Museum at Carnegie Hall, 154 W. 57th St., 2nd Floor