SALON: MAU R

Berlin
Nov 21 — Dec 20, 2025

SALON: MAU R
AOA;87 X DYSE
21 NOVEMBER – 20 DECEMBER 2025
OPENING: 20 NOVEMBER | 6 – 9 PM
AOA;87 BERLIN


TALK | 20 NOVEMBER 2025:
Peter Richter (AUTOR UND JOURNALIST)
AXEL MATZ (KRAKENDUFT)
JARII VAN GOHL (DYSE)
ANGELA KOHLRUSCH (AOA;87)

An anniversary exhibition about ruptures, conviction, and the end of the Candyland illusion.

“Unprepared. Unreflective. Naive. And stupid.”
(English translation)

This is how DŸSE’s song “Keine Mauern mehr” ends—and with it an entire narrative: the German unification fairy tale that, in its euphoria, painted over the cracks. Sugar on every corner—and our teeth long since set in concrete.
The words land. No pathos, no pop—a reckoning. A reminder that freedom doesn’t fall from the sky; it requires conviction.

SALON: MAU R is AOA;87’s answer—and at the same time a manifesto marking the gallery’s fifth anniversary. Five years of dialogue, friction, courage. Born of an idea, born of a stance.
The exhibition understands itself as a Salon des Refusés of our time—a place for debate rather than decoration, for artistic conviction rather than conformity. Inspired by French salon culture, it opens as a hybrid space between art, music, politics, and society—a hub of diversity.

At its center stands MAU R by DŸSE—an artistic–political statement against the far right, for democracy, and for the courage to embrace contradiction. The songs speak of the 1989/90 turning point, of broken promises, of waking from euphoria. The release is not a conventional album but an object: a “Berlin Wall” made of PAGEL concrete, hand-cast at a 1:10 scale, housing a cassette with EAST and WEST sides—artwork, archive, and statement in one.
Around forty artists have designed individual segments—some of which are on view in this exhibition.

SALON: MAU R presents positions that form the foundation of AOA;87—from Helga Schmidhuber and Holger Schmidhuber to Noriko Ambe, Onome Ekeh, Ida-Marie Corell, Margarete Adler, MARCK, and Numero Cromatico—and brings them into a dialogue that is more than a look back: sound and silence, chaos and clarity.

AOA;87 is not celebrating a smooth anniversary, but five years of movement—as a stance.