Back to Homepage
MOMENTUM is a non-profit platform for time-based art, active worldwide since 2010, with headquarters in Berlin at the Kunstquartier Bethanien Art Center. MOMENTUM’s program is composed of local and international Exhibitions, Artist and Curator Residencies, Video Art in Public Space Initiatives, complete Archives of the Performance Program and Education Program, and a growing Collection.
Positioned as both a local and global platform, MOMENTUM serves as a bridge joining professional art communities, irrespective of institutional and national borders. Working on a model of international partnerships and cooperations, MOMENTUM supports artists and artistic innovation, bringing to Berlin work by international artists that would not otherwise have been seen there, and ensuring an international audience for exceptional local artists. The key ideas driving MOMENTUM are: Cooperation, Exchange, Education, Innovation, and Inspiration.
MOMENTUM continuously seeks innovative answers to the question ‘What is time-based art?’. By enabling Exhibition, Discussion, Research, Creation, Collection, and Exchange, MOMENTUM is a platform which challenges the notion of time-based art in the context of both historical and technological development. Visual languages continue to evolve in concert with the technologies which drive them, and it is the role of visual artists to push the limits of these languages. As the world speeds up, and time itself seems to flow faster, MOMENTUM provides a program focused on the growing diversity and relevance of time-based practices, exploring how time-based art reflects the digitization of our societies and the resulting cultural change – a question increasingly relevant in our post-pandemic times.
Having been founded by Dr. Rachel Rits-Volloch in Australia as a parallel event to the 17 Biennale of Sydney in May 2010, MOMENTUM moved to Berlin to a permanent space in the iconic Kunstquartier Bethanien Art Center in January 2011. Since its inception, MOMENTUM has presented over 250 exhibitions, education events, and artist residencies worldwide, showing close to 700 artists. MOMENTUM is also proud to feature the works of 56 international artists in the MOMENTUM Collection, in addition to 50 works comprising MOMENTUM’s Performance Archive.
LOCATION
The MOMENTUM gallery in Berlin is located in an extraordinary building dating back to the 1840’s, originally built as a hospital and school for nurses. The Kunstquartier Bethanien has been a dedicated art center over 40 years. We share the Kunstquartier Bethanien with other leading contemporary art initiatives such as Kunstraum Kreuzberg, Tokyo Wondersite, international artist ateliers, art publications, theater companies, a dance company, a music school, a dance performance media library, an outdoor cinema, and a restaurant with a concert program. We coordinate our openings and share guest lists with the other institutions in the building, to generate a dedicated audience. The MOMENTUM gallery within the Kunstquartier Bethanien is an attractive 76 sq meter versatile use space, with 4.5 meter high ceilings. The space adapts well to various types of installation, including both solo and group shows, and is used for exhibitions, artist studios, and as an office for project development. Additional spaces, such as Studio One, Studio Two, and Projectraum, are available to rent within the Kustquartier Bethanien should larger exhibition or event spaces be needed.
DIRECTORS
RACHEL RITS-VOLLOCH, PhD – Founding Director
Dr. Rachel Rits-Volloch is a graduate of Harvard University with a BA degree in Literature and holds an M.Phil and PhD from the University of Cambridge in Film Studies. She wrote her dissertation on visceral spectatorship in contemporary cinema, focusing on the biological basis of embodiment. In 2016-2017, Rachel Rits-Volloch was Visiting Professor at the Bauhaus University, Weimar, lecturing in the MFA program “Public Art and New Artistic Strategies” and the PhD program in Artistic Research. Rachel Rits-Volloch founded MOMENTUM in 2010 in Sydney, Australia, as a parallel event to the 17th Biennale of Sydney. MOMENTUM subsequently moved to Berlin’s iconic Kunstquartier Bethanien Art Center in January 2011, with an on-going program supporting its mission as a non-profit platform for Time-Based Art. As the Founding Director of MOMENTUM, Rachel-Rits Volloch has curated and produced over 250 exhibitions, artist residencies, education events, and a diversity of related programming worldwide, showing close to 700 artists, since MOMENTUM’s inception in May 2010. Born in Riga, USSR, Rachel Rits-Volloch is currently based in Berlin, having previously lived and worked in the US, UK, Amsterdam, Tokyo, Istanbul, and Sydney.
