From the Coldness of Marble to the Freedom of the Body: “everybody” at Georg Kolbe Museum

Where a sculpture ends and stone is cut, a brand-new inquiry begins: Where do the boundaries of the body start, and where does it belong? One of Berlin’s most established and atmospheric venues, the Georg Kolbe Museum, hosts a provocative new exhibition titled “everybody”, opening with a vernissage on the evening of Friday, August 7, 2026.

Open to visitors between August 8 – November 28, 2026, the exhibition brings together the practices of seven different international artists, re-opening body, identity, and belonging to debate in today’s sociopolitical climate.

A Radical Question at the Heart of Classical Sculpture: Where Does the Body Belong?

The historic villa and studio complex on Sensburger Allee of Georg Kolbe (1877–1947), one of the most important figures of 20th-century German figurative sculpture art, offers a perfect field of contrast and tension for this exhibition today. Positioning a contemporary exhibition focused on queer, disability, post-colonial history, and identity politics right at the heart of the museum’s classical, idealized bronze and marble sculpture tradition is quite a bold institutional move.

Bearing the signature of curator Eva da Silva Antunes Alves, the selection addresses the body not merely as an aesthetic or biological form, but as a living site where social regulations, care relationships, and political resistances intersect.

Seven Different Bodies, Seven Contemporary Expressions

The exhibition brings together seven powerful practices using different mediums and disciplines under the same roof:

• Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz: The Swiss-German artist duo focuses on queer/trans bodies, the visualization of desire, and staging politics through film, video, and performance.

• EVA & ADELE: Defining themselves as “artists of the future,” the German performance duo transforms the body into a timeless art object through their consistent and performative identity practices pursued uninterruptedly for years.

• Carolyn Lazard: The American artist investigates the tense relationship the body establishes with institutional and political mechanisms through concepts of disability, labor, chronic illness, and care.

• Monilola Olayemi Ilupeju: Produces interdisciplinary works (writing, performance, and visual art) on the racialized body experience, modes of expression in sound, language, and movement.

• Janne Kummer: The Berlin-based artist questions the body-object relationship through spatial arrangements and sculptures transforming everyday objects.

• Luís Lázaro Matos: The Portuguese artist traces the marks of the colonial past on body politics through performance, sound, and object installations.

• Lauryn Youden: The Canadian artist explores the transformative power of being a community on the body through slow knitting, sound, collective production, and healing practices.

Berlin Art Week and Live Performance Festival

The “everybody” exhibition will not be limited only to works in the museum halls. On September 13, 2026, a special Performance Festival bearing the same name as the exhibition will be organized as part of Berlin Art Week. Set to expand the conceptual ground of the exhibition through live performances, this event will transform the museum’s sculpture garden and historic workshop areas into a stage for living bodies.

In the shadow of those sculptural figures of Georg Kolbe dating from the early 20th century, watching contemporary queer and political body narratives is a deeply powerful experience. If you are in Berlin in August, be sure to note down the vernissage on the evening of August 7 or the Berlin Art Week performance festival on September 13 in your calendar. Walking through the museum’s pine-covered garden is a wonderful Westend getaway all on its own!