Our Story
MOMENTUM is a non-profit platform for time-based art, active worldwide since 2010, with headquarters in Berlin at the Kunstquartier Bethanien. MOMENTUM’s program is composed of local and international Exhibitions, Artist and Curator Residencies, Video Art in Public Space Initiatives, a Performance Archive, an Education Archive, and a growing Collection.
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.
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 here, 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?’.
Having been founded in Australia by Dr. Rachel Rits-Volloch as a parallel event to the 17 Biennale of Sydney in May 2010, MOMENTUM moved to Berlin to a permanent space in the thriving Art Center Kunstquartier Bethanien in January 2011. Since its inception, MOMENTUM has presented over 70 Exhibitions showing the work of over 500 artists, as well as nearly 60 Education Events filmed and archived on the website, in addition to an ongoing program of Artistic Research Residencies which has so far hosted over 30 international artists. MOMENTUM is also proud to feature the works of 69 artists in the MOMENTUM Performance Archive and Collection.
MOMENTUM Exhibitions:
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); 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), amongst many others.
MOMENTUM AiR:
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. The MOMENTUM Residency 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. MOMENTUM AiR hosts up to 3 artists or curators at a time for a suggested period of 3 months.
MOMENTUM InsideOut:
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.
MOMENTUM Collection:
The MOMENTUM Collection was established in 2010 through the generosity of a small group of artists who’s work was shown at 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. Six years later, the MOMENTUM Collection has expanded from its original roster of 10 to 34 artists. The Collection represents a cross-section of over 120 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 22 countries worldwide: Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Denmark, Ethiopia, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, Korea, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Poland, Puerto Rico, Russia, Turkey, the UK, and the US. The growth of the Collection reflects the 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 initiative Time_Art_Impact Dialogues with Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai.
MOMENTUM Performance Archive:
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 also forms a resource for international exhibitions of MOMENTUM's Collection and Education resources.
MOMENTUM Education:
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 Press:
MOMENTUM's independent publishing branch works hand in hand with our commitment to documentation, archiving, and education. MOMENTUM produces catalogues for each exhibition, published either in print or as E-catalogs. MOMENTUM also maintains catalogues of our growing Collection and Performance Archive.