EMILIO RAPANÀ – Co-Director
Emilio Rapanà holds undergraduate and Masters degrees in Architecture from the Politecnico di Milano. After one year in the Erasmus program at the Faculty of Architecture, Oporto University (FAUP), Rapanà moved to Rio de Janeiro to continue his studies at the Federal University, Faculty of Civil Engineering (UFRJ). In Brasil, Rapanà worked at MPU, Metrópolis Projectos Urbános, one of the leading architecture and urban design offices focusing on complex and multi-disciplinary development projects in Rio’s favelas. Rapanà earned his Masters degree in Milan in 2010 with a thesis titled “Project for the growth of a favela. A flexible housing unit in Cidade de Deus, Rio de Janeiro“. Rapanà has worked at MOMENTUM since early 2013, building up his position to Head of Operations & Design, and as Co-Director since 2016. In his 12-year tenure at MOMENTUM he has overseen many international contemporary art projects, working closely with renowed artists, curators, galleries, museums and foundations. Emilio Rapanà lives and works in Berlin.
Cassandra Bird
Director of Roslyn Oxley 9 Gallery, Sydney, Australia. Co-Director of MOMENTUM 2011-2013
Thomas Eller
Artist, Curator, Writer, former Director of Berlin’s Temporare Kunsthalle
David Elliott
Curator, Writer, Art Historian, International Museum Director
Jeni Fulton
Art Basel, Executive Editor, Content & Communications
Erika Hoffmann
Director of Sammlung Hoffmann, Berlin
Mirkku Kullberg
Marketing Director, Kämp Group, former CEO, Artek Design, Finland
Elizabeth Markevitch
Founder and CEO of IkonoTV
Christopher Moore
Founder and Publisher of Randian China
Irina Nikolic de Jacinto
The World Bank, Global Health Specialist
Dov Rubinstein
Former Secretary General, Holocaust Claims Resolution Tribunal, Zurich
Ruth Ur
Yad Vashem, Director for German-speaking Countries
Participating Artists: Lida Abdul, Ai-Hz, Alice Anderson, Sarah Beddington, Stella Brennan, Eric Bridgeman, Yves Caro, Nezaket Ekici, Nathan Garnett, Stephane Graff, Anne Graham, James P Graham, Tim Gruchy, Mark Karasick, Hannu Karjalainen, Kolkoz, Ryoichi Kurokawa, Hye Rim Lee, Tracey Moffat, TV Moore, Tim Noble, Tatsumi Orimoto, portable [k]ommunity, Wang Qingsong, Martin Sexton, Sumugan Sivanesan, Serge Spitzer, Grant Stevens, Mieko Suzuki, Hiroki Tsukuda, Unit 7 (Jason Wing, Ash Wing, Vincent O’Connor, Vaughan O’Connor, Mark Brown, Sophia Kouyoumdjian, Khaled Sabsabi, Alex Kiers), Sue Webster
Symposium Speakers: Thomas Berghuis, Anthony Bond, Geoffrey Cassidy, Oron Catts, John Clark, Philippe Codognet, Rhana Devenport, Stuart Evans, Barbara Flynn, Tim Gruchy, Ian Howard, John Kaldor, Zhang Lansheng, Janet Laurence, Jay Levenson, Tim Marlow, Charles Merewether, Djon Mundine, Mark Nash, James Putnam, Wang Qingsong, Dick Quan, Stanislav Roudavski, Aaron Seeto, Serge Spitzer, Anita Taylor, Pier Luigi Tazzi, Paul Thomas, Vladimir Volloch, Joni Waka, Anna Waldmann, Mark Waugh
MOMENTUM was founded in Sydney in 2010 by Rachel Rits-Volloch to support artists, galleries, and institutions working with time-based practices, and to push through boundaries in professional practice by creating an open forum for exhibition, performance, discussion, and exchange. MOMENTUM Sydney took the form of a 4-day Event comprised of an Exhibition of 6 leading international Galleries; 5 Curated Programs from Japan, England, and Australia; 6 Performances; a Micro-Residency for 6 local artists to create new work; and a Symposium questioning established practices across commercial and non-commercial institutions and the artists, professionals, and collectors who are in a position to reinvent conventional practice for an increasingly digital age. Altogether showcasing 32 international artists alongside 32 of the world’s leading art professionals participating in the Symposium, MOMENTUM Sydney took place concurrently with the opening of the 17th Biennale of Sydney in 2010.
