Johann König

@KoenigGalerie, a dynamic platform and gallery for contemporary art in Berlin and beyond | Berlin and Seoul.

[Johann König @johannkoenig]

In dieser Folge von WAS MIT KUNST spreche ich mit René und Christiane Scharf über Familiengeschichte, die Verantwortung des Sammelns und die Frage, warum Kunst zu Hause und nicht im Depot hängen muss.

🔗 https://t.co/gAOR3L7tz2

[Johann König @johannkoenig]

KÖNIG GALERIE presents BILDER AUS DEM DESSAUER TURM by Karl Horst Hödicke in the Vault of St. Agnes. The exhibition focuses on paintings depicting the building where Hödicke lived and worked for decades.

🔗 https://t.co/gcG69Mpd9F

[Johann König @johannkoenig]

Thank you to everyone behind the first churchability Conference for inviting me to share experiences and discuss how former churches can preserve their history while fostering culture and bringing people together.

© Images by moor Platz

[Johann König @johannkoenig]

KÖNIG GALERIE presents INS BLAU, Rosalie Werthefrongel’s second exhibition with the gallery. Her paintings transform everyday objects into imagined scenes, exploring the boundaries between reality and representation.

KÖNIG GALERIE
13 NOVEMBER 2026 – 21 JANUARY 2027

[Johann König @johannkoenig]

Was ist vom NFT-Hype geblieben, und was hat tatsächlich seinen Platz im Museum gefunden? Ein Rückblick auf das Gespräch mit Alfred Weidinger, Kunsthistoriker und Kurator.

🔗 https://t.co/L08IoTMNmB

[Johann König @johannkoenig]

KÖNIG GALERIE is pleased to present MANIFESTATIONS IN THE LIGHT, Rachel Garrard’s second exhibition with the gallery, in the Nave of St. Agnes. Garrard’s multifaceted practice integrates painting, sculpture, sound, installation, and video.

🔗 https://t.co/kXnvsBRto5

[Johann König @johannkoenig]

In this episode of WAS MIT KUNST, I speak with Monira Al Qadiri about growing up near Kuwait’s refineries, tanker graveyards in South Asia, and her ongoing engagement with oil, mythology and ancient Egypt.

🔗 https://t.co/2LZn6TBYu3

[Johann König @johannkoenig]

This is one of those works from our collection that I can look at again and again.

Elmgreen & Dragset’s REVERSED CRUCIFIX, made in 2021, is a smaller version of a monumental sculpture they originally created in 2016 for THE OTHERS at KÖNIG GALERIE in St. Agnes.

At first, everything seems familiar. There is the cross. There is the figure. But then the image begins to shift. The figure is a contemporary young man, facing the cross rather than the viewer. We see his back, while his wrists and ankle are secured to the cross with cords.

What I find interesting is the way Elmgreen & Dragset take a familiar visual form and make subtle changes to it. By shifting the position of the figure and the way the body relates to the cross, they create a new perspective on an image we may already know.

The location made the original work particularly meaningful. It was created for St. Agnes and shown in the nave as part of THE OTHERS, an exhibition bringing together different artistic perspectives on the body, identity and belief.

A year later, in 2017, I showed the monumental version at Art Cologne. The work was offered for sale and a buyer was found, although the purchase was ultimately not completed.

Years later, Michael and Ingar gave me this smaller version of REVERSED CRUCIFIX for my 40th birthday. The monumental sculpture that had started in St. Agnes and later travelled to Art Cologne had suddenly become a very personal object in our collection.

That personal connection is what makes this work particularly special to me. A work with a long history, in a much smaller form, that eventually found its place in our collection.

FEATURED ARTWORK

ELMGREEN & DRAGSET
REVERSED CRUCIFIX, 2021
3D print, wood, lacquer, waxed cotton cord
34.5 × 21.5 × 4 cm
Edition 1/12 + 3 AP

Part of our collection.

