PHOTOS: Inside Hamburger Bahnhof’s Landmark Inaugural Gala

Last year, the Observer spoke to the directors involved with Hamburger Bahnhof Sam Bardaouil again Until Fellrath about the evolution of the museum and their shared vision of preservation. “If there’s one goal, it’s this: the museum must be restless enough to stay alive to the present and committed enough to grow a lasting resonance without it,” said Bardaouil. That indifference was most evident in the center’s first-ever exhibition, “A Night in Berlin”—a glorious celebration of not only the museum’s 30th anniversary but also its ongoing renewal and the people who have allowed it to flourish.

Among them were Cate Blanchetthis relationship with Hamburger Bahnhof begins in 2016, when the German singer Julian RosefeldtMulti-channel video installation The manifesto first appeared in Europe in a museum. Musicians were seen in the crowd Ayoung Kim, Monica Bonvicini, Olaf Nicolai, Petrit Halilaj, Alvaro Urbano, Mark Bradford, Jeremy Shaw, Elmgreen & Dragset, Anne Imhof again Wolfgang Tillmansand art world insiders Kira Streletsky, Carla Sozzani, Tricia Tuttle, Max Hetzler, Dahoe Ku, Frances Morris again Glenn D. Lowry. There were also film lovers and stage talent Edward Berger, Matt Dillon, Nina Hoss, Thomas Ostermeier again Wim Wenders; collectors Christine Würfel-Stauss again Monica Burger; a businessman Roshni Nadar Malhotra; and well-dressed Yana Peelpresident of Arts, Culture & Heritage at CHANEL.

In the museum’s historic hall of 2,500 square meters, entertainers played games and installations, from the intervention of Elmgreen & Dragset that turned the bemused gala players into clueless performers in a multi-act opera to a specific neon installation by Bonvicini and a piano solo by a renowned pianist. Alice Sara Ott. When the crowd fell silent, Bardaouil and Fellrath introduced four new awards to be presented to the museum every year: The Hamburger Bahnhof Studio Award, presented this year Abdulhamid Kircher, Monilola Olayemi Ilupeju again Jonas Rossmeißl; the Hamburger Bahnhof Lifetime Achievement Award, given to the Beirut-born, London-based artist Mona Hatoum; the Hamburger Bahnhof Global Arts Patronage Award, given by an enthusiast and collector Kiran Nadar; and the Hamburger Bahnhof Changemaker Award, presented to the Delfina Foundation.

Blanchett, on stage, called the Hamburger Bahnhof and spaces like it irreplaceable—and rightly so. “Today is, in part, a celebration of the space where the cacophony of creativity can exist… where different voices, ideas and energies come together,” she said. “For that conflict, that deep human impulse, to be shared with strangers, spaces like the Hamburger Bahnhof are essential. They are electric spaces that invite us to open up together and, for a moment, surrender to the ideas of others.”

Sam Bardaouil, Cate Blanchett and Ignatius Martin Upton

Kira Streletsky

Sam Bardaouil, Ayoung Kim, Katharina Grosse and Till Fellrath

Frances Morris

UFO 360, Anne Imhof and Till Fellrath

Christine Würfel-Stauss and Wolfgang Tillmans

Petrit Halilaj and Alvaro Urbano

Lina Lapelytė, Till Fellrath and Yana Peel.

Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset

Roshni Nadar Malhotra.

Monica Burger

Monica Bonvicini, Carla Sozzani and Sara Maino Sozzani

Matt Dillon and Kira Streletzki

Olaf Nicolai and Max Hetzler

Monica Bonvicini and Andreas Brandstrom

Sam Bardaouil, Frances Morris, Mona Hatoum and Till Fellrath

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