MOMENTUM’s independent publishing branch works hand in hand with our commitment to documentation, archiving, and education. Where funding permits, MOMENTUM produces catalogues for each exhibition, published either in print or as E-catalogues. MOMENTUM also maintains catalogues of our growing Collection and Performance Archive.
Download The MOMENTUM Prospectus >>
MOMENTUM PROGRAM
Committed to supporting artists and artistic innovation, MOMENTUM works with both local and global artists, from students to superstars. With an ongoing exhibition program active both in Berlin and abroad, in collaboration with museums and institutions in our global network, MOMENTUM brings to Berlin work by international artists that would not otherwise have been seen here, and ensures an international audience for exceptional local artists. MOMENTUM plays an active role in the Berlin art community and works with exceptional Berlin-based artists to enable them to make new work for a global audience. MOMENTUM generates exchange, sharing resources, and broadening audiences by providing links and communications between international networks of artists and institutions.
MOMENTUM’s major exhibitions include MOMENTUM Sydney (2010, Sydney Australia); A Wake: Still Lives and Moving Images (2011, MOMENTUM Berlin); (the Works On Paper Performance Series (2013, 2014, 2015, MOMENTUM, Berlin); Thresholds (2013, Collegium Hungaricum, Berlin; 2014, TRAFO Center for Contemporary Art, Szczecin, Poland); The Best of Times, the Worst of Times Revisited (2014, Chronus Art Center, Shanghai, China); PANDAMONIUM: Media Art from Shanghai (2014, MOMENTUM, Berlin); Fragments of Empires (2014-2015, MOMENTUM, Berlin); BALAGAN!!! Contemporary Art from the Former Soviet Union and Other Mythical Places (2015, MOMENTUM / Külhaus, / Stiftung Brandenburger Tor at Max Liebermann Haus, Berlin); Ganz Grosses Kino (2016, Kino Internationale, Berlin); HERO MOTHER: Contemporary Art by Post-Communist Women Rethinking Heroism (2016, MOMENTUM, Berlin); Landscapes of Loss (2017, Ministry of Environment, Berlin); Focus Kazakhstan: Bread & Roses (2018, MOMENTUM, Berlin); Bonum et Malum (2019, Villa Erxleben, Berlin); Shiryaevo Biennale: Central Russian Zen (2019, MOMENTUM, Berlin); Water(Proof) (2019, MOMENTUM, Berlin); COVIDecameron: 19 Artists from the MOMENTUM Collection (2020, MOMENTUM Online; 2021 IkonoTV); mutopia 5 (2020, Australian Embassy, Berlin); Points of Resistance 1-5 (2021, 2022, 2023, Zionskirche, Berlin); ART from ELSEWHERE (2020, Kulturforum, Ansbach, Germany); TAKING FLIGHT: BIrds & Bicycles (2021, MOMENTUM, Berlin); ART from ELSEWHERE: Samarkand (2021, Ruhsor Museum of Contemporary Art, Uzbekistan); STATES of EMERGENCY (2021-22, MOMENTUM, Berlin); ART from ELSEWHERE: Danube Dialogues (2022, European Capital of Culture 2022, Novi Sad, Serbia); ART from ELSEWHERE: Mexico City (2023, Lagos, Mexico City Art Week); amongst many others.
