Coming this autumn: The 7th Berliner Herbstsalon begins on 2/October 2025 under the title of ЯE:IMAGINE: THE RED HOUSE. Featuring works by over 100 artists and world premieres from Ersan Mondtag, Lola Arias, Hakan Savaş Mican, Adiana Shibli and Oliver Frljić.

On view: 2/October through 30/November 2025 
Opening: 2/October, 17:00, in front of the Maxim Gorki Theatre
Save the date: Press conference and exhibition preview
30/September 2025, 11:00, Maxim Gorki Theatre
(invitations to apply for accreditation will be sent in September)

The 7th Berliner Herbstsalon begins on 2/October 2025 under the title of ЯE:IMAGINE: THE RED HOUSE – INVENTORIES/INTERVENTIONS/INVENTIONS. It will be the Maxim Gorki Theatre’s final salon from Shermin Langhoff, who launched the biennial format in 2013 and is also curating this year's edition.

For the opening of the 2025/26 season, Langhoff’s last as artistic director of the Gorki, both long-time collaborators and new artists have been invited to the Berliner Herbstsalon. They will use old and new works to – in light of the present – reflect on, reclassify and (re)imagine for the future the critical art practices, the struggles and resistances, negotiated over this period. The salon begins with both the opening of the exhibition located throughout the Gorki, in the Palais am Festungsgraben, the Gorki Kiosk and outdoor spaces, as well as the world premiere on the Gorki mainstage of Ersan Mondtag’s production of DAS ROTE HAUS, dedicated to Berlin’s Stresemannstraße 30 and the stories and histories of its inhabitants. This was once the Telefunken company dormitory for women who came from Turkey in the 1960s and 70s to start their new lives in Berlin. A documentary exhibition and a series of related events complement the production.

Selected artworks from the past six editions of the Herbstsalon will be placed in new contexts in the seventh edition and reinforced with new works. The invited artists include Nevin Aladağ, Cana Bilir-Meier, Danica Dakić, Zehra Doğan, Daniel Knorr, Hiwa K, Delaine le Bas, Emine Sevgi Özdamar, Ülkü Süngün, Nasan Tur, Serpil Yeter and Zelimir Zilnik. The salon will also feature world-premiere productions from Lola Arias, Ersan Mondtag, Hakan Savaş Mican, Adania Shibli and Oliver Frljić, as well as many other performances by Nazanin Noori, among other artists, who invite us to take history personally and reflect on our here and now. The programme also includes some works by artists, including Astghik Melkonyan and Atom Egoyan, who were featured in the Gorki’s Re:Imagine 100 + 10 programme this spring, which served as the prologue to the 7th Berliner Herbstsalon. In total, more than 100 works by around 60 artists will be on display in the exhibition alone.

Furthermore, select productions from the Gorki’s repertoire will be shown throughout the salon, incorporating long-term artistic collaborators such as Nurkan Erpulat, Marta Górnicka and Yael Ronen into the programme, as well as productions from the up-and-coming artists of recent years including Lena Brasch, Murat Dikenci and Roza Sarkisian.

Shermin Langhoff, Maxim Gorki Theatre Artistic Director: »Today, the past is being offered to us as the future. Once again, there are walls being built everywhere. Fewer and fewer people dictate the lives of more and more. Even democracies are calling for strong men again. This is what the Gorki Theatre works against. Over the past twelve years, we have never stopped seeking out the near and distant past in order to explore new paths into the truly new and unknown: into the future. That's what Re:imagine is all about. The theatre, the arts in general, are not only places where we can think and dream but also places where we can test out stances that mobilise us, because we know ›how quite soft water will, through its motion over the years, grind strong rocks away.‹«

The complete programme for the 7th Herbstsalon will be released at the beginning of September, the pre-sale for mainstage productions begins on 16/July 2025 at www.gorki.de.

Participating artists
An exhibition with works by Nevin Aladağ, Züli Aladağ, bankleer, Mehtap Baydu, Cana Bilir-Meier, Zühal Bilir-Meier, Luchezar Boyadjiev, Timur Çelik, Danica Dakić, Silvina Der Meguerditchian, Nihan Devecioğlu, Zehra Doğan, Can Dündar, Ahu Dural, Atom Egoyan, Semra Ertan, Harun Farocki, Marta Górnicka, Manaf Halbouni, IMAGINARY COLLECTIVE (initiated by Danica Dakić, Ina Weise, Lea Wittich, Arijit Bhattacharyya), Hiwa K, Gülsün Karamustafa, Miro Kaygalak, Piruza Khalapyan, Daniel Knorr, Davit Kochunts, Omer Krieger, Damian Le Bas, Damian James Le Bas, Delaine Le Bas, Jazgul Madazimova, Maria Paula Maldonado, Khoren Matevosyan, Astghik Melkonyan, Hakan Savaş Mican, Karen Mirzoyan, Ersan Mondtag, Lousineh Navasartian, Emine Sevgi Özdamar, Sasapin Siriwanij, Ülkü Süngün, Filiz Taşkın, Hale Tenger, Nasan Tur, Melek Konukman-Tulgan, Serpil Yeter, Zentrum für Politische Schönheit, Želimir Žilnik as well as theatre and performances by Ersan Mondtag, Lola Arias, Hakan Savaş Mican, Adania Shibli, Oliver Frljić and many more.

The 7th Berliner Herbstsalon is supported with funds from the State of Berlin, Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion.

About the Berliner Herbstsalon
One hundred years after Herwarth Walden’s first and last »Deutscher Herbstsalon« in 1913, Shermin Langhoff began her tenure as artistic director of the Maxim Gorki Theatre in 2013 with the first Berliner Herbstsalon. The salon, curated by Langhoff in collaboration with other co-curators such as, most recently, Vigen Galstyan, Erden Kosova and Ong Ken Seng, combines the visual and performing arts in the format of an interdisciplinary biennial. It examines hegemonic constructions of identity, unity, origins and nation, contrasting them with a historical narrative of the many and the productive conflict of perspectives. Focusing on socio-politically relevant questions, international and Berlin-based artists from a variety of backgrounds come together to interrogate the ruptures and continuities of history and the present in the fragmented centre of the city. Following the first edition in 2013, five more editions of the salon were held over the years 2015 to 2023 with up to 22,000 visitors per festival edition and a total of more than 1,000 participating artists, all of whom invited us to »take history personally.«


Press Contact
Maxim Gorki Theater
Hendrik von Boxberg (7. Berliner Herbstsalon Press Manager)
Elisa Thorwarth (Gorki Presse Officer)
Nino Medas (Gorki Press Manager and Communications Director)
 
Presse 
Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin
Am Festungsgraben 2
10117 Berlin
tel 030  20221 355 / 392
presse@gorki.de
www.gorki.de