![KOO JEONG A, Land of Ouss [Kangse], 2025–2026, installation view](https://stjzqvtsmrdsnxjcolnn.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/martin-and-lewis/registry/exhibitions/bb7bdf792abf4ca196932a48ad1f5c09-w768.webp)
iKW Institute for Contemporary ArtMitte
KOO JEONG A: OUSSSEAN
KOO JEONG A's first major solo show in Germany: multisensory environments of light, scent, sound and temperature, reconfigured for KW's architecture.
More in Berlin
The walls shake in this one. KW lists shaking walls and magnet towers among the key works in KOO JEONG A's return to Berlin, where they lived through the 1990s and 2000s.
The title comes from Ousss, a territory KOO invented: a kingdom the mind can sense before the eye does, made of light, colour, vibration and smell. This is their first major solo show in Germany, over three floors. On the first, one work is a smell: brown coal, which KOO remembers from Mitte's streets in the late 1990s, when the neighbourhood still heated with it. In the attic, you stand on a carpet covering the whole room, the lights go off, and stars appear on paintings that looked almost empty a moment before.
Tickets are on site only, cashless: €10, €6 reduced, free under 19. On Free Thursdays (12 November, 10 December, 7 January) entry is free from 16:00 to 21:00. English tours run at 16:00 on 7 and 12 November, 5 December and 9 January.
Look for
ITS SOUL (2012/2015/2026), the shaking walls
Look at the centre of the first floor: two plain white temporary gallery walls that, up close, are vibrating and trembling as if alive.
SEVEN STARS (2020/2025/2026)
In the carpeted attic, pale paintings fill with glowing five-pointed stars each time the lights go off, timed to a soundscape by the musician Koreless.
ROSSOR (2026), the pink floor
A fluorescent pink floor on the second floor, intense enough that your eyes start adding a green shimmer after a while, hung with eight new pencil drawings.
ARU&EA (2003–2026)
Look out of the second-floor windows to the back of KW for scattered rhinestones that only glitter when the light and where you stand line up.
ABSTRACT HOUSE #10 (1999)
An early sculpture made of small toys KOO collected on their travels, recalling the flea-market toys Felix Gonzalez-Torres photographed and sent to friends.
Good for
- Evening Visits
- Going Solo
- Out-Of-Town Guests
With kids
Free for under-19s. On Wednesdays, KW runs Kids' Wednesday, 16:00 to 18:00, a creative space for families with children aged 0 to 6.
Also at KW Institute for Contemporary Art
On now nearby
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Image credits
9
- KOO JEONG A: OUSSSEANCourtesy of KW Institute for Contemporary Art
- Carola Lampe: Tell Me What To See© Carola Lampe
- The Anonymous Project by Lee Shulman: No Place Like Home© Lee Shulman / The Anonymous Project. Courtesy of Galerie Clémentine de la Féronnière
- Lauren Greenfield: Social Studies© Lauren Greenfield / Fahey Klein Gallery
- KW Institute for Contemporary ArtJörg Zägel / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Fotografiska BerlinShaysd / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Bode-MuseumThomas Wolf / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- PergamonmuseumHerrAdams / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Alte NationalgalerieManfred Brückels / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain