Kestner Gesellschaft (Kestner Society) is an art institution in Hanover, Germany, founded in 1916 to promote the arts. It is one of the largest art associations (German: Kunstvereine) in Germany. The halls of the Goseriedebad, which once housed an indoor swimming pool, regularly host extensive group and solo exhibitions.
History
In 1916, with World War I raging, the Kestner Gesellschaft was founded by citizens of Hanover, among them Hermann Bahlsen, August Madsack and Fritz Beindorff. The new association was named after the Hanover diplomat, art historian, and archaeologist August Kestner (1777–1853). The aim of founding a second art association in Hanover was to keep pace with modernism and bring the international avant-garde to Hanover. Soon after it was founded, artists such as Wassily Kadinsky, El Lissitzky, Käthe Kollwitz, and Kurt Schwitters exhibited at the Kestner Gesellschaft.
Under the first director, Paul Küppers, and his wife Sophie Küppers, the Kestner Gesellschaft established itself as a place for cultural exchange. The first exhibition representing the starting point for this concept in 1916 consisted of Max Liebermann's new work. Küppers stated at the time that the aim was to present artworks which "do not simply function as a relaxing amusement but instead have a stimulating and – if necessary – provocative and scandalizing effect".
, who served as director from 1923 to 1924, also maintained close contacts with the international art scene. The influential exhibition organizer redefined the modern understanding of spaces for art and developed new ideas in art education.
In 1936, the Kestner Gesellschaft was closed under pressure from Hitler's Nazism. The director at the time, Justus Bier, a Jew, presented artists Erich Heckel, Gerhard Marcks, Christian Rohlfs and August Macke – artists who were featured in the notorious Degenerate Art exhibition in Munich only one year later. Soon after the war, the new Kestner Gesellschaft was opened in the Warmbüchenstraße in 1948 by Hanoverians with service to the public in mind, among them Hermann Bahlsen, Wilhelm Stichweh, Bernhard Sprengel and Günther Beindorff, the director of the company Pelikan.
After World War II, took over the management in 1947, followed by . The new beginning for the Kestner Gesellschaft was faced with major challenges: The former building at Königstrasse 8 was destroyed, and a new location had to be found. In 1948 it was possible to reopen the institution in the exhibition spaces on Warmbüchenstrasse. In the decades that followed, the Kestner Gesellschaft grew into an international player in the art scene, thanks to pioneering exhibitions with Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Sol LeWitt, Eva Hesse, Andy Warhol, and Rebecca Horn, among others. In the early 1970s the facilities were greatly expanded, but soon even these exhibition spaces could no longer accommodate the art. Most importantly, the building lacked the technical infrastructure for modern exhibitions.
In 1997 the Kestner Gesellschaft moved to a Jugendstil building in the center of Hanover which once housed an indoor swimming pool. The building was renovated according to a design by the Hanover architects Koch Panse and was awarded the BDA Prize that same year. Since then, the Kestner Gesellschaft has shown contemporary art across over 1,300 square meters of exhibition space. There have been solo exhibitions by Thomas Ruff, Santiago Sierra, Barbara Kruger, Alex Katz, Karla Black, and Goshka Macuga, among others.
The institution hit the headlines in 2005 when it exhibited a mud house created by Spanish artist Santiago Sierra featuring a room with mud floor reminiscent of Hanover's Maschsee, an artificial lake.
From 2015 to 2019, institution’s first female director was Christina Végh. In 2017, the third edition of the collection , which is collectively curated on a five-year-cycle by the three institutions Kestner Gesellschaft, Kunstverein Hannover and Sprengel Museum Hannover, took place. Under the heading "Produktion. Made in Germany Three", the exhibition focused on the conditions of producing art in Germany. As participating institutions, the Schauspiel Hannover, the Festival Theaterformen, and the KunstFestSpiele are contributing the first time.
