The performance, which will take place in a car workshop in Prenzlauer Berg, shows the assembly and repair of a Mercedes-Benz Ponton, which was originally owned by Helene Weigel, the former director of the Berliner Ensemble and Bertolt Brecht’s wife. At the same time, actors do a staged reading of Brecht’s didactic play “Mann ist Mann” (Man Equals Man). The workshop visits are organized in traditional work shifts, where invited guests talk about the nature of theater and performance and the significance of work in the context of contemporary economic and artistic production.
Olaf Nicolai, born 1962 in Halle an der Saale, is a German artist who works with a variety of media, proceeding from a conceptual approach. Having grown up in today’s Chemnitz, he studied German literature at the University of Leipzig from 1983 until 1988, writing his PhD thesis on the Wiener Gruppe (Vienna Group). Since the early 1990s, Olaf Nicolai has had group and solo exhibitions at the most important venues of the contemporary art world. He was represented at Documenta X (1997) as well as at the Venice Biennales 49 (2001) and 51 (2005).

BRECHT IN DER AUTOWERKSTATT
HIER WIRD HEUTE ABEND EIN MENSCH WIE EIN AUTO UMMONTIERT OHNE DASS ER IRGENDETWAS DABEI VERLIERT
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Olaf Nicolai
CURATOR Krist Gruijthuijsen
WITH Matthias Buss, Thomas Irmer, Susanne Jansen, and guests
HEAD DRAMATURG Sabrina Zwach
ASSISTANT DRAMATURG Tobias Kluge
ASSISTANT CURATOR & PROJECT MANAGEMENT Maurin Dietrich
HEAD OF PRODUCTION KW Claire Spilker
PRODUCTION ASSISTANT Ralf Bettermann
STAGE DESIGN ASSISTANT Johanna Meyer