On the oc­ca­sion of the eighti­eth birth­day of Ben­jamin Katz , the Mu­se­um Lud­wig will pre­sent his se­ries of pho­to­graphs Ber­lin Hav­el­höhe (1960/1961), which has nev­er be­fore been shown in its en­tire­ty. Even be­fore Katz de­vot­ed him­self pro­fes­sio­n­al­ly to pho­tog­ra­phy, he cap­tured his sur­round­in­gs in 1960 and 1961 dur­ing an eigh­teen-month stay at the Hav­el­höhe hos­pi­tal.

The ex­hi­bi­tion Tran­s­cor­po­re­al­i­ties re­flects on the mu­se­um as a perme­able body in which vari­ous bi­o­log­i­cal, so­cial, tech­no­log­i­cal, po­lit­i­cal, and eco­nom­ic sys­tems flow in­to each other. Like all hu­man and non­hu­man en­ti­ties, it en­gages in per­pe­t­u­al metabolic pro­cess­es with its en­vi­ron­ment. Against this back­drop, the tran­si­tio­n­al area of the foy­er turns in­to an ex­hi­bi­tion and per­for­mance space. Here as well as in the col­lec­tion, the artists raise ques­tions about em­bod­i­ment, vis­i­bil­i­ty, and ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty: What is in­scribed in and at­trib­ut­ed to the body? Who is look­ing at whom? Mu­se­ums are so­cial places of ed­u­ca­tion that cre­ate mat­ter and mean­ing. But what are the pos­si­bil­i­ties and lim­its of cor­po­re­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion?