Montag Modus is an interdisciplinary event series organized by the MMpraxis curatorial platform. The series centers around performance art, choreography and time-based media.

Montag Modus is based in Berlin with a program that involves both local as well as artists and cultural workers from the regions of Central and Eastern Europe. Its program is site-specific and has an annual thematic focus. Each edition presents four to five new works and offers a one-week on-site residency to the artists. The simultaneous engagement of various spaces allows the works to enter into a temporary dialogue in an exhibition-like situation. From its beginnings, Montag Modus investigates different methodologies of how to present live art and tests the formats of these events. In the frame of this ongoing research, it continues to question which forms of knowledge arise through the combination of live works.

The Montag Modus series is always free for attendees, further establishing the project as a generous meeting point for the Berlin scene’s many participants, makers and thinkers.

Montag Modus started as a pilot program at the Collegium Hungaricum Berlin (CHB) in 2015. Art historian Kata Krasznahorkai and curator Léna Szirmay-Kalos created the program. Originally it was launched as a six-event project with the aim of creating a platform for Berlin-based and Hungarian artists who work with live art.

From the outset, Montag Modus was a trial-and-error process. Its name, which translates to ‘Monday mode’ sprung out of the idea that, on the first Monday of the month, the institute would transform into a different state. It would enter an exceptional sphere quite unlike its “normal” working structure. The selected artists were invited to occupy the five-story building of the CHB and were encouraged to experiment with different formats of presentation. Aside from the dedicated theatre and gallery spaces, works were presented and installed in the basement, the courtyard, the seminar rooms, the library, the industrial kitchen, the communal spaces and even the fifth-floor guest apartments.

Between 2016 and 2018 the Montag Modus events became an essential part of the CHB. During these years, the series evolved into a space of encounters that invited both newcomers and established artists to try out ideas and present their work. Although the evening presented individual works, the program was intended to be experienced as a single event. The aim was to find a structure in which each work is connected with the others but could also still stand on its own.

Since 2019, Montag Modus is an independent event series organized by the MMpraxis curatorial platform. As a mobile series, it collaborates with Berlin-based and international artists and invites curators and artists to conceptualize the program with the platform’s core team.