Matters of Perspective
Exhibition
July 11 – August 30, 2026
Opening: July 10, 2026, 6 pm

Press preview: July 10, 2026, 11 am
Please register by email at presse@ngbk.de

With Matters of Perspective, nGbK presents an exhibition that brings together artistic practice, inclusion, and social participation. The show features works by approximately 20 artists who work in supportive studio environments in Berlin and London and who, due to discriminatory structures, rarely have access to studios, exhibition spaces, or professional networks.

Most of the participating artists work at the Kunstwerkstatt Kreuzberg, which was founded in 1993 as an initiative of the assisted living program Lebenshilfe Berlin (Life Aid Berlin). These works are complemented by collaborations with Berlin’s Thikwa Workshop for Theater and Dance, where 42 artists work full-time to develop their artistic skills, as well as with the organization Outward, which operates in ten London boroughs to support people in leading dignified and meaningful lives. All of the artists are considered intellectually disabled – a reductionist label that quickly proves entirely inadequate for describing their individual personalities and lives. It fails to capture their individual abilities, limitations, illnesses, life paths, and strategies for dealing with life’s challenges. Accordingly, the exhibition views inclusion not as an add-on, but as a fundamental approach. It was developed, curated, and designed in collaboration with the artists.

Matters of Perspective presents individual and collaborative practices, each rooted in different material approaches, life experiences, and thematic interests. For example, Lutz Marx exhibits his ongoing comic series Biography. Hildegard Wittur builds on her well-known performance Hilde häkelt! (Hilde Crochets!) and presents new textile works. Sarah Al-Darwich responds directly to the exhibition space with tape art. Tim Hartung’s multimedia approach combines collages with films he produces using his cell phone.

Sensitivity to materials and social relationships are at the heart of other artistic practices featured in the exhibition: Veronika Patzuda’s collage elements are often created during her breaks at the mosaic workshop where she works and are subsequently given as gifts within her social circle when they are not used in an artwork. Poojas’s sculptural works, shaped by transnational and religious connections between India and Sudan, invite physical interaction and subvert conventions of untouchability within the exhibition context. Wolfgang Fassott’s portraits, which mostly depict him and his immediate surroundings, emphasize intimacy and closeness and are shaped by his experiences of personal relationships. Angelika Bartel, Heidi Fassott, Harald Krainer, and Herbert Meyer present paintings, collages, sculptures, drawings, and multimedia works. Collaborative installations also form a significant part of the exhibition; for example, House of Cards addresses the murder of people with disabilities under National Socialism.

Visitors are invited to participate in the exhibition, for example by adding their own objects or comments to the sculpture Was mich hindert (What Holds Me Back). Every Tuesday, a donation-based soup kitchen is open to all visitors. Every Thursday, the artists from the art workshop continue their artistic practice in the exhibition, where visitors can create monotypes and screen prints together with them. At a photo exchange wall, visitors are invited to swap homemade and on-site printed photos for an image of their choice. In this way, a collective search for traces around Alexanderplatz emerges, one that is constantly changing.

The participating artists are looking forward to engaging with the audience. For it is not the “special” inclusive program that allows them to participate in a venue like nGbK, but rather the idea of working from within an established art institution to reposition themselves as artists with disabilities from a self-determined perspective. In this way, the exhibition not only carries political weight but also holds transformative potential for the institution itself.

A publication accompanies the exhibition, providing detailed profiles of the artists and reflecting on the mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion in the context of accessibility.

Artists: Angelika Bartel, Sarah Al-Darwich, Heidi Fassott, Wolfgang Fassott, Tim Hartung, Harald Krainer, Lutz Marx, Herbert Meyer, Veronika Patzuda, Pooja, Hildegard Wittur

Additional contributors: Nak Nak Kunstlabor (Cologne), GoGo Trash (Berlin), Kirsten Schmidt and The Outward Group (London), Thikwa Werkstatt für Theater und Kunst (Berlin), Sandra Merseburger, Gabor Scenzi, Li Li Dinh Thi, Maren Haupt

nGbK work group: Sylvie Lazzarini, David Permantier, Susann Pönisch, Gisa Schraml and Eva Zulauf