A glimpse of a utopia

In his essay “Utopian Present: The Promise of Pop”, published in 2019, pop theorist Frank Apunkt Schneider asks what remains of pop’s utopian promise: of the idea that music and subculture can offer a foretaste of a different kind of life. Pop is more than just a musical genre – it can be a space for expressing one’s stance, for community, and for exploring other possibilities. Schneider runs a record shop, is co-editor of the magazine ‘testcard’ and is the author of, amongst other works, ‘Als die Welt noch unterging’ (When the World Was Still Coming to an End).
On this evening, his ideas will meet the music of Frau Kraushaar, who will be performing tracks from her albums ‘Kartoffel’, ‘Gurke Ahnung’ and ‘Bella Utopia’.

Frau Kraushaar has been a perennial insider’s tip for years: with a loyal fan base and music that is perhaps simply too idiosyncratic and too ‘Kraus’ for the mainstream. Fortunately. She studied under the Fluxus artist Claus Böhmler and lives and works in Hamburg amongst Golden Pudel, galleries and off-the-beaten-track venues.

Afterwards, the two will sit down for a conversation. They’ll discuss punk and pop, music as an alternative vision, and the question of what kind of creative freedom art can foster today. What forms of community are possible? Where can we escape the logic of the status quo? And how can we – particularly at a time when right-wing views are gaining ground – create spaces in which alternative visions of society and the future can emerge?

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Niesen Berg

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Margarita Gestrich

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Jewgeni Roppel

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