#ElmgreenAndDragset #ArtCollection

[Johann König @johannkoenig]

In diesem Re-Air einer Folge von WAS MIT KUNST spreche ich mit der Architektin Annabelle Selldorf über ihre Arbeit, die Verbindung zur Kunstwelt und ihre architektonische Handschrift. Aktuell sorgen Selldorf und ihr Büro Selldorf Architects mit drei großen Projekten für Aufmerksamkeit: der Wiedereröffnung der erweiterten Frick Collection in New York, dem neuen Gerhard-Richter-Pavillon in Doha und dem Gewinn des Wettbewerbs zur Neugestaltung der Grande Colonnade des Louvre.

Selldorf lebt seit ihrem Studium am Pratt Institute in New York, wo sie mit ihrer feinen und zurückhaltenden architektonischen Handschrift zu Weltruhm gelangte. Zu ihren bekanntesten Projekten gehören wichtige Museums- und Galeriebauten. Im Gespräch erzählt sie, wie die Verbindung zur Kunstwelt ihre Karriere geprägt hat und was sie an New York fasziniert.

🔗 https://t.co/gOzhhIx2dL

#ArtPodcast #WasMitKunst #AnnabelleSelldorf

© Photo by Brigitte Lacombe
Podcast by Art Beats

[Johann König @johannkoenig]

Over the years, I developed a particular passion for the adaptive reuse of churches and monasteries. I am constantly looking for examples that preserve architectural quality while giving these spaces a sustainable future.

The former Dreifaltigkeitskirche is one such example.

Following its deconsecration, the church was transformed into an Aikido dojo. Rather than fundamentally altering the building, the new use embraces many of the qualities that made it a church in the first place: concentration, discipline, community, and contemplation.

Designed by Georg Rasch in the 1960s, the building retains its distinctive architectural character, including its striking roof structure. The project demonstrates that successful church reuse does not always require dramatic transformation. Sometimes a new purpose can emerge naturally from the existing space.

What I find particularly inspiring is that the building remains a place where people come together with intention. The function has changed, but the sense of purpose has not.

I am always interested in learning about churches, monasteries, convents, or other religious buildings that are vacant or searching for a sustainable future. If you know of any such places, I would be grateful if you shared them in the comments or sent me a message.

#ChurchReuse #SacredArchitecture

© Images by Felix Hemmers

[Johann König @johannkoenig]

Thank you to everyone who joined us at Soho House Berlin for the screening of OH BODY OF MINE and CRUDE EYE by Monira Al Qadiri, whose exhibition ARCHAEOLOGY OF BEASTS is currently on view at KÖNIG GALERIE.

A special thank you to Monira for joining me for a live recording of WAS MIT KUNST. It was a pleasure speaking with her about her work and practice.

The full episode will be released on Monday, 5 October. To explore other episodes, click the link below.

🔗 https://t.co/0pm5VBwSZA

#WasMitKunst #MoniraAlQadiri

© Image by KÖNIG GALERIE

[Johann König @johannkoenig]

In dieser Folge von WAS MIT KUNST spreche ich mit Kerstin Gold über die Schnittstelle von Kunstmarkt und Technologie und darüber, wie sich der Kunstmarkt gerade verändert.

Gold ist Strategieberaterin und lehrt an der Freien Universität Berlin zu digitalen Geschäftsmodellen im Kunstmarkt. Wir sprechen darüber, warum Galerien trotz eines seit zehn Jahren stagnierenden Marktes kaum systematisch mit ihren eigenen Kundendaten arbeiten und wie sich ihre Rolle vom Gatekeeper zum Kontext- und Vertrauensstifter verändert.

Außerdem geht es um KI-gestützte Empfehlungssysteme und die neue Sichtbarkeitsfrage, die sie für den Kunstmarkt mit sich bringen könnten, um monothematische Geschäftsmodelle, die Zukunft der Kunstmesse als Vertriebskanal und die wachsende Experience Economy im Ausstellungsbetrieb.

🔗 https://t.co/y5CKFNhZGM

#ArtPodcast #WasMitKunst

Podcast by KÖNIG GALERIE
© Portrait by Anna Wasilewski

[Johann König @johannkoenig]

In this episode of WAS MIT KUNST, I speak with French-Moroccan artist Rebecca Brodskis, whose work is currently on view in THE LAST ONES AWAKE at KÖNIG GALERIE in Berlin.

