Art Festival Begehungen 2023

Festival location

Display cases, object descriptions, bases, lighting and monitors - everything is still in its place. What is missing are the exhibits. From August 17 to 27, 2023, the Begehungen art festival invites you to rediscover these abandoned rooms in Palais Lichtenstein/Sa., the former Daetz-Centrum.

Festival title

Courthouse, widow's palace, prisoner of war camp, refugee accommodation, apartment building, exhibition site - this incomplete list illustrates the eventful history of the house. With the festival title "etc. pp" is intended to continue this list symbolically and at the same time to refer to the possible future of the object.

Open Call

The title "etc. pp" formulates the thematic context of the festival. This year, artists are invited to submit works on the theme of collecting or to deal with the history of the house. The international call for applications for artists started on April 1st. They could apply until April 23 with existing works or as an artist-in-residence. We received almost 700 applications from over 60 countries. Thanks to everyone who applied for this incredible result!

In addition to the call for entries, we issue specific invitations to selected artists together with our European partner festivals.

We will announce the result of the expert jury at the end of May 2023.

Citizen participation

We want the residents of Lichtenstein to become part of the Begehungen art festival themselves. That is why we encourage everyone to share their very private passion for collecting with us. Do you collect anything yourself? Is that perhaps a passion of yours?Do you associate it with a special story or memories?Have you inherited, left behind or passed on a collection?Show your collection or tell your story about it!The aim is to integrate a selection of these into the festival. It is still unclear in what form this will take place.Send a message by 05/31/23 to one of the following addresses:Email: sammeln@begehungen-festival.de, Telephone: 037204 941400 WhatsApp: 015731076158 Post: Kultur.Palais.Lichtenstein, Schlossallee 2, 09350 Lichtenstein (keyword "collecting")You can also meet the people behind the Begehungen art festival on May 24th. and on 05/31 between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. in the Kultur.Palais.Lichtenstein and present your collection or your story.

In addition, the Begehungen team would like to utilise the festival to discuss the future design of this building with the citizens of Lichtenstein in cooperation with the city administration, to collect suggestions and to prepare it for further use.

More details soon.

European Capital of Culture 2025

The Begehungen art festival is an official part of the programme for the European Capital of Culture 2025 Chemnitz. In a process leading up to the Capital of Culture year, the festival will take place in the cultural region around Chemnitz between 2022 and 2024. In 2022, 12000 people visited the former Erzgebirgsbad (waterpark) in Thalheim for the premiere of this format. Stefan Schmidtke, Programme Director European Capital of Culture Chemnitz 2025 GmbH: "The Begehungen art festival contains everything that is European Capital of Culture Chemnitz 2025 - and has done so for 20 years. "C the unseen", the motto for the programme of the Capital of Culture year, is equally programmatic for the Begehungen. The festival visits unusual places and makes them visible.

It invites international artists and the local neighbourhood to discover these places and enter into conversation with each other. The Begehungen open up spaces and new perspectives. Chemnitz and 38 municipalities are together the Capital of Culture, which is why the Begehungen art festival is now taking place in the region for the second time and is counting on the active participation of the people of Lichtenstein. This is also what the Capital of Culture stands for: getting people to participate, creating access and breaking down barriers. As a project of the European Capital of Culture Chemnitz 2025, the art festival Begehungen will network intensively with international partner festivals in the coming years and through this exchange will further professionalise and profile itself as a European festival. I am looking forward to "etc. pp"."

About us

The festival was established in 2003. In the first edition, twelve vacant shops in the Sonnenberg district of Chemnitz were the setting for a photography exhibition. In the years that followed, the festival moved for several years to the Brühl, a largely deserted shopping boulevard at the time, grew continuously and opened up more and more to other art genres. Since 2010, the art festival has changed its venue every year.

Since then, a former prison, empty cultural centers, abandoned allotment gardens, an old brewery, disused department stores and train stations have been festival locations. In 2022, the inspections took place outside of Chemnitz for the first time.

The festival is largely the result of voluntary work by the members of Begehungen e.V. and many helpers.