TRAUMA presents CRIT CLUB BERLIN in collaboration with TEXTE ZUR KUNST

The Crit Club returns to Berlin with a new debate: "Should art be competitive?" The debate performance, based on an idea by artist Cem A., will take place on September 10 at St. Elisabeth Church as part of Berlin Art Week. In keeping with the spirit of the game, each showdown will be accompanied by a sport. This time, the Berlin Adler American Football team will bring their skills to the arena.

Crit Club is a performance in which two teams debate a question about art. One side argues for, the other against—until they switch sides at halftime and are forced to defend the very position they previously criticized. In previous editions of Crit Club, there has been boxing, table tennis, taekwondo, and even pole vaulting. The event was created in collaboration with the magazine TEXTE ZUR KUNST on the occasion of its September issue entitled "Sports."

The Berlin line-up includes:
Abbas Zahedi, artist based in Ladbroke Grove, West London
Flaka Haliti, artist and lecturer based between Pristina and Berlin
Kabir Jhala, journalist based between London and Mumbai
Lisa Long, curator and author based in Berlin
Moderated by Kate Brown, art critic and curator based in Berlin

About the Crit Club:
In a field where dissent seems increasingly risky, the Crit Club creates space for critical play. Instead of rehearsing praise or silence, participants are humorously invited to engage in disagreement—as performance, as role-play, as thought experiment. By reframing criticism as contextual performance, Crit Club pushes artists, curators, and writers to take on unfamiliar roles, expand perspectives, and experiment with new forms of criticality. In March 2024, Trauma presented Crit Club for the first time at its founding location in Berlin—accompanied by a Muay Thai boxing match with two-time world champion Stanislav Perzhanovskyi. Since then, the debate performance with Cem A. has traveled to Hong Kong, Amsterdam, Dubai, London, and Zagreb.

About TRAUMA: Founded in
2018, Trauma has earned a reputation for interdisciplinary projects that challenge conventional art formats and promote collaborative work at the intersection of visual art, music, and performance. Trauma actively questions established hierarchies in the art world by bringing subcultural, youth-driven, and often marginalized artistic practices into contexts that would otherwise devalue or exoticize them. After seven years of programming in Heidestraße (Berlin), Trauma has evolved into a nomadic curatorial platform in 2024. Beyond Germany, it continues to develop as an international catalyst and conceptual infrastructure, adapting to its respective location and enabling experimental, often ephemeral encounters. The event is being organized in collaboration with the magazine Texte zur Kunst on the occasion of its September issue No. 139 entitled Sports. The issue is dedicated to a comparative analysis of sport and art, focusing on the different internal logics of both fields, which are based on specific rules and rituals in order to create a distance from normative social orders.

About Cem A.:
Cem A. is an artist with a background in anthropology. He became known through the art meme page @freeze_magazine and his site-specific installations. In his work, he explores themes such as virality and performativity, often in the context of collaborative projects. Selected solo exhibitions, performances, and interventions have taken place at the Kunstsammlung NRW, the Barbican Centre, the ZKM Karlsruhe, the Berlinische Galerie, and the Louisiana Museum, among others. His work has also been featured at documenta fifteen, Istanbul Modern, Mudam Luxembourg, the Vienna Climate Biennale, and the Freiburg Biennale. He has lectured at the Royal College of Art in London, the Head in Geneva, the Kask in Ghent, the Pratt Institute in New York, and the HDK Valand in Gothenburg.

Tickets:
Free admission. Registration is required. Please RSVP at: Berlin Art Week

Graphic: © Crit Club