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Center for Contemporary Art

ZAK – Center for Contemporary Art is a generous exhibition space for contemporary art and a meeting place for people of all cultures. It opened in May 2018 in the premises of the Old Barracks and it is establishing itself as a center for modern and contemporary art. In changing exhibitions, not only positions of contemporary art, but also the confrontation with the past and the location of the Citadel itself can be admired and discussed on 2,500 square meters of exhibition space. The museum’s educational and supporting programs, which are tailored to individual exhibitions, round off your visit to the ZAK.

Artistic Director: Dr. Ralf F. Hartmann (email)

Applications

We are not accepting applications from artists until further notice. We assume no liability for unsolicited applications, portfolios and catalogs and cannot return them for capacity reasons. Likewise, we cannot guarantee a response for this reason.

Current Exhibitions at the ZAK Center for Contemporary Art

Vera Mercer – Life in Focus

Solo exhibition

20.09.2025 – 11.1.2026

ZAK – Center for Contemporary Art

The Swiss-American photographer Vera Mercer (*1936 in Berlin) first trained as a dancer before turning to the photography of objects, portraits, and neo-baroque still lifes. Living first in Paris and later also in Omaha, Nebraska, Vera Mercer immersed herself in the vibrant art scenes of numerous metropolises from the late 1950s onward. Since then, she has worked continuously with photography and quickly became especially well known as a portraitist. She produced photo reportages on Marcel Duchamp, Samuel Beckett, and Andy Warhol, as well as documentary photographs for Eva Aeppli, Jean Tinguely, and Niki de Saint Phalle, which earned her great recognition. From the 1990s, she also created wall murals for restaurants and hotels in Tokyo, Seoul, and Hong Kong. Together with her second husband, Mark Mercer (1943–2019), she has also been active as a restaurateur. Her detailed still lifes masterfully stage natural and cultural objects and are exhibited internationally.

You can find more information about the exhibition here.

Pfelder – gold

Solo exhibition

20.1.2025 – 11.1.2026

ZAK – Center for Contemporary Art

“gold” is a participatory spatial installation for the ZAK that invites visitors to quite literally get a hand—or foot—involved and start kicking as part of an artistic work. Like in a sports hall, the gallery space becomes a site of athletic-intellectual exercise, regardless of whether pillars are in the way or goals can only be hit from the flanks. Accompanied by site-specific advertising boards, ZAK transforms into the venue of multilayered competitions, set within the field of tension between public funding and artistic precarity.


Picture: Pfelder, Pause © Pfelder

You can find more information about the exhibition here.

Simone Zaugg – Urban Reflections

Solo exhibition

20.9.2025 – 11.1.2026

ZAK Center for Contemporary Art

For her exhibition at ZAK, Simone Zaugg has created an artistic parcours made up of various stations or environments that point to often overlooked urban situations. Ranging from the nearly impassable road construction site to the nocturnal retreat of the homeless, and even to the guerrilla furnishing of cozy situations in public space, the artist reflects on the more or less absurd appropriations of urban space by different communities.


Picture: Simone Zaugg, Backgrounds © Simone Zaugg

You can find more information about the exhibition here.

Sharon Kivland – The Bloody Radicals

Solo exhibition

20.9.2025–11.1.2026

ZAK – Center for Contemporary Art, Project Space

In 120 drawings, the English artist Sharon Kivland unfolds subtle facets of revolutionary innovations and deciphers their often radical brutality. The shift from the Gregorian calendar to a new rational division of time in the wake of the French Revolution was one such radical caesura, which had far-reaching social consequences for many people. Analogies to current political upheavals and their consequences are clearly implied.


Picture: Sharon Kivland, Fructidor © Sharon Kivland

You can find more information about the exhibition here.