Portikus in Frankfurt presents Little Castles, a solo exhibition by artist, musician, and writer Hassan Khan. Running from November 15, 2025, to February 8, 2026, the exhibition brings together one recent work and two newly commissioned pieces developed specifically for the institution. Curated by Carina Bukuts with assistant curator Jacqueline Jakobi, Little Castles examines the instability of contemporary life through language, music, and image.
ART
The exhibition takes its title from Khan’s own writing, describing an incident on a Berlin bus that exposes the volatility of public life. This moment becomes a lens for understanding the emotional and social fractures that inform his broader practice. In Little Castles, Khan approaches these tensions as compositional forces, constructing a sequence of works that navigate violence, contradiction, and the potential for renewal.
Each piece establishes its own mode of communication. An LED text work samples an investigative newspaper article to question taboos, social order, and the cynical mechanisms shaping modern power. A second installation uses a network of cellphones connected through an algorithm that searches an archive of images and text, transforming fragments into a multi-voiced electronic composition. A third work, a song presented as a video, combines analysis, humor, and direct address, fusing emotional and political registers into a single audiovisual form.
Through these works, Khan explores how art can operate within conditions of political and social disintegration. The exhibition reflects on the collapse of liberal ideals and the unresolved histories that continue to define the present. Yet, within these ruptures, it identifies the possibility of new forms of connection and creation.
Born in 1975, Hassan Khan lives and works between Cairo and Berlin. His multidisciplinary practice includes writing, sound, and performance, engaging with questions of power, perception, and collective experience. Khan has presented solo exhibitions at Cukrarna in Ljubljana (2025), the Centre Pompidou in Paris (2022), and the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid (2019). His participation in major international exhibitions includes dOCUMENTA 13 in Kassel, the 12th Sharjah Biennial, and The Ungovernables at the New Museum in New York. In 2017, he received the Silver Lion at the 57th Venice Biennale. Since 2018, Khan has served as Professor of Fine Arts at the Städelschule in Frankfurt.
His published works include An Anthology of Published and Unpublished Writings released by Koenig Books, and his album SUPERSTRUCTURE EP produced by The Vinyl Factory. Through his interdisciplinary approach, Khan continues to examine the space where cultural production meets political experience.
The exhibition opens on November 14, 2025, at 6 PM, followed by a party at Zur Insel with DJ Batata (aka Mazen Kerbaj) and dj girl.
