Kunstfest Weimar is an arts festival held annually in late summer in the cultural city of Weimar. Founded in 1990 as one of the first joint German-German cultural initiatives, the festival presents a consistently interdisciplinary program featuring numerous world and German premieres, as well as projects developed specifically for Weimar. The Kunstfest Weimar takes place both in Weimar and across the wider Thuringia region. It is the largest festival for contemporary arts in eastern Germany. Held each year from mid-August to early September around Goethe’s birthday on August 28, the festival offers a program comprising around 40 to 50 projects and approximately 150 events. These span across various genres, including: theater, musical theater, dance, performance and installation, visual arts, film, concerts, literature, and discourse. The program consistently engages with the historical legacy of both Classical and Modern Weimar, as well as with the remembrance of Buchenwald, the former concentration camp located just outside the city.
From 1990 to 1992, the festival was dedicated to the legacy of prominent Weimar figures such as Goethe, Schiller, Bach, and Liszt, with proceeds supporting the restoration of Weimar’s cultural monuments. In its first two years, the artistic director was Kari Kahl-Wolfsjäger, who handed over the reins in 1992 to Johannes Gross. From 1993 to 2001, the festival was organized by the Klassik Stiftung Weimar under the artistic direction of Bernd Kauffmann. This period included the year 1999, when Weimar was designated European Capital of Culture, with the Kunstfest Weimar playing a major role in the year’s programming. In 2002, Ralf Schlüter took over as director, followed in 2003 by Hellmut Seemann, then president of the Klassik Stiftung Weimar. From 2004 to 2013, the festival was led by Nike Wagner under the name pèlerinages (French for “pilgrimages”), redefining it as a music festival with elements of musical theater, visual arts, and dance. One particularly significant component during this era was the Buchenwald Memorial Concert series, which always opened the festival. The festival was operated by Kunstfest Weimar GmbH. Since 2014, the Kunstfest Weimar has been an artistically autonomous division of the Deutsches Nationaltheater and Staatskapelle Weimar. Under the artistic direction of Christian Holtzhauer, the festival celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2014. Holtzhauer expanded the focus of the festival to include more theater, dance, and performance art, with particular emphasis on cross-border collaborations and public space projects. In June 2016, the German Cultural Council placed the festival on the Red List in Category 2, classifying it as endangered. Since 2019, curator and dramaturge Rolf C. Hemke has served as artistic director. With resilience and determination, he guided the festival through the challenges of the pandemic, enabling it to be the only major German summer festival to take place in both 2020 and 2021 with a full in-person program and no loss in audience numbers. From 2022 onward, the festival has returned to its usual format without any COVID-related adjustments.
