The Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art (KW) is a contemporary art institution in Berlin’s Mitte District. It is located at - Auguststrasse 69 D-10117 Berlin.

Unlike many international contemporary art institutions, the KW does not have permanent collection. The philosophy is that without a permanent collection, it can be more readily responsive to artistic innovation, and to creative programming.
KW was founded in the early 1990s by Klaus Biesenbach

Klaus Biesenbach

Klaus Biesenbach is the current Director of MoMA PS1 in Queens, New York City and Chief Curator at Large at The Museum of Modern Art, New York City...

 in an old margarine factory. After renovations in Fall 1999, it re-opended with enhanced galleries. The building has five floors and a large courtyard for outdoor projects. The American artist Dan Graham

Dan Graham

Dan Graham , is a conceptual artist now working out of New York City. He is an influential figure in the field of contemporary art, both a practitioner of conceptual art and an art critic and theorist. His art career began in 1964 when he moved to New York and opened the John Daniels Gallery....

 designed its glass cafe, Cafe Bravo.

KW works with other avant-garde venues, such as MoMA PS1 in New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, the Venice Biennale

Venice Biennale

The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...

, and Documenta X. The curator of KW also serves as a curatorial advisor to MoMA PS1.

Exhibitions

Some notable artists and groups who showed there include:
Wolfgang Breuer, the musician Maya Kishi-Anderson, Annette Kelm, MISS READ International publishers and artist/writers, and Ceal Floyer. The American avant-garde artist Barbara Rosenthal

Barbara Rosenthal

Barbara Rosenthal is an American avant-garde artist and writer. Her existential themes have contributed to contemporary art and philosophy...

 performed “Existential Interaction” in its doorway as guerilla theater during the New Berlin Festival, June, 2008. In 2008, the KW mounted "Richard Serra. Thinking on Your Feet for the first time", the first show to only focus on the artist’s filmic work.

Controversy on "Regarding Terror: The RAF Exhibition"

In 2005, an exhibition on the public perception of the terrorist group Red Army Faction

Red Army Faction

The radicalized were, like many in the New Left, influenced by:* Sociological developments, pressure within the educational system in and outside Europe and the U.S...

 (RAF) formed in and through the media caused a major controversy in Germany. Relatives of the terrorists' victims laid out their objections in an open letter to German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder

Gerhard Schröder

Gerhard Fritz Kurt Schröder is a German politician, and was Chancellor of Germany from 1998 to 2005. A member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany , he led a coalition government of the SPD and the Greens. Before becoming a full-time politician, he was a lawyer, and before becoming Chancellor...

. The exhibition was delayed when the political pressure led Biesenbach withdraw the museum's application for €100,000 ($133,000) worth of state funding,

Berlin Biennale

Funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation, KW held the first Berlin Biennale in 1998 to help the city of Berlin become recognized as a contemporary art capital. Klaus Biesenbach took the artistic helm of the first Berlin Biennale in cooperation with Nancy Spector and Hans Ulrich Obrist

Hans Ulrich Obrist

Hans Ulrich Obrist is a contemporary art curator, critic and historian of art. He is currently Co-director of Exhibitions and Programmes and Director of International Projects at the Serpentine Gallery, London...

. For the second Berlin Biennale in 2001, the baton was passed to Saskia Bos, who is in turn followed by Ute Meta Bauer for the 2004 exhibition. The 4th Berlin Biennale in 2006 was curated by Maurizio Cattelan

Maurizio Cattelan

Maurizio Cattelan is an Italian artist based in New York. He is known for his satirical sculptures, particularly La Nona Ora , depicting the Pope John Paul II struck down by a meteorite....

, Massimiliano Gioni and Ali Subotnick. Adam Szymczyk was chosen for the 5th Berlin Biennale in 2008 who then appointed Elena Filipovic as co-curator. The 6th Berlin Biennale in 2010 was curated by Kathrin Rhomberg..
The Biennale is held at various locations in the city, which in the past have included the Neue Nationalgalerie

Neue Nationalgalerie

Neue Nationalgalerie at the Kulturforum is a museum for modern art in Berlin, with its main focus on the early 20th century. It is part of the Nationalgalerie of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin...

.

Artist Residency Programme

Inspired by the artist-in-residence program at MoMA PS1, six artist studios were created for artists’ residencies at KW in 1998. Former residents include Hedi Slimane

Hedi Slimane

Hedi Slimane is a French fashion designer of Tunisian, Italian-Brazilian origins. He studied political sciences , and Art History at the École du Louvre, and was also educated as a tailor...

 (2000-2002), Susan Philipsz

Susan Philipsz

Susan Philipsz is a Scottish artist who won the 2010 Turner Prize. In her youth, she sang with her sisters in a Catholic church choir in Maryhill. She studied at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee from 1989–1993 and then at the University of Ulster in Belfast in 1993-4. She was a...

 (2001), Susan Sontag

Susan Sontag

Susan Sontag was an American author, literary theorist, feminist and political activist whose works include On Photography and Against Interpretation.-Life:...

, Christoph Schlingensief

Christoph Schlingensief

Christoph Maria Schlingensief was a German film and theatre director, actor, artist, and author. Starting as an independent underground filmmaker, Schlingensief later began staging productions for theatres and festivals, which often were accompanied by public controversies...

, Jonathan Meese

Jonathan Meese

Jonathan Meese is a German painter, sculptor, performance artist and installation artist based in Berlin and Hamburg. His works include collages, drawings and writing. He also designs theater sets and wrote and starred in a play, "De Frau: Dr. Poundaddylein - Dr...

, Tobias Rehberger, and Janet Cardiff

Janet Cardiff

Janet Cardiff is a Canadian installation artist. Born in Brussels, Ontario in 1957 Cardiff studied at Queen's University where she graduated in 1980. She also studied at the University of Alberta and graduated in 1983. She works in collaboration with her partner George Bures Miller. Cardiff and...

. Between 2008 and 2009, KW maintained the so-called "Hotel Marienbad", an exhibition space that resembles a hotel suite with two rooms: a bedroom and a secret room concealed behind a floor-to-ceiling mirror. A rotating cast of artists “checked in” and lived in the suite while working on an art project inspired by the space. The first artist to move in was the Turner Prize winner Douglas Gordon

Douglas Gordon

Douglas Gordon is a Scottish artist; he won the Turner Prize in 1996 and the following year he represented Britain at the Venice Biennale...

, who named the space and created a neon Hotel Marienbad sign for the exterior facade. (The name was inspired by two classic films: Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Rainer Werner Maria Fassbinder was a German movie director, screenwriter and actor. He is considered one of the most important representatives of the New German Cinema.He maintained a frenetic pace in film-making...

’s “Berlin Alexanderplatz” and Alain Resnais

Alain Resnais

Alain Resnais is a French film director whose career has extended over more than six decades. After training as a film editor in the mid-1940s, he went on to direct a number of short films which included Nuit et Brouillard , an influential documentary about the Nazi concentration camps.He began...

’ “Last Year at Marienbad”.)