2016 - a year of culture

Some call it art, others a philosophy. Many don't think much of it at all, while to other it is everything: Dadaism. The art movement that dared to drag everything into absurdity and back celebrates its 100th anniversary with countless exhibitions, publications and even parties. Nothing and no one will be escape the draw of Dada in 2016.

The Dadaists tried to revolutionize the world with their wild art collages, crazy masks and non-sequitur poetry amid the throes of World War I. As the world continues to face challenges and political crises a century later, the retrospectives on the Dada movement might serve as way posts for the new year, perhaps not only in cultural matters.

More than a million refugees arrived in Germany in 2015, as further numbers are expected for the new year. How do all these people manage to builld a new home in Germany as asylum seekers? How do town planners and architects contribute to addressing these social changes? The Architecture Biennale 2016 in Venice will try to answer such questions with the help of the German Museum of Architecture.

The New Museum in Berlin kicks off the new year with an exhibit dedicated to adventurer Heinrich Schliemann, who died 125 years ago. The exhibition highlights his discoveries at the ancient city of Troy as well as from a number of other archeological sites. Though Schliemann didn't always get his historical facts right, his discoveries still continue to shed light on the culture of ancient Greece.

Hieronymus Bosch is regarded as the most important Dutch painter of the Renaissance. Born 500 years ago as Jheronimus van Aken, his painting and triptychs depicting demons and fantasy creatures have become world-renowned artworks. The most comprehensive Exhibition to date of his work will be shown at Het Noordbrabants Museum in his hometown of 's-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands as of February.

Dancing has grown popular in the past few years with TV shows like "Dancing with the Stars" in the US and "Strictly Come Dancing" in the UK spreading the joy of Rumba, Waltz and Tango around the globe. With more and more people taking to the dance floor in Germany as well, the city of Freiburg prepares to open Europe's largest dancing school in 2016. It's time to start working on those pirouettes!

While the end of 2015 saw Rudyard Kipling's 150th birthday, the new year holds the remake of one of his most famous stories: "The Jungle Book." When The Jungle Book was released in 1967 as the last feature-length movie that Walt Disney had personally been involved in before his death, no one would have thought that almost 50 years later Hollywood's A-List would be featured in its epic remake.

There's another cinema highlight in store for 2016: Oliver Stone's biopic on Edward Snowden, featuring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the whistleblower himself. Following the 2014 release of "Citizen Four," an Academy Award-nominated documentary on Snowden by Laura Poitras, former CIA-employee and NSA-subcontractor Snowden continues to fascinate people around the world as he remains in exile in Moscow.

Photographer Andreas Gursky returns to his hometown of Düsseldorf - or at least his art does. Starting in July 2016, Düsseldorf's "Kunstsammlung NRW" museum plays host to a Gursky exhibit entitled "nicht abstrakt" (translation: "not Abstract"). Outside Germany, Gursky's work is recognized internationally by such institutions as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) in New York.

There's much gossip around Bayreuth these days - the Bavarian town, which hosts the annual Richard Wagner Festival "Bayreuther Festspiele." A new stage production of Wagner's "Parsifal" as envisioned by German artist Jonathan Meese seems to be lacking financial support. No one knows what will happen next. Meese refers to this limbo as a scandal. Will Parsifal - or Meese- receive the Holy Grail?

They share a low-lying coastline and the same linguistic roots, but the Netherlands and Belgian Flanders have always maintained their differences. At the world's largest book fair in Frankfurt in October, the two neighbors will be featured as guests of honor. The event will be attended by renowned authors like Cees Noteboom and Maarten 't Hart while introducing newcomers to audiences as well.

More than 70 years after World War II, Germany is still coming to terms with certain aspects of its past. The 2012 discovery of €1 billion worth of looted art in the collection of the late art collector Cornelius Gurlitt led to a government initiative to return the works to their rightful owners. An exhibit in Bonn hopes to share further light on this dark chapter in Germany's art scene.