Realty

REALTY is a program hosted by the KW Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin and the Sommerakademie Paul Klee, among others. It is curated by Tirdad Zolghadr and promotes strategies to overcome Contemporary Art’s complicity with gentrification.

Finding a productive response to this complicity has evolved into something of a holy grail within the field. Meeting with boredom and frustration, and little success. Instead of theorizing our failures yet again, REALTY insists on moving from the spleen of melancholia to the vulgarity of suggestions, however embarrassing. It aims to understand how the newfound traction of Contemporary Art can be used to maximum effect, here and now.

Indeed it is the leverage of the art field in particular which is at issue. Thus all the Episodes showcased here correspond to one of two approaches. They either offer an international platform to initiatives tackling gentrification which can benefit from the current purchase of Contemporary Art. Or they seek to regulate the professional field anew, in the hope of something more viable and more promising.

realtynow.online is made possible by a grant from the Berlin Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa.