Ist Berlin doch noch nicht over?
Çağla Ilk, who curated the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale two years ago, has presented her plans as the new artistic director of the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin. Her program reimagines theater from the perspective of visual art, signaling a major shift in the city's theater landscape. The announcement comes amid broader reforms in Berlin's theater scene, including Matthias Lilienthal's upcoming takeover of the Volksbühne, and was met with both anticipation and anxiety, reminiscent of Chris Dercon's failed tenure at the Volksbühne in 2017.
This matters because Ilk's appointment represents a significant convergence of visual art and theater, challenging traditional boundaries between the two disciplines. Her background as an architect and curator, combined with her insistence on preserving the theater's workshops and her deep familiarity with the Gorki, positions her to navigate the institutional resistance that has thwarted previous reform efforts. The outcome could set a precedent for how German theaters adapt to contemporary artistic practices and address tensions between innovation and tradition.