Culture

Gegenüber

Gegenüber connects perspectives from across (German:gegenüber) the Atlantic, in Germany and North America. Our editorial team and contributors from Canada, Cuba, Mexico, Germany, and the United States offer balanced perspectives with multimedia pieces on societal issues, art, business, and science.Gegenüber tackles transatlantic topics, regional quirks, and common denominators, offering a political interpretation of culture and a cultural interpretation of politics.

News from culture and society

Trust and Society
The Invisible Institution

How did trust come to loom so large in the self-definition of contemporary societies? Philosopher Martin Hartmann presents some possible explanations.

A desk with a lamp, metronome and book on it and an empty chair inside a glass box: this is a memorial on Frankfurt’s Goethe University campus to the philosopher Theodor W. Adorno.

Frankfurt School
Conceiving a New Society

The Institute for Social Research (IfS), known internationally as the “Frankfurt School”, was founded a hundred years ago. Its most seminal thinkers still inform our conception of society today. What may well be their most important legacy is their contention that a different world is possible.

Editorial commentary
An AI as a columnist?

How powerful is ChatGPT? To find out, we let the AI tool create a series of articles for the language column "Sprechstunde". Do these texts meet the demands of our column? And what do we as editors have to do to ensure that the six column contributions offered by the AI end up meeting our expectations? Here we document and comment on our experiment from an editorial perspective.

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Arts

“Petalclouds” by Art+Com at Changi Airport in Singapore.

Design Agency Art+Com
Art and communication blended into one

David vs. Goliath – who invented Google Earth? Thanks to a Netflix series, the design agency Art + Com is now known to a wider audience, but Art + Com has been regularly winning prizes for 30 years.

Retrospective
The Year in Music: 2025

Our musical reviews take stock of the most exciting developments in German music over the past year. What trends shaped electronic music and pop, what happened in jazz, and what were the highlights in classical, new, and early music? We look at what was important—and what stood out in particular.

Networks of the Black Atlantic: Heritage, Knowledge and Solidarity

The symposium is part of a broader movement addressing the urgent need to decolonize institutions and build a more inclusive cultural sector. By bringing together actors from diverse backgrounds, we hope to contribute to strengthening connections between communities and promoting a better understanding of the challenges associated with Black Atlantic heritage, while stimulating concrete initiatives for a future in which art and culture play a central role in social transformation.

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Popcast

Current Music From Germany
Popcast #2/2026

Every month, Gegenüber dives into the freshest sounds emerging from Germany’s studios and clubs — from Kiel in the far north to Weilheim down south. In collaboration with Zündfunk, Bavarian Radio’s culture and music magazine, we spotlight the most exciting new music from off‑the‑radar bands. Our February issue features Die Sterne, Extrawelt, and more. Tune in.

Media & Technology

When AI creates a painting, is it truly art? And who ultimately owns the copyright?

Artificial intelligence and art
When is art really art?

Artificial intelligence making art puts a new spin on age-old questions, such as if AI art can really be called art, and who gets credit as the artist – the machine, the programmer or the person whose data was fed into the algorithm.

“There was nothing to say”
Bertolt Brecht and the radio

When radio in Germany celebrates its one hundredth anniversary, there is one guest who definitely deserves to be invited to the party: Bertolt Brecht. Andreas Ströhl has written about the role that Brecht played in shaping radio as we know it today.

The Montreal Collective behind "Robot in Residence"
The Weight of a Society of Spectacle

In this interview, learn about the resident leader’s individual work in relation to NAO as well as their collective experience during the residency.

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Literature

European literature in Montreal
Lisez l'Europe

"The meeting place for European books" consists of a group of European cultural institutions whose mission is to present in Montreal a contemporary perspective on European literature.

Focus
Current Literature in Germany

The literary scene in Germany is as diverse and colorful as the population. Be it groups of young writers or magazines in very small, self-published editions, find out more about exciting things from the German literary scene!

Focus
Literature for Young Readers

Reading promotes development, expands both language vocabulary and horizons, and stimulates the imagination. It helps to understand others and discover new worlds. On this page, we present great new publications for young readers from the German-speaking world.

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The German Language Column
Word!

The rules of the language, the origin of new vocabulary and the latest, most important changes in the use of the language - these and other exciting topics are the focus of our column about the German language.

Word! The Language Column
Digital Polyglots

Word! The Language Column
AI translations: Multilingualism wins

Cinema

Streaming
Goethe on Demand

On Goethe on Demand, the streaming platform of the Goethe-Institut, we present a variety of online film programs, film festivals and film series that can be streamed from home.

Montreal
Achtung Film!

Achtung Film!, the Goethe-Institut’s monthly film series, will be presented at the beginning of every month at the Cinématèque Québécoise. The focus remains contemporary German cinema in all its diversity and richness, from fiction to documentaries, established to emerging filmmakers, from entertaining to challenging films.

Dennis Vetter is film critic, moderator and program curator, as well as co-founder of “Woche der Kritik” in Berlin, the Berlin Critics’ Week. Since 2020 he is the artistic director and part of the curatorial team. Mathieu Li-Goyette is a Montreal-based film critic, film curator and editor-in-chief of online film-magazine Panorama-cinéma.

Interview with Dennis Vetter and Mathieu Li-Goyette
The Joys Of Debating

Dennis Vetter, co-founder of Woche der Kritik in Berlin and Montreal-based film critic, film curator and editor-in-chief of online film-magazine "Panorama-cinéma" Mathieu Li-Goyette in conversation about how debates can be an essential part of film programming.

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Cultural Promotion

Residency programs

A residence abroad gives artists the opportunity to gather valuable experience and inspiration for the further development of their work.

Translation funding

Our translation funding programme supports the publication of books by German authors in another language.

Film archive

Our film archive contains more than 650 films in DVD format (PAL). Films can be rented for non commercial screenings by educational institutions, such as schools, colleges and universities, as well as cultural institutions, such as art galleries, cinematheques and museums.

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Culture

Gegenüber

News from culture and society

Trust and Society The Invisible Institution

Frankfurt School Conceiving a New Society

Editorial commentary An AI as a columnist?

Arts

Design Agency Art+Com Art and communication blended into one

Retrospective The Year in Music: 2025

Networks of the Black Atlantic: Heritage, Knowledge and Solidarity

Popcast

Current Music From Germany Popcast #2/2026

Media & Technology

Artificial intelligence and art When is art really art?

“There was nothing to say” Bertolt Brecht and the radio

The Montreal Collective behind "Robot in Residence" The Weight of a Society of Spectacle