Julia Stoschek Foundation debuts in Los Angeles

Julia Stoschek Foundation, the well-known Berlin-based nonprofit dedicated to moving image art, is preparing its debut presentation in the United States. JSF, which manages one of the largest collections of time-based art in the world, announced the show What a Wonderful World: An Audiovisual Poem at the Variety Arts Theater in downtown Los Angeles. Edited by the renowned German curator Udo Kittelmann, the exhibition juxtaposes masterpieces of contemporary video works in the Foundation's collection with seminal creations dating from the birth of cinema.

The iconic Venetian-style theater will host this sprawling media presentation on its six floors, where visitors will have the opportunity to trace the evolution of cinematic storytelling over the course of 120 years, uncovering how modes of seeing and being seen continue to pulsate with vigor, wane, and revive with the passage of time. The historical nature of this project expands on the Foundation's interest in contemporary video art practices, by extending its cinematic lineage to the pioneering forays by earlier creators.

An extensive roster of artists will be presented at the show, including such names as: Marina Abramović, Cyprien Gaillard, Dara Birnbaum, Arthur Jafa, Lu Yang, Maya Deren, Precious Okoyomon and Jacolby Satterwhite. Their works will be placed alongside cinematic milestones by the likes of Walt Disney, Georges Meliès, Luis Buñuel, Alice Guy-Blaché and Winsor McCay.

Variety Arts Theater has been connected to the world of politics and performance ever since its construction in 1923. Initially, it served as the headquarters of the Friday Morning Club, a women's clubhouse established by the suffragist and abolitionist Caroline Severance in 1891. Several years later, the club leased the theater to the Figueroa Playhouse, which staged regular performances by Laurel and Hardy, Clark Gable, Buster Keaton and other Hollywood luminaries. Afterwards, the theater housed a museum of vaudeville memorabilia, an event space for weddings and punk concerts, until finally falling into neglect and disrepair during the preceding two decades.

Udo Kittelmann is a curator and museum director. Under his directorship, the Museum of Modern Art (MMK) in Frankfurt am Main and the Nationalgalerie in Berlin were transformed into leading art institutions. Kittelmann has also had a hand in organizing exhibitions that explore issues of identity, political and social commentary, globalization and the intersection between art and technology. He curated exhibitions held at the German and Russian Pavilions at the Venice Biennale in 2001 and 2013, respectively. For his work on the German Pavilion, he received the Golden Lion with Gregor Schneider. His curatorial career is likewise intertwined with Fondazione Prada, where he collaborated on several exhibitions in Milan, Venice and Shanghai.

Julia Stoschek Foundation was established in 2017 as a nonprofit arts organization which promotes the presentation, propagation, scholarship, advancement and conservation of time-based art. It maintains two publicly-accessible exhibition spaces in Berlin and Düsseldorf, where it holds regular presentations of pioneering media art and moving image art. The Foundation manages the Julia Stoschek Collection (est. 2002), one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of time-based art in the world.

The exhibition What a Wonderful World: An Audiovisual Poem opens on February 6, 2026 and will run through March 20. Sign up for updates and early access to the exhibition here. For more information about the activities of Julia Stoschek Foundation, visit their site.