Adam Budak was the director of the Kestner Gesellschaft between 2020 and 2024. Budak developed a wide-ranging curatorial program centered on themes such as tenderness, anabasis, and amor mundi. His approach emphasized critical intimacy, performative space, and interdisciplinary dialogue. Highlights of his tenure include solo exhibitions by Roger Hiorns, Rebecca Ackroyd, Samson Young, Klára Hosnedlová, and Paula Rego, as well as group shows exploring the legacy of El Lissitzky and the political thought of Hannah Arendt. His directorship marked a period of increased international visibility for the institution, including its first participation in the Venice Biennale and the receipt of the Dezeen Architecture Award for the Paula Rego exhibition. Locally, Budak strengthened ties with Hannover’s cultural scene through partnerships with institutions such as the Staatsoper, Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien, and the Bund Bildender Künstlerinnen und Künstler. He also initiated structural and social innovations, including the Café Tender Buttons, a curated Bookshop, the Cinémathèque helping to open the institution to a broader and more diverse public.
Eva Birkenstock is the new Director from August 2025.
The list of artists whose works have been exhibited during the 75-year history – excluding the years of closure – reads like a "Who's Who" in the history of 20th- and 21st-century art, among them Paul Klee (1920), Wassily Kandinsky (1923), El Lissitzky (1923) and Kurt Schwitters (1924), both friends of the Kestner Gesellschaft, Joan Miró (1952, 1956, 1989), Jean Dubuffet (1960), Marcel Duchamp and Horst Janssen (1965), Pablo Picasso (1973, 1993), Wolf Vostell (1977), Andy Warhol (1981 as his first retrospective in Germany, 2001) Jean-Michel Basquiat (1986 as the youngest at age 25, 1989), Georg Baselitz (1987), Joseph Beuys (1975, 1990), Richard Prince (1991), Rebecca Horn (1978, 1991, 1997), Antoni Tàpies (1962, 1998), Jonathan Meese (2002), Thomas Ruff (2003), Peter Doig (2004), Rochelle Feinstein, (2016/17), James Richards, (2016/17) and Annette Kelm (2017).
Kestner Gesellschaft at the Goseriede
The House
In 1997, the Prime Minister of Lower Saxony, Gerhard Schröder, inaugurated the new facilities of the Kestner Gesellschaft at Goseriede 11. Simultaneously, the Munich Abendzeitung declared the remodelled exhibition facility "Germany’s most beautiful exhibition house." The remodelling of the former Goseriede Aquatic Center into an up-to-date exhibition house not only incorporates the high technical demands of modern exhibition operations but also preserves and showcases the Jugendstil features of this historic landmark. With its five halls on two levels, the house has at its command more than 1,500 square meters of exhibition surface.
History of the House From 1902 to 1905 the Hanoverian chief city architectural commissioner, Carl Wolff, oversaw the construction of the Goseriede Aquatic Center. The middle section of the public bathing facility was destroyed in 1943 during the Second World War, and later rebuilt from 1947 to 1953. After the reopening, the pool remained in use until 1982. In the same year, the city placed the beautiful Jugendstil façade under protection as a monument. In 1990 the Madsack publishing company purchased the building, offering the sections of the former women's pool area, entrance hall and all adjoining rooms to the Kestner Gesellschaft for its use. An international architectural competition was launched in 1992 in search of an innovative design for the space with the support of the Norddeutsche Landesbank. Chaired by Prof. Peter P. Schweger, the jury awarded the first prize to the Hanoverian architects Kai-Michael Koch, Anne Panse and Christian Hühn. In collaboration with the curators of the Kestner Gesellschaft, their design was developed further into an elegant and dynamic amalgamation of modern architectural elements. The prize of the Association of German Architects of the State of Lower Saxony was awarded to the building in 1998.
