Photography exhibition not to miss in Berlin: Katharina Sieverding

For Berlin Art Week 2026, Galerie Thomas Schulte presents the exhibition Life–Death by Katharina Sieverding. At the heart of the exhibition is the 1969 film of the same name, complemented by large-format film stills and previously unpublished Polaroids.

Katharina Sieverding: Life–Death: 11 September – 7 November 2026, Galerie Thomas Schulte, Charlottenstrasse 24, 10117 Berlin – @galeriethomasschulte

About the work in the exhibition… 

* Created in what was then West Berlin, the work reflects an early period in the artist’s practice and a historical moment of concentrated political, social, and aesthetic upheaval. 

* The work was shot on 16mm film during a period that was both personally and artistically formative. At the time, Sieverding was a student of Joseph Beuys at the Staatliche Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, witnessing firsthand the institutional conflicts and protest movements of the late 1960s. 

* The film eschews linear narrative in favor of a sequence of portraits, body studies, and metaphorical settings. Alongside Othello, Stephan Runge, and Holger Bombusch, Sieverding appears in shifting roles and stagings. Heavy makeup, androgynous costumes, gestures of transformation, and deliberately artificial poses produce a state of perpetual transition. 

* Music plays a central role. After an early version of the film with spoken text failed to convince, Life–Death received a new soundtrack in 1972 from the musicians of Kraftwerk, who would soon gain international recognition. 

* At Galerie Thomas Schulte, against the backdrop of today’s visual cultures, Life–Death feels remarkably present. In an era of relentless image production, algorithmic visibility, and AI-generated imagery, the questions Sieverding posed as early as 1969 feel more urgent than ever: How are identities shaped through images? How do technical media transform our perception? And how can meaning be kept open rather than fixed?

Photo credits: Katharina Sieverding, Life–Death, 1969, photo: Klaus Mettig | Katharina Sieverding, Life–Death IV-1-6, 1969–1995, photo: Klaus Mettig | Katharina Sieverding, Life–Death, 1969, installation view, K21 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen Düsseldorf, 2024, photo: Klaus Mettig