Born into a family of painters in Morocco and France, Brodskis discusses the origins of her figurative practice and her decision to study sociology alongside painting. She traces her path from Central Saint Martins in London to New York, and finally to Berlin in the mid-2000s, a formative period she now revisits in THE LAST ONES AWAKE.

We talk about her intuitive, un-sketched approach to painting and her reliance on visual rather than photographic memory. Brodskis also reflects on her recurring collaborations with dance and performance, including Aurora’s live performance at the Berlin Art Week opening, as well as raising two children while maintaining an itinerant studio practice across Senegal, the Ivory Coast, Tel Aviv and Marseille. We discuss why the bohemian conditions Berlin was known for in the 2000s continue to shape her sense of chosen family and belonging.

🔗 https://t.co/b51QrtQfhS

#ArtPodcast #RebeccaBrodskis #WasMitKunst

© Photo by AMMA Foundation, courtesy of the artist
© Video by KÖNIG GALERIE

[Johann König @johannkoenig]

When we transformed Heilig Geist in Essen into a space for contemporary art, we deliberately chose not to turn the church into a conventional white cube.

Instead, we wanted to work with what was already there. Churches have an atmosphere that is difficult to reproduce in a newly built exhibition space. Their proportions, light, height, materials and acoustics can remove us, at least temporarily, from everyday life.

In that sense, there is an interesting parallel between church and museum architecture. Both create spaces where particular objects are separated from ordinary life and given special attention. Both use architecture to slow us down, direct our movement and influence the way we look.

For centuries, the Church was also one of the most important patrons of architecture and art, commissioning extraordinary buildings and giving architects opportunities to create spaces that went beyond the purely functional.

Heilig Geist is a wonderful example. Designed by Dominikus and Gottfried Böhm, the church is an extraordinary achievement of post-war architecture. Its long central nave is intersected by a slightly displaced square, while triangular concrete pylons support the tent-like roof. Large glazed sections allow light to enter above the lower brick side aisles.

When we converted the building, the most important decision was not what to add, but what not to destroy. Later interventions were removed to reactivate the original lighting concept. The pews disappeared, while the historic brick floor was preserved. The walls received a reversible white limewash, and new functional elements were kept subordinate to the architecture.

The result isn’t really a museum inside a church. It is still unmistakably a church, but one in which contemporary art can create new experiences.

At a moment when more churches are losing their original use, perhaps we shouldn’t ask only what to do with them, but what we can do because of them.

For me, contemporary art is one very good answer.

#HeiligGeist #ChurchArchitecture

© Image by Felix Hemmers

[Johann König @johannkoenig]

When I say art, I mean the whole.

This sentence by Leo Zogmayer is the title of a reverse glass painting from our collection, and also the title of our presentation at St. Hedwig’s Cathedral during Berlin Art Week.

This is no coincidence.

Zogmayer played a decisive artistic role in the redesign of the cathedral’s interior. The altar, glass elements and other interventions come together with the architecture to create a space that I perceive as a Gesamtkunstwerk, and above all, as a space of experience.

Now we are bringing a work by Zogmayer from our collection back into this very space.

The reverse glass painting is not hanging on the wall. It stands on the floor and leans against it. This allows it to remain present as an independent work of art while entering into a direct dialogue with the space its artist himself helped shape.

But what interests me most is the sentence:

“When I say art, I mean the whole.”

I believe it also says something about the role art can play in life.

Art is not only a painting on a wall or a sculpture on a pedestal. It can connect with architecture, people, places and memories. It can change how we perceive spaces and perhaps even how we perceive our own lives. In this sense, art can become a way of life.

That is precisely why this work feels like such a fitting starting point for our presentation at St. Hedwig.

We are bringing works from our collection into a cathedral that remains an active place of worship. They are not intended to replace the sacred space or simply decorate it. They respond to the architecture, the history and the significance of this place, and of course also to Leo Zogmayer’s artistic intervention.

Perhaps that is exactly what it is about: not art or church, architecture or life, but the whole.

#LeoZogmayer #StHedwig #StHedwigsCathedral #BerlinArtWeek

© Installation views by Roman März

[Johann König @johannkoenig]

Now on view at Soho House Berlin on the occasion of Berlin Art Week 2026, Erwin Wurm’s DREAMERS transforms the hotel’s lobby into a surreal world where the boundaries between the human body and everyday objects begin to blur. Inspired by the concept of DREAMERS, the installation invites visitors to pause, look again, and enter Wurm’s imagined realm of dreams.

