Anton Kats

Anton Kats (r. 1983 Kherson, Ukraine) works as an artist and musician. Currently based on Earth.

Anton’s practice draws from the everyday, inspired by the complex narratives of Satelite Island a south-Ukrainian neighbourhood in the port city of Kherson. Leaving Ukraine in the year 2000 to claim asylum in Germany Kats’ work is complemented by the urgencies of displacement and the pragmatics of self-legalisation in Europe by way of entering formal institutions of education. In reverberations of this process, Kats was awarded a practice-based PhD at Goldsmiths, University of London and invited to documenta14 where he initiated the Narrowcast House and the A-Letheia projects.

Anton’s work is motivated by the questions of agency and intentionality. Flexibly augmenting art practice through sound, music, performance, radio and research Kats develops responsive and site-specific projects exploring the interdependencies of learning, migration and the non-normative. Kats’s practice emphasises artistic research protocols and embraces sculptures and installations, objects and drawings, concerts, lectures, performances, poems, films, radio shows, radio plays, vinyl releases and publications.

Methodologically conceiving spaces of imagination Anton is motivated to generate practical knowledge emerging through art as a mode of critical inquiry. Often driven by the context of diverse practitioners Kats willingly initiates collaborative works, nomadic music ensembles and artist residencies, learning sites, libraries, listening spaces and experimental academic curricula.

Exploring the potentiality of art practice within formal and informal frameworks Anton’s projects evenly take place in galleries and museums, concert venues, clubs and radio stations, as well as in cultural and academic institutions, and public spaces. Situated between performance art and music performance, Anton tours as ILYICH and hosts the Concrete Listening Show at the Refuge Worldwide Radio in Berlin. Kats was a lecturer at NYU, The New School, and Goldsmiths University. At present Kats facilitates the Artists in Exile program at The Berlin University of the Arts (UDK) and the Great Sound seminar at the MA Spatial Strategies, Kunsthochschule Weißensee, Berlin

Anton’s works have been introduced through the SAVVY Contemporary, Serpentine Galleries, Tate Modern, Tate Britain, BBC 6 Music, Victoria and Albert Museum, The Lot Radio, the Showroom Gallery, Bergen Kunsthall, Sonic Acts, Roskilde and Fusion Festivals, CCA Berlin – Center for Contemporary Arts, Kochi Muziris Biennale, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (H.K.W.), 10th Berlin Biennale, and at the documenta14 in Athens and Kassel among others. 

Education:

2014-2017 PhD Goldsmiths University, Goldsmiths University of London

2011-2013 MA Interactive Media: Critical Theory and Practice, Goldsmiths University of London

2010-2011 MA Kunst im Kontext, Gasthörer, UDK, Berlin

Selected Publications and Chapters:

How We Hold: Rehearsals For Art and Social Change. Ed. Amal Khalaf. Serpentine Galleries 2023

Designing for Health & Wellbeing: Home, City, Society. Ed. Graham Cairns. Vernon Press 2019.

aneducation – documenta14. Archive Books, Berlin. 2018

For a Walk With: Dementia in the City. Serpentine Galleries, London. 2016

Sound Space Downtown: Workbook and User Manual. Studio 174, Kingston Jamaica / London UK. 2015

Selected Interviews:

MACBA Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona



Selected Grants, Awards, Fellowships:

Anton Kats is a fellow of the Berlin Artistic Research Programme (2024-25)

Presentation of Contemporary Art Award (2023) Senate Department of Culture, Berlin

Musicboard Berlin (2022) Project Grant: Grounded Outer Space People

Research Grant Fine Art (2022) Senate Department of Culture, Berlin

Research Grant Fine Art (2021) Senate Department of Culture, Berlin

Presentation of Contemporary Art Award (2020) Senate Department of Culture, Berlin

Research Grant Fine Art (2020) Senate Department of Culture, Berlin

Project Grant ILYICH (2020) Musikfonds e.V., Minister of State for Culture and the Media, Berlin

