PRESS RELEASE

“Mommy, Why Does Everybody Have a Bomb?”

June 5 – July 26, 2026

JOHANNES HEPP – Sculpture

LARS THEUERKAUFF – Painting

The exhibition title quotes the closing lines of Prince’s hit song 1999: “Mommy, why does everybody have a Bomb?”How strikingly relevant this question feels again today, in a world marked by tension, contradiction, and crisis—and surely not only from a child’s perspective.

The sculptor Johannes Hepp and the painter Lars Theuerkauff meet in a shared aspiration: the artist as a seismograph of their time and lived reality.

Johannes Hepp is a flâneur who reflects on people and what it means to be human. Along his journeys, found objects inspire poetic constellations of figures. He saws and carves sculptures from blocks of wood—playful, infused with subtle humor, yet never far from the abyss. His figures are at once familiar and strange: like mythical creatures from his children’s dreams, or like the neighbor we have greeted for years without ever truly knowing.

Lars Theuerkauff extracts his most compelling motifs from the image stream of our time—a selfie of a fallen soldier, a lost teddy bear among ruins, burning palm trees in the Amazon. He transforms fragments of a wounded world into extensive cycles of paintings. From traces of destruction, Theuerkauff creates counter-images: delicate memories of childhood, fleeting moments of immediate beauty in sunlight—visions of a life as it could be, visions of hope.

Through its accompanying program—held every Thursday at 7:00 p.m. throughout the exhibition—the gallery opens a shared space where visual art meets music, literature, and performance.

Opening Reception

June 5, 2026, 7:00 p.m.

The opening remarks will be given by Hans Uszkoreit, Scientific Director of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence.

Concerts & Events

Every Thursday, 7:00 p.m.
June 11 – July 23
Admission by donation. Advance registration is requested.

June 11 — Evi Filippou (Vibraphone) & Robert Lucaciu (Double Bass)

Love at Last Sight is the title of their recently released album. Together, they move between diverse musical worlds, from 20th-century classical music to folk, jazz, and free improvisation, presenting a rich and versatile repertoire of compositions.

June 18 — Wiebke Puls reads texts by Óscar Perdomo (in German)

Actress Wiebke Puls has been a permanent ensemble member of the Münchner Kammerspiele since 2005. In addition to her film and television work, she is well known as an audiobook narrator. She will read texts by Colombian writer Óscar Perdomo.

June 25 — Fabian Kalker (Electronic Music)

Fabian Kalker is a musician and producer working in ambient music, electronic soundscapes, and experimental sonic environments. His compositions blend electronic textures with improvisational and atmospheric elements.

July 2 — Rike Scheffler (Reading, in German)

Drawing on her poetry collection Lava. Rituale, poet, musician, and performer Rike Scheffler explores future forms of life in interspecies communities. Through voice, body, and poetry, she invites us into tender speculative worlds where the boundaries between nature and culture, human and machine, animal and technology dissolved long ago. Together we discover rituals and practice revolution.

July 9 — Elke Brüsch (Vocals), Dirk Trageser (Guitar) & Daniel Cordes (Double Bass)

Daniel “Danda” Cordes and Dirk Trageser are members of the cult band 17 Hippies. Joined by singer Elke Brüsch, they create rich vocal harmonies and a repertoire ranging from folk and chanson to classic songs of love and peace.

July 16 — Logan February (Performance)

Born in Nigeria in 1999, Logan February is known for poetry and multidisciplinary language art. Their work combines perspectives from the queer African diaspora with psychospiritual themes and references to Yorùbá mythology.

July 23 — Niko Pavlovic (Piano) & Isaac Newman (Cello)

Inspired by Bach, Beethoven, Debussy, and Grieg, this concert is rooted in major works of classical music while incorporating various improvisational sections. One example is the main theme from Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, performed in a style inspired by the texture of the first prelude from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. The concert pays tribute to the art of improvisation—a practice for which Bach was arguably more famous in his own lifetime than for his compositions.

Closing Event

July 26 — Finissage from 3:00 p.m.

We look forward to welcoming you.

Werner Tammen
Hedemannstraße 14
10969 Berlin

Accompanied by:
Hendrik Backerra / Soulgold Agency, Berlin

If you want to know more about our approach and previous projects or if you have ideas for cooperation or soulgold art projects, please get in touch.