Presented in collaboration with Porsche, the project celebrates creative change makers who have the courage to dream, creating a fitting dialogue between Porsche’s legacy of innovation and Wurm’s playful approach to transforming familiar forms.

ERWIN WURM
DREAMERS

SOHO HOUSE, BERLIN, GERMANY
9 – 13 SEPTEMBER 2026

🔗https://t.co/KrKmz9AFvo

#Elsewhere #ErwinWurm #BerlinArtWeek

© Photos by Roman März

[Johann König @johannkoenig]

Opening tonight at KÖNIG GALERIE is ECHOTROPIA by Christian Achenbach in the Nave of St. Agnes. The exhibition marks Achenbach’s third with the gallery and unfolds around GENESIS, a monumental painting created especially for the Nave.

With vivid colors and wavy, rhythmic streaks, Achenbach’s landscapes, still lifes, and interiors weave together diverse pictorial traditions and motifs from his own oeuvre. Shifting perspectives and vibrant color create an abundance of possible viewpoints, inviting us into an unmapped territory beyond fixed points of view.

See you tonight!

CHRISTIAN ACHENBACH
ECHOTROPIA

KÖNIG GALERIE
9 SEPTEMBER – 8 NOVEMBER 2026

BERLIN ART WEEK OPENING
8 SEPTEMBER 2026 | 6 – 9 PM
🔗 https://t.co/6A6YCRS9OX

#KönigExhibition #ChristianAchenbach

Installation views by Roman März © courtesy of the artist and KÖNIG GALERIE

[Johann König @johannkoenig]

In diesem Re-Air einer Folge von WAS MIT KUNST spreche ich mit dem Künstler Christian Achenbach über seine Ausstellung PHENOMETRY in der KÖNIG GALERIE und seine Auseinandersetzung mit natürlichen Elementen, Landschaften und organischen Formen. Anlässlich seiner neuen Ausstellung ECHOTROPIA in der Nave von St. Agnes, die zur Berlin Art Week eröffnet wird, veröffentlichen wir dieses Gespräch erneut.

Achenbach lebt und arbeitet in Berlin. Von 2001 bis 2006 studierte er an der Universität der Künste Berlin bei Burkhardt Held, Daniel Richter und Anselm Reyle. Seine Arbeiten wurden in zahlreichen Einzel- und Gruppenausstellungen in Europa, Asien und Nordamerika gezeigt.

🔗 https://t.co/YYUsNdLzrx

#ArtPodcast #WasMitKunst #ChristianAchenbach

© Portrait by KÖNIG GALERIE
Podcast by Art Beats

[Johann König @johannkoenig]

https://t.co/MRUOPoT2sd

[Johann König @johannkoenig]

How much of a crucifixion do we need to see to recognise it?

Karl Horst Hödicke’s KREUZIGUNG (DETAIL) strips away almost all traditional religious iconography—the cross, the crown of thorns, the face of Christ. Left with only a single, blood-streaked arm reaching upwards, our visual memory instantly fills in the rest.

Hödicke, a key figure in post-war West Berlin’s return to figurative painting, transforms a familiar holy icon into a visceral, bodily experience. Through loose, violent brushwork and raw shades of pink and red, religion becomes literal flesh.

Intriguingly, Hödicke exhibited at New York’s Annina Nosei Gallery in 1981 and 1983—bracketing Jean-Michel Basquiat’s landmark 1982 solo debut at the same gallery. Though their long-term trajectories diverged drastically, this brief overlap captures a moment when post-war Berlin and downtown New York met under one roof. Just two years later, Hödicke painted this stark fragment: showing almost nothing, yet telling the entire story.

During Berlin Art Week, works from our collection will be on view at St. Hedwig Cathedral.

FEATURED ARTWORK

KARL HORST HÖDICKE
KREUZIGUNG (DETAIL), 1985
oil on canvas, framed
190 x 130 cm
unique

#KarlHorstHödicke #ArtCollection