Artist Residency Grant Fine Art New York (2019 – 2020) Senate Department of Culture, Berlin

Selected Projects

2024

Vostok 7 – Nadežda Petrović Memoria, Čačak

Flyers – Archive of Belonging, London

After Hope – Berlin Artistic Research Programme 2024/2025

Sound Stories Silent Site – House of World Cultures (HKW), Berlin


2023

If not now, when? – House of World Cultures (HKW), Berlin

The Cemetery of Melodies Alive – steirischer herbst, Graz

ILYICH and Grounded Outer Space People – 1014, New York

ILYICH – Arsenic – Centre d’art scénique contemporain, Lausanne

Concrete Listening Show – Refugee Worldwide Radio (ongoing), Berlin

2022

Grounded Outer Space People – Gallery Wedding, Berlin, Germany

Transmigration Library, – Gallery Wedding, Berlin, Germany

It is all an open secret, – H.K.W. – House of World’s Cultures, Berlin, Germany

Concrete Listening Show – Refugee Worldwide Radio (ongoing), Berlin

2021

Grounded Outer Space People – Kulturbraurei, Berlin, Germany

Borealis Festival for Experimental Music – MÆKUR, Bergen, Norway

Radio Crystal – Zone2Source, Amsterdam, Netherlands

2020

Vostok 7 – SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin, Germany

Sound Crystal – SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin, Germany

Pre-Formance – Deutsches Haus, New York University, New York, US

MÆKUR – Sonic Acts, Amsterdam, Netherlands 

Four Before and After Five – ISCP, New York, US

2019

Radio Amateur Ensemble – Helicotrema Festival, Venice, Italy

ILYICH:AND – Flaneur Festival, HKW (Haus der Kulturen der Welt), Berlin, Germany

MÆKUR – Lighthouse, Brighton, UK

Radio Stilts – HKW (Haus der Kulturen der Welt), Berlin, Germany

Your Craft – Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Germany

Radio Amateur Ensemble – Goethe Institute, Minneapolis, US

2018

MÆKUR – Bergen Kunsthall, Norway

After Joy – Muziris Biennalle, Goethe Institute Bangalore, bangaloREsidency at Pepper House, Kochi, India

Radio Stilts – Radiophonic Spaces, HKW (Haus der Kulturen der Welt), Berlin, Germany

Mittlungsradio – 10th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany

Radio Pedio – Park Fables by Chto Delat & Anton Kats, Commissioned and produced by: Onassis Cultural Center/ Fast Forward Festival 5, Curator: Katia Arfara, Athens, Greece

ILYICH – Concrete Listening, Kherson, Ukraine

Tourist – Journeys Festival International, Leicester, UK

2017

Narrowcast House – Open Radio Studio, Listening Space. documenta14, Kassel, Germany

A-Letheia – Social Sculpture, Site of Learning. documenta14, Athens, Greece

Radio Sound System – Sonic Sculpture, Mobile Radio Station. documenta14, Kassel, Germany

Terminal – documenta14, Kassel, Germany

Giant Steps – documenta14, Kassel and Athens

Another Continuum – documenta14, Athens, Greece

Place of 100 Places – documenta14, Kassel, Germany

2016

Narrowcast Radio – Tate Modern, London, UK.

For a Walk With: Dementia in the City – The Serpentine Galleries, London, UK.

Take Over: FFTV Gallery as a Neighbourhood Model – The Showroom Gallery. London

Site – Sonic Acts Academy. Amsterdam, Netherlands. 

The Shipyard Take Over – The Alternativa 2016: Damage and Los. Gdansk, Poland.

Radio Sound System – Studio 174, Kingston, Jamaica.

Unwritten Handbook – Serpentine Galleries, London, UK.
 

2015

Sound Space Downtown: Workbook and User Manual – Studio 174, London, Kingston, Jamaica.