MOMENTUM’s Artist-in-Residence program is designed to further the mission of MOMENTUM as a global platform for time-based art, focused on the growing diversity and relevance of time-based practices. MOMENTUM AiR is dedicated to artistic research into time and temporality in visual language. Open to artists working in a variety of media and practices, MOMENTUM AiR is a process-based residency designed to facilitate research as much as production of new work, while providing a framework for building professional networks and cooperations within Berlin’s thriving art community.
Starting in 2023 MOMENTUM Berlin initiates n Artist Residency Exchange with LAGOS in Mexico City. LAGOS Berlin opens its doors in the MOMENTUM space in the Kunstquartier Bethanien
to act as a studio and exhibition space for Artists-in-Residence from Mexico. And MOMENTUM offers the possibility for Residences at LAGOS, Mexico City.
With this initiative for video art in public space, MOMENTUM turns the museum and gallery inside out by bringing museum quality art onto the streets for all to see. MOMENTUM_InsideOut has taken place across multiple locations in Berlin, as well as internationally, making video art and performance widely accessible to new audiences and building curiosity and public interest in contemporary art.
Featuring: aaajiao, AES+F, Shaarbek Amankul, Inna Artemova, Lutz Becker, Marina Belikova, Eric Bridgeman, Osvaldo Budet, Iván Buenader, Stefano Cagol, Claudia Chaseling, Margret Eicher, Nezaket Ekici, Thomas Eller, Theo Eshetu, Amir Fattal, Doug Fishbone, Máximo González, James P Graham, Mariana Hahn, Zuzanna Janin, Christian Jankowski, Jarik Jongman, Gülsün Karamustafa, Mark Karasick, Hannu Karjalainen, Ola Kolehmainen, David Krippendorff, Janet Laurence, Hye Rim Lee, Gabriele Leidloff, Zhenhua Li, Sarah Lüdemann, Map Office, Shahar Marcus, Milovan Destil Marković, Kate McMillan, David Medalla, Almagul Menlibayeva, Tracey Moffatt, TV Moore, Gulnur Mukazhanova, Christian Niccoli, Kirsten Palz, Fiona Pardington, Anxiong Qiu, Nina E. Schönefeld, Caroline Shepard, Martin Sexton, Sumugan Sivanesan, Saule Suleimenova, David Szauder, Shonah Trescott, Mariana Vassileva, Shingo Yoshida, Vadim Zakharov
The MOMENTUM Collection was established in 2010 through the generosity of a small group of artists who’s work was shown at MOMENTUM’S inaugural event, MOMENTUM Sydney in May 2010. The donations of their works constituted their investment in MOMENTUM’s then-nascent model as a global and mobile platform for showing time- based art. Ten years later, the MOMENTUM Collection has expanded from its original roster of 10 to 56 artists. The Collection represents a cross-section of over 150 outstanding artworks in a diversity of media: video, performance, photography, painting, collage, and text. It ranges from some of the most established to emerging artists representing 28 countries worldwide: Argentina, Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Denmark, Ethiopia, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Kyrgyzstan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Poland, Puerto Rico, Russia, Serbia, Turkey, the UK, and the US. growth of MOMENTUM itself. While we develop and nurture our relationships with these artists, we continually endeavor to bring their work to new audiences worldwide through our online platform, as traveling exhibitions, and through educational initiatives such as the year-long program Time_Art_Impact Dialogues with Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai.
