The Original Theatre of the City of New York
Simon Lässig and Vera Lutz with Ali Hussein Al-Adawy, Elene Chantladze, Jason Dodge, Jeff Wall Production, Anna Mendelssohn, Jennifer Scappettone, Maria Toumazou
19 Sept–1 Nov 2026
The Original Theatre of the City of New York is the second institutional duo exhibition by Simon Lässig and Vera Lutz, and a continuation of their joint exhibition Romeo’s Eyes at Kunstverein München in 2025.
In The Original Theatre of the City of New York, Lässig and Lutz present their own works while simultaneously expanding the exhibition with contributions by film theorist Ali Hussein Al-Adawy, painter and author Elene Chantladze, artist Jason Dodge, Jeff Wall Production1, poet Anna Mendelssohn, poet and translator Jennifer Scappettone, and artist Maria Toumazou.
If an exhibition can be conceived of as a text, then in The Original Theatre of the City of New York, Lässig and Lutz reverse the relationship between a text and its footnotes. The seemingly supplementary annotations take over the main text, the margins reveal themselves to be constitutive of the centre, while ideas of a stable relationship between subject and language, as well as of a singular self, are called into question.
1 “Jeff Wall Production is the brand initiated by Pierre Bal-Blanc, which takes the title of his first project dedicated to the artist with the same name in 1988. The subject of this seminal project has since become the trademark of the following projects.”
The exhibition is supported by:
Image: Maria Toumazou, hours of the day, pocket film, 2025
Programme
Fri, 18 Sept 2026, 7 pm
Opening, Speeches: Roland Meder (Cultural Mayor, City of Freiburg), Heinrich Dietz (Kunstverein Freiburg)
Sat, 19 Sept 2026, 5 pm
Talk with Pierre Bal-Blanc on Jeff Wall Production
Sun, 27 Sept 2026, 4 pm
Guided Tour with Dieu Thanh Hoang
Tue, 29 Sept 2026, 7:30 pm
Junge Kunstfreund*innen
Film Screening
The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi, and 27 Years Without Images
(Éric Baudelaire, 2011)
Meeting Point: Kommunales Kino
Wed, 30 Sept 2026, 7 pm
Curator’s Tour with Heinrich Dietz
Fri, 9 Sept 2026, 5 pm
Junge Kunstfreund*innen
Guided Tour and Get-together
Sun, 11 Oct 2026, 4 pm
Guided Tour with Dieu Thanh Hoang
Sun, 18 Oct 2026, 2–4 pm
Children’s Workshop
6–12 years (registration required)
Wed, 21 Oct 2026, 7 pm
Curator’s Tour with Johanna Thorell
Date TBD:
Event with the Film Curator Ali Hussein Al-Adawy