ABOUT
KÖNIG GALERIE was founded by Johann König in Berlin in 2002 and is run by Lena and Johann König. The gallery currently represents the work of over 40 international emerging and established artists, many of which belong to a younger generation. The program’s focus is on interdisciplinary, concept-oriented, and space-based approaches in various media, including sculpture, video, sound, painting, printmaking, photography, and performance.
In May 2015, KÖNIG GALERIE moved to St. Agnes, a monumental former Brutalist church built in the 1960s, where exhibitions take place in two different spaces: the former Chapel and Nave. In April 2021, the gallery branch KÖNIG SEOUL opened in the South Korean capital. The gallery has successfully placed works in various private and public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Guggenheim Foundation. The artists represented by the gallery have been the subject of solo exhibitions in institutions worldwide and regularly partake in prestigious group exhibitions, such as Documenta and the biennials in Venice, Berlin, New York, and others. They have been awarded many significant prizes, commissions, and public projects.
© Image Roman März
A landmark of Berlin-Kreuzberg, St. Agnes church on Alexandrinenstraße was designed and built by the German architect Werner Düttmann from 1964 to 1967. After Johann and Lena König acquired the building in 2012, it was respectfully converted by the renowned architect Arno Brandlhuber, for which he and St. Agnes were awarded the Berlin Architecture Prize in 2016. One of the most iconic examples of Brutalist architecture in Germany, the building boasts massive concrete blocks and exposed surfaces that reveal the grains of their original wood casts. The church’s impressive 20-meter-high interior walls are largely windowless, but they are flooded with daylight thanks to two large overhead windows on each of the side walls of the St. Agnes. The bell tower is attached directly to the building structure and connects the entrance area, the ground floor, and the gallery.