The Open Space Festival of Free Arts will make possible the exchange of cultural experience connecting Artists and the Berlin Public between America, Asia and Europe.

It is dedicated to a highly subversive kind of Art, which reclaims it's space out of a spirit one hardly finds in any of the ongoing venues of this season.

The title, Open Space, allows the artists to work with it, ignore it, but they can't miss it. The exhibition is not conceptual, although we will present some conceptual pieces, but rather a manifestation of commitment:

Artists present artists means, we built and act individually in the collective and we will try, to do what we yet can't do. For the time of the showing we create the open space as a grand academy of autodidacts (very skilled ones.)

In this alchemical process we will hopefully manage once again to melt down the golden cages of genres and themes and generate out of creative processes works of new consequence, free of categories.

Our purpose is to show the absolute contemporary, to break out of the freezer which cultural institutions, even with the best intentions, continually force artists into by establishing juries, castings, setting deadlines, calls for proposals, the wanting of money, setting the artist into a sozio-cultural, political, sexual or other context and worse.

It is a simple call to the stage, to all who are ready to exhibit, perform, play, to fly, to fall, to explode, to speak up, about what has to be spoken out.

Although we try to avoid to show a retrospective, we can't neglect, that this show only comes together, because of having had an art space called Open Space in the Adalbertstr.32 for almost a decade, our international network is still intact and even growing and we can finally fully trust in the cultural bridges which have been built by many visionary relationships, through which a true collaborative spirit is possible.

What is to be seen: (selection)

We proudly present the Academia Non Grata , which will come from Estonia with a large Exhibition of paintings and Installations, which will be seen in Berlin for the first time. We are full of excitement to see their usually furious spectacle on opening night.

The open space will show the latest production of their residential group Performunion, which had already great international success this year. They will perform in Alfreso Sciutos "Atmende Räume / Breathing Spaces", a magnificent pneumatic Multiinstallation, and show their actual Theater production "buffo", a play after Majakowskis famous "Mysterium Buffo", directed by Philip Brehse .

On stage as well, will be two more brand-new Theater productions: " Glück ist nicht immer lustig " written by R. W. Fassbinder , directed by Arno Kleinofen with his company ensemble öffentliche leben / Agentur Mir and a young production from Vienna :"Die Nächste" written by Athur Schnitzler with Amalia Altenburg and the Ensemble a-d-a-p-t-e-r

The card blanche was taken by the newcomers at the festival: the audiovisual project "Geisterobservatorium" by Knut Remond (switzerland) invites performers and audience to the Celebration of an Ghostly Hour, Impressions from China we will get from the Film and photographical works of the office of unusal commitments ( Antje Budde, Toronto) and Martin Kulina (Brandenburg): "Qindao: open spaces_layered cultures" ,

Two familiar festivals will sent their artist: The simultaneous International Congress of Performing Arts (Innsbruck) of the virtual Gallery SoToDo and the sitespecific Raciborski Festival Sztuki / Body. Spirit. Urban. (21-23 Sebtember 2007) will show the video installation " Atown which doesn`t exist anymore and the Performance. "Live Act for Germany" by Mateusz Iwulski and Klaudyna Malinowska (Poland)

New York meets Berlin: Karin Kaper Film will feature the great Film of the legendary Living Theatre, "The Brig" by Jonas Mekas (1964) and their own Production "Resist" . This long night of Films is dedicated to the Living Theatre, which actually has opend a new theater on Clinton St., New York City in this season. So we will also see most actual video works of the Living Theatre`s Production " The Brig 2007" .

enough enough! more we can't tell. So come and see!

Michael Steger, Artistic Director