Artistic Research as Pedagogy – Goldsmiths College. London, UK

Sound Space Downtown – Studio 174, Kingston, Jamaica.

Sound Alphabet – Studio 174, Kingston, Jamaica

Corridor Residency – Westmead Elderly Resource Centre, The Serpentine Galleries, London, UK

For a walk with… – Westmead Elderly Resource Centre, The Serpentine Galleries, London, UK

Fourth Feathers TV – The Showroom Gallery and Fourth Feathers Community Centre, London, UK

Radio Delo – Displaced Film Festival, Berlin, Germany

Radio Delo – Alternativa Art Festival, Gdansk, Poland

2014

Sound Space Downtown, research space (ongoing), Studio 174, Openvizor, Kingston, Jamaica

ABC of Sound, publication, Openvizor, Kingston Jamaica, London UK

Radio Sonar (ongoing) Serpentine Gallery, London

For a walk with…, (ongoing) Edgware Road Project, Serpentine Gallery, London

Fourth Feathers TV, (ongoing) the Showroom Gallery and Fourth Feathers Community Centre, London


2013

For a walk with…, (ongoing) Edgware Road Project, Serpentine Gallery, London

Fourth Feathers TV, (ongoing) the Showroom Gallery, as Part of re-projecting London

Stops in motion, V&A Museum, Sackler Centre Digital Studio, London

One Eye Closed, Photography, Goldsmiths College, London

Character Research Tool, Centre for Possible Studies, Serpentine Gallery, London

Radio SO.N.A.R., (ongoing) Centre for Possible Studies, Serpentine Gallery, London

Greenlight Filmclub, (ongoing) OpenVizor, London

Berta, photography, video, Berlin

To learn what you know, workshops, Goldsmith College, London


2012

Cycling Antenna, moving installation, workshops, Goldsmith College, London

Serpentine Gallery, Butter, Chicago Boys (initiated Hiwa K.) performance, London

Royal College of Art, Chicago Boys (initiated Hiwa K.) performance, London

Snowflake, new media, Goldsmith College, London

Radio Delo, video

Becoming surplus value, video


2011

Radio Delo, photography

Group Affinity, Chicago Boys (initiated Hiwa K.) performance, summer school Kunstverein Muenchen,
Munich

Systemchange Studygroup with Claudia Hummel and Anneta Krauss, Berlin

Alternativa, Participant at Art-Festival, Gdansk, Poland,

Butter, Chicago Boys (initiated Hiwa K.) performance, photography, New Gallery, London

V Krugu HipHopa, music tour in St.Petersburg and N.Nowogorod, with adolescent young People from Berlin,
Goethe Institute St.Petersburg, Gangway e.V

A Chto Delat?’s 48 hours Seminar-Commune and Learning Play “Where has Communism Gone?”. Smart Project Space, Amsterdam.

Tourist, Photography


2010

Chicago Boys: While We Were Singing They Were Dreaming, ongoing performance and research project initiated by Hiwa K., Serpentine, London

Legal Leben, exhibition with former detained adolescents, Archiv der Jungedkulturen, Gangway e.V., Berlin

Dimitry Vilensky was ist zu tun?, video discussion with Dimitry Vilensky (Chto Delat?) about forms of
self-organisation and self-education of an artist

Blohina Street 18, anthropological video research about Lenins thesis on communal living


2009

Estrangement Project, Gdansk/London/Berlin “Kolja and Dasha”, Showroom London, documentary project, St. Petersburg

Top 9 Russian Breaking Foundation, documentary film, St. Petersburg


2008

A Walk with a Hat, choreography for the Circus Upsala, St. Petersburg

Meeting of Styles, documentary film, Graffiti Festival, Mainz

Act Bloom, performance


2007

Die Füchsin, short film, storyboard

Curiouserfilms, video research, film production company

Japan Ska. Kultur und Globalisierung, documentary film.

2006

The Skaliners, music arrangement and artistic support during Japan tour of the band