Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst in Bremen will open ‘Edition S Press. Poems You Have to Hear’ on September 11, 2026, examining the history of the experimental publisher Edition S Press and its role in circulating acoustic and media-based poetry. The exhibition, presented in the museum’s Zentrum für Künstlerpublikationen, will run from September 12, 2026, through August 29, 2027.
Founded in 1970 and active until 2005, Edition S Press published more than 80 editions devoted to experimental literature, concrete poetry, Beat poetry and poetry performance. Its publications used formats including reel-to-reel tapes, audio and video cassettes, and media packages, creating alternatives to conventional print distribution for works built around sound and spoken language.
The Bremen exhibition will bring together audio and video works alongside programmes, posters, photographs, flyers and press materials. The presentation will include material connected with artists from Europe, the United States and the Soviet Union. Among the artists named by the museum are John Cage, Henri Chopin, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, John Giorno, Eugen Gomringer, Ernst Jandl, Meret Oppenheim, Gerhard Rühm, Gary Snyder and Anne Waldman, as well as Igor Cholin, François Dufrêne, Bernard Heidsieck, Friederike Mayröcker and others.
According to the museum, many of the editions were produced during the Cold War, when poetry and sound art could function as forms of resistance and artistic freedom. The exhibition positions Edition S Press as a West German small publisher whose activities connected international artistic practices through recordings and other reproducible media. A featured example is ‘S PRESS Tape No. 70, Michael Brownstein – Monkey Blues’, issued by S Press Tonbandverlag in 1979.
Sabine Hänsgen is curating the exhibition. The museum identifies her as a former co-editor of Edition S Press. The project also includes the digital accessibility of selected sound works, being developed in cooperation with the Forschungsverbund Künstlerpublikationen and Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst.
The opening will take place on Friday, September 11, at 7 p.m., with free admission, on Ebene 3½ and in the Projektraum. Anne Thurmann-Jajes, head of the Zentrum für Künstlerpublikationen, will give the welcome, followed by a conversation between Hänsgen and publisher Wolfgang Mohrhenn. The programme will conclude with a performance of Mattia Bonafini’s composition ‘Über-Schneidungen’, using sound samples from the Edition S Press archive. The exhibition will be installed on level 3½ and remain on view through August 29, 2027.
