The Stiftung Arp e.V., in collaboration with the Department of Art History and the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, invites you to a conference on Hans Arp and Contemporary Art.

Registration required. To register, please email: arp2025arp.info

Hans Arp was a leading member of the twentieth-century avant-garde. By forging international connections, he shaped pivotal movements, including Zurich Dada and Paris Surrealism. Then, as a key figure in postwar European modernism, he achieved global recognition for his extensive multimedia oeuvre. Arp’s formal language and processoriented thinking resonate on today’s global art scene. Contemporary artists across continents experiment with his fluid forms and the role of chance in the artistic process, likewise abandoning media hierarchies. This conference, therefore, explores how contemporary artists adapt and reinterpret Arp‘s artistic principles in various cultural contexts.

PROGRAM

Thursday, October 30, 2025
Moderator: Loretta Würtenberger, The Institute for Artists & Estates, Berlin

7:00 p.m.
Welcome
Engelbert Büning, President, Stiftung Arp e.V., Berlin/Rolandswerth

7:15 p.m.
Evening Lecture
Anti-Classical Biomorphism in Contemporary Art
Pepe Karmel, Profesor, Department of Art History and Institute of Fine Arts, New York University

Friday, October 31, 2025
Moderator: Loretta Würtenberger

9:30 a.m.
Shape / Duration and Serendipity (Virtual Presentation)
Kenjiro Okazaki, Artist and Critic, Tokyo

10:00 a.m.
Apropos Arp
Jonathan Wood, Independent curator and writer, Leeds

10:30 a.m.
Homage: Ian Hamilton Finlay and Hans Arp
Daniel Sturgis, Professor of Painting, University of the Arts London

11:00 a.m.
Coffee Break

11:30 a.m.
Poetics of Resistance: Jean Arp’s Elemental Alphabet and Its Resonances in Serial Works by Herman de Vries, Jenny Holzer, Fischli & Weiss, Simon Fujiwara
Julia Wallner, Director, Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck

12:00 p.m.
The Touch of Form: Hans Arp’s Organic Language and Its Legacy in Contemporary Sculpture
Louise Bjeldbak Henriksen, Independent curator, Den Haag

12:30 p.m.
Lunch

2:00 p.m.
Weathered Surfaces and Resin: from Arp’s Shellac to Paper
Josie Lee, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, Korean American Scholarship Foundation NERC

2:30 p.m.
Access All Areas
Arturo Herrera, Artist, Berlin

3:00 p.m. Coffee Break

3:30 p.m.
Embodying Abstraction: An Interdisciplinary Investigation of Arp’s Biomorphic Forms and Their Legacy
Francesca Bacci, Independent researcher and curator

4:00 p.m.
Closing Remarks

Contact
Stiftung Arp e.V., Berlin/Rolandswerth, Wiebestraße 42, 10553 Berlin, www.stiftungarp.de