Featuring: Marina Belikova, Richard Berger, Andreas Blank, Adrian Brun, Jacobus Capone, Isaac Chong Wai, Clark Beaumont (Sarah Clark & Nicole Beaumont), Joyce Clay, Alysha Creighton, Paul Darius, Marcus Doering, Catherine Duquette, Nezaket Ekici, Thomas Eller, Daniel Dodd Ellis, Amir Fattal, ƒƒ Collective, Sasha Frolova, Zeno Gries, MNM (Christian Graupner, Mieko Suzuki & Ming Poon), Mariana Hahn, Emi Haryiama, Kate Hers, Jia, Peter Kirn, Olya Kroytor, Szilvia Lednitzky, Ma Li, Sarah Lüdemann, Mad For Real (Cai Yuan & Jian Jun Xi), David Medalla, Yerbossyn Meldibekov, Mariana Moreira, Adam Nankervis, Noise Canteen, Tatsumi Orimoto, Melisa Palacio Lopez, Kirsten Palz, Sasha Pirogova, Qiu Anxiong, Selma Selman, Maximilian Magnus Schmidbauer, Sumugan Sivanesan, Yulia Startsev, Leonid Tishkov, Unit 7, Zhou Xiaohu, ZIP Group
MOMENTUM’s focus on time-based generates an active performance program. MOMENTUM is committed to documenting and archiving all the performances we commission, produce, and host. This archive is made available to the public as an educational resource and on our online platform. The Performance Archive, consisting of nearly 50 artworks to date, also forms a resource for international exhibitions of MOMENTUM’s Collection and Education resources.
MOMENTUM TALKS: Education and discussion are a key aspect of MOMENTUM’s programming. Each Exhibition and Artist Residency at MOMENTUM is accompanied by a discursive program of Artist Talks, Symposia, Panel Discussions, Workshops or Kunst Salon events, which bring selected art professionals together with the general public to discuss the show and its broader implications. All discursive programming is documented on video and, along with the MOMENTUM Collection and Performance Archive, are archived and made available on our website and social media as an educational resource. MOMENTUM is committed to creating an educational exchange between the general public, cultural institutions, and the international art community by actively developing programming which shares its educational resources with the public in Berlin and beyond.
MOMENTUM ist eine Non-Profit-Plattform für zeitbasierte Kunst mit Sitz im Berliner Kunstquartier Bethanien und seit 2010 weltweit aktiv ist. Das Programm von MOMENTUM besteht aus lokalen und internationalen Ausstellungen, Künstler- und Kuratorenresidenzen, Initiativen für Videokunst in öffentlichen Räumen, einem Kunstvermittlungsprogramm und Archiv, sowie einer Sammlung und einer Leistungsarchiv.
Durch die Bereitstellung von Ausstellungen, Diskussionen, Forschung, Produktion, Sammlung und Austausch, ein Schwerpunktthema von MOMENTUM war immer schon die Frage nach dem Verhältnis von zeitbasierter Kunst zur Digitalisierung unserer Gesellschaften. In Zeiten der Pandemie, in denen das globale Rennen um einen Impfstoff mit einem Wettlauf der Innovationen in der digitalen Kommunikationstechnolgie einhergeht, gewinnt diese Frage noch einmal an Relevanz. Visuelle Sprachen entwickeln sich stets im Einklang mit den Technologien, in denen sie sich artikulieren – und es liegt an der bildenden Kunst, die Grenzen dieser Sprachen auszuloten und zu erweitern.
Als eine lokale und globale Plattform positioniert, dient MOMENTUM als Brücke, die Künstler miteinander verbindet, unabhängig von institutionellen und nationalen Grenzen. Mit seinem Modell internationaler Partnerschaften und Kooperationen unterstützt MOMENTUM Künstler indem sie Arbeiten Berliner und internationaler Künstler zeigt, die sonst hier nicht zu sehen wären. Die konzeptuellen Grundpfeiler von MOMENTUM sind: Kooperation, Austausch, Bildung, Innovation und Inspiration. MOMENTUM ist stets auf der Suche nach innovativen Antworten auf die Frage “Was ist zeitbasierte Kunst?”.
Nachdem MOMENTUM im Mai 2010 von Rachel Rits-Volloch in Australien als Parallelveranstaltung zur 17 Biennale von Sydney gegründet worden war, zog MOMENTUM im Januar 2011 nach Berlin, um sich im Kunstquartier Bethanien niederzulassen. Seit seiner Gründung hat MOMENTUM über 200 Ausstellungen, künstlerischer Forschungsresidenzen, Kunstvermittlungsprogrammen und Leistungsprogrammen präsentiert, mit mehre als 600 Künstlern.
Scroll down to see the visual Timeline of MOMENTUM’s activities since 2010:
