OFFSCREEN PARIS 2025: Acquisitions & Discoveries

The ZKM at OFFSCREEN Paris 2025 – in the Chapelle Saint-Louis de la Salpêtrière

From October 21 to 26, 2025, the OFFSCREEN Festival will transform the Chapelle Saint-Louis de la Salpêtrière in Paris into a venue for contemporary media art. In its new program, Acquisitions & Discoveries, OFFSCREEN invites two major art institutions for the first time – the Centre Pompidou and the ZKM | Karlsruhe – to present works from their archives and collections.

OFFSCREEN is dedicated to the diverse forms of the moving image – from early video works to current digital formats. The venue of the festival’s fourth edition, the Chapelle Saint-Louis de la Salpêtrière, is a domed 17th-century building designed by Louis Le Vau. Originally part of a hospice for women, the chapel later became a site of medical research. With its clear cruciform layout and tall, light-filled octagon, it now offers an exceptional setting for time-based art.

Within Acquisitions & Discoveries, the ZKM presents two key works of early video art: M3x3 (1973) by Analívia Cordeiro, a groundbreaking example of computer-assisted choreography and the first video artwork from Latin America, and Untitled (1973) by Urs Lüthi, a meditation on presence, gender, and vulnerability.

By participating in OFFSCREEN, the ZKM highlights its expertise in the preservation and research of video art. It pays special tribute to the work of its archives and the Laboratory for Antiquated Video Systems, founded in 2004, which has played a vital role in securing and rediscovering seminal works of twentieth-century art history.

OFFSCREEN is a nomadic, internationally recognized festival dedicated to contemporary, historical, and experimental image practices – and is among the highlights of Paris Art Week.