Exhibition spaces Each of the five halls at Kestner Gesellschaft has its own unique dimensions and atmosphere. Able to accommodate diverse exhibition concepts, the spaces can be transformed with high-tech equipment including a close-meshed and invisible network of electrical connections in the floors, walls and ceilings. The lateral galleries in the Halls II and III can be closed off to create smaller exhibition spaces. The total of twelve entrances into the Claussen Hall may be used to create different orientations of projects and viewers. In planning for the building renovations, care was also taken to create the necessary infrastructure for the careful transport and handling of artworks to and within the halls, with direct access to the exhibition spaces via loading dock. Due to ceiling-high gates on the ground- and upper-floors along with a large elevator, pieces arrive safely and easily into the exhibition halls.
Kestnereditions Since 2003, Kestnereditions are being released related to every exhibition. The works, which include graphic art, photography and other art forms, are offered exclusively for members of the Kestner Gesellschaft in limited editions.
Exhibitions until 1936
Artist First exhibited year Add'l exhibited years 1922
1921
1924
1918 1919, 1931 1918 1919, 1931 1921
1922
1925
1921
1925
1918 1919 1921 1923 1918 1919 1916
1925
1917 1928 1924
1927
1922
1926
1924
1917
1927 Adolf Falke 1924
1919 1924–25, 1932 1921
1925
1930 Gerlwh (Gerardus Ladage) 1922
1928
1931
1921
1919 1935 1918
1921 1922 1925
1925 1927 1918
1916 1917 1920 1924 1923
1924
1919 1931 1918
1924
1919
1925
1933
1929
1919
1930
1920
1916
1923
1925
1918 1925, 1935 1931 1936 1936
1926 1931 1918
1920
1924
1917 1922, 1934 1923
1922
1929
1918
1918 1922, 1924, 1928, 1934 1922
1932
1925
1925
1925
1922
1919 1924, 1930, 1936 1921
1933
1932
1920 1923 1922
1919
1917 1918, 1924 1919
1932 1934 1922
1922
1917
1926
1925
1917
1917
1917
1920
1917
1931
1921 1922
Exhibitions from 1948 until 1995
Emil Nolde 1948 Pablo Picasso 1949, 1965, 1979, 1994 Max Beckmann 1949 Werner Gilles 1949 Gerhard Marcks 1949 Fernand Léger 1949 Fritz Winter 1951 Walter Gropius 1951 Marino Marini 1952 Werner Gilles 952 Alexander Camaro 1952 Joan Miró 1952, 1958, 1990 Ewald Mataré 1952 Hans Uhlmann 1953 Erich Heckel 1953 Karl Hartung 1953 Henry Moore 1953 Eduard Bargheer 1953 Emy Roeder 1953 Fritz Grasshoff 1954 Saul Steinberg 1954 Hans Arp 1955 André Masson 1955 Marc Chagall 1955, 1985 K.R.H. Sonderborg 1956 Hans Hartung 1957 Gustave Singier 1957 Theo Eble 1958 Maria Elena Vieira da Silva 1958 Bruno Goller 1958 Jean-Paul Riopelle 1958 Julius Bissier 1958 Alfred Manessier 1959 Ben Nicholson 1959 Woty Werner 1959 Hann Trier 1959 Kenneth Armitage 1960 William Scott 1960 Hans Reichel 1960 Jean Dubuffet 1960 Pierre Soulages 1961 Etienne Hajdu 1961 Joseph Fassbender 1961 Emil Schumacher 1961 Victor Pasmore 1962 Edwin Scharff 1962 Jean Bazaine 1963 Zoltan Kemeny 1963 Sam Francis 1963 Serge Poliakoff 1963 Kumi Sugai 1963 Gregory Masurovsky 1963 Victor Vasarely 1964 Paul Jenkins 1964 Heinz Battke 1964 Hundertwasser 1964 Richard Oelze 1964 Alfred Kubin 1964 Paul Eliasberg 1965 Victor Brauner 1965 Horst Janssen 1965 Bernard Schultze 1966 Mark Tobey 1966 Alberto Giacometti 1966 Konrad Klapheck 1966 Wifredo Lam 1966 Joannis Avramidis 1967 Ben Nicholson 1967 Pierre Roy 1967