The NEW NOW festival for Digital Arts will take place for the first time at Zollverein in Essen. For five weeks, the UNESCO World Heritage will transform into a temporary production centre for Digital Arts, connecting the physical with the digital realm. At the interface of art, technology and society, the active design of a NEW NOW will be the festival’s central topic: Using the possibilities of Digital Arts, NEW NOW will explore phenomena of our times and invite artists and the public to imagine and try out new visions of the present.

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Planned originally for last year, the 8th edition of the Socle du Monde Biennale 2021 “Welcome Back My Friends to the Show that Never Ends” is finally opening this summer. The show’s title originally did not refer to a post-pandemic opening of art exhibitions but has since gained another significance. The central focus of this year´s edition is the integration and embedment of the City space. As a result, the three museums, a former high school, a church, parks, public and private buildings are transformed into showplaces for sight specific exhibitions.

Born in New York City on July 17, 1871, Lyonel Feininger (1871-1956) is best known as a representative of Expressionism and as a master of the Bauhaus. Sharp edges, sailboats and church naves are associated with his work. On the occasion of Feininger's 150th birthday, Galerie Parterre Berlin shows a completely different and unknown side of the artist. With more than 100 newspaper prints and drawings, exhibition Lyonel Feininger in Berlin is dedicated for the first time to his almost 30-year stay on the Spree. The focus is on caricatures for relevant satirical magazines, such as Lustige Blätter, Narrenschiff and Ulk. The Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung also regularly printed Feininger's amusing and witty sheets.

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In the summer of 2021, the new Hans Christian Andersen Museum will open in Odense. It will be abrand-new museum, which will rethink how the story of Andersen’s life and workis told. The museum will provide a unique artistic experience, which combines landscape, architecture and modern exhibition design. The new museum is designed by Japanese stararchitect Kengo Kuma and his team, who are also behind the new Olympic stadium in Tokyo.

The international group exhibition RADICAL GAMING presents a selection of artists who investigate the structures, technologies and aesthetics of a global gaming industry. Their works are characterised by a particularly unconventional approach to employing the immersion and interaction inherent to video games, whose common narratives and stereotypes they subversively undermine. This new generation of artists use contemporary game programming technologies to create virtual and augmented reality experiences, immersive environments, interactive stories and multimedia installations.

This summer, two of Warren Neidich´s most important neon installations to date will be on view at Haus der Kunst in Munich and at the Kunstverein Rosa-Luxemburg Platz in Berlin. The artistic work exists at the frontier of art and science. It suggests that we are moving from an information and knowledge-based economy to one that is neural-based. Neidich creates text-based neon installations that examine the effects of neoliberal policies and the use of technology on our brains. He asks important questions such as "Are fake news" and "Google bubbles" tools of governmental and corporate control which operate both in the political and social field and upon our brain’s neural plasticity? How can art use aesthetic methods as a means to create possibilities to counter these regimes of power?

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This summer Museum Tinguely will celebrate its 25th anniversary by weighing anchor and embarking on a very special journey. «Museum Tinguely AHOY!» is devoted to taking the art of Jean Tinguely (1925-1991), one of the greatest and most innovative Swiss artists of the twentieth century, to the people in a specially converted barge. Its travel stops will be places of relevance to Tinguely's artistic career, from Paris to Antwerp and Amsterdam, and from there upriver through the urban centres of the Rhine-Ruhr region and back to Basel.

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For centuries, the city of Bergen has been defined by its relationship to the sea. Crucial to the city's development, the exhibition and research project "The Ocean" uses this multifaceted relationship as the starting point for an international exhibition with 25 artists and an extensive research programme. The artistic works, projects and performances are presented both in the main exhibition at Kunsthall and in the surrounding mountains, harbour, museums and the city itself.

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Artist-photographerJana Hartmann’s exhibition MASTERING THE ELEMENTS examines the intriguinghistory of alchemy. The photographs are captivating for their immense,aesthetic expressiveness. The beauty, colorful splendor, and enigmatic natureof her imagery arouse the curiosity, drawing us in like researchers striving tounderstand their very essence. Hartmann’s photographs are not to be understoodas documentations of scientific working methods, but as visual references ofconcepts of ancient natural philosophy, alchemy, and today’s natural sciences.

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The solo exhibition "The Pure Thesis. Polaroids 1979-2021" at the Alfred Ehrhardt Foundation shows over 100 works by Knut Wolfgang Maron. The Polaroids are dedicated to landscape photography, whereby Maron's view of nature is influenced by ecological issues. Through his range of colors, visitors are transported into another world - nature appears as if illuminated from within. The warm tones and calm compositions are the artist's trademark. Maron was a rebel of the gaze - he decided in 1979 to use Polaroid photography, which requires a subjective interpretation of the viewer.

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This year's exhibition of contemporary art ROHKUNSTBAU 26 presents the works of 22 internationally active artists. The theme "I am Nature - Of Vulnerability. Survival in the risk society." is the common thread running through the exhibited works. How are deep, existential insecurities after and during the Corona pandemic connected with the human understanding of nature, which is shaped by ideas of omnipotence? What are the consequences of this attitude? The artists are addressing current issues of our time.

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In his autobiographical work, gallery owner Jörg Johnen tells his life story, which is closely interwoven with Andy Warhol - with his work, his artistic attitude and his way of life, beyond norms and social expectations. Johnen describes how his life would have been very bleak without art and without Warhol. The author never met the artist in person.

The exhibition is dedicated to the socio-political significance of state borders and uses the three constituent features – national territory, citizenship and state power – to investigate the current and future significance of the state.

The Berlin art collector MANUELA ALEXEJEW talks abouther eventful life and offers a rare insight into the inner sanctuary of the international art world. Following countless one-on-one interviews, tv journalist and writer Thomas Kausch has captured the stories that connect Manuela with her acquisitions. The result is unexpected and refreshing: the biography of a collector as seen through the prism of her collection. Manuela’s fascinating story provides a rare and personal insight into the esoteric world of international art collectors.

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The themes of the exhibition "BEYOND STATES. THE BOUNDARIES OF STATEHOOD" are more relevant than ever. Starting on September 24, the Zeppelin Museum invites visitors to actively participate in the debatorial® on its online platform.