Hamburger Bahnhof presents Saâdane Afif’s first institutional solo exhibition in Berlin. The exhibition provides an insight into the work of the interdisciplinary artist, who has been living in the city since 2003, and includes the multi-part work The fountain archives. This artistic archival project is dedicated to one of the most prominent chapters in 20th-century art history: Marcel Duchamp’s legendary readymade Fountain from 1917. Afif’s installation was generously donated to the museum by Paul Maenz in 2023. The exhibition shows it alongside other works that question the very institution of the art museum and the principle of authorship with profound insight and subtle humour.

Sâadane Afif’s installations, objects, concerts and performances draw on works or events from art history, music and poetry. His long-term project The Fountain Archives began in 2008 with a collection of magazines, catalogues and books and ended in 2022 with the publication of an index to Marcel Duchamp’s (1887–1968) famous readymade of a urinal, which sparked debate in 1917 about what art is. The exhibition also features the 2010 work L’humour noir, a replica of the Centre Pompidou cultural centre in Paris, which raises questions about the history of the avant-garde in the 20th century and its legacy in the museum. Also on display are the new works The old, which refers to Jeff Koons’ 1980s series The new, and Live, a continuously updated presentation featuring posters announcing cultural events, which the artist adopts as readymades and transforms into a narrative about the city’s vibrant cultural life.

Afif invited artists, writers and musicians to create poetic texts, or ‘lyrics,’ to accompany all of the works presented in the exhibition. These lyrics are displayed on the walls and also serve as the starting point for performances that will be presented at various locations across Berlin between May and July 2026.