Life
Music
Art
And
MALA (Music Art Life And) is a nomadic off-space. It emerges wherever art meets life — unexpectedly, temporarily, and with intention. Rooted in music and visual art as forms of encounter, MALA creates spaces for connection and exchange. Each project invites conversations that move between artistic disciplines, social questions, and everyday life.
On Now
Wadada Leo Smith: Music of the Mind
September 12 – October 12, 2026
Drawing Sound, Listening to Symbols
For more than six decades, composer, trumpeter, and activist Wadada Leo Smith (b. 1941, Mississippi) has created vibrant scores. Far more than musical notation, these works on paper are autonomous artworks of profound spiritual depth and poetic force. Through Ankhrasmation — a 'Symbolic Music Language' that he describes as a discovery — he opens a creative cosmos in which art and music converge, and in which forms and colors embody sound and rhythm on paper. The name brings together 'Ankh', the Egyptian symbol for life; 'Ras', the Ethiopian word for head or leader; and 'Ma', a universal term for mother.
Wadada Leo Smith draws sound; we listen to the symbols. Shaped by African, Japanese, Indonesian, European, and American musical cultures, his practice exists equally as music to be heard, images to be seen, and sounds to be imagined.
Presented in a storefront window, a selection of his art-scores is shown as large-scale reproductions, visible around the clock. A QR code connects the visual works to a 2024 performance of the art-score "Jupiter in Silver Space" in New York, inviting visitors to move between what they see and what they hear.
"Music of the Mind" highlights the visual practice of one of the leading figures in the African American avant-garde. With more than 80 recordings to his credit, Wadada Leo Smith has continually expanded the possibilities of creative music through composition, performance, and interdisciplinary thinking.
For its inaugural edition, MALA was selected by the jury of Berlin Art Week 2026 for its Featured program. Bringing contemporary art and music into the rhythm of everyday urban life, the exhibition sets the tone for a platform where sound, image, and ideas meet in unexpected ways.
Further Links
↗ Wadada Leo Smith: Ankhrasmation art-scores
↗ Jazzfest Berlin 2025: Keynote by Paola Malavassi
↗ Artforum: Article by Piotr Orlov
↗ Walker Art Center Collection
↗ "Ankhrasmation: The Language Scores"
"When a person sees the scores, my expectation is that they stand there, without any prior knowledge, and imagine the score being performed, with them as the primary leader or the primary motivator ... Music of the mind."
Wadada Leo Smith
Wadada Leo Smith (b. 1941, Leland, Mississippi) is a pioneering trumpeter, composer, activist, and visual artist. He defines his genre as 'Creative Music', rooted in the musical traditions of the US American South. His practice spans solo, duo, band, chamber, orchestral, and large-scale works.
A formative figure in Chicago's experimental music community, he joined the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) in 1967. Around 1965, he discovered Ankhrasmation, a unique 'Symbolic Music Language' for creative performance in which forms, colors, and space become catalysts for sound, rhythm, imagination, and creation.
His Ankhrasmation art-scores have been part of the collection of the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, since 2026. In 2015, The Renaissance Society, Chicago, presented "Ankhrasmation: The Language Scores, 1967-2015“, the first comprehensive exhibition of his art-scores, organized by Hamza Walker and John Corbett; in 2025, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, presented "The Language of Ankhrasmation". His art-scores have also been exhibited at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Michigan; Kadist, San Francisco; the Museum of Rhythm, Łódź; and the Iceland Academy of the Arts.
In Germany, his music and the film "See the Music" were presented at Haus der Kunst, Munich, in "ECM: A Cultural Archaeology" (2012), curated by Okwui Enwezor and Markus Müller. His art-score "Louis Armstrong Counterpointing" (2016/17) was shown and performed for the first time at a German institution at DAS MINSK Kunsthaus, Potsdam (2023/24), in "I've Seen the Wall", curated by Paola Malavassi and Jason Moran. With "Music of the Mind", MALA, Berlin, is presenting in 2026 the first solo exhibition dedicated to his art-scores in Germany.
Listen to the score Jupiter in Silver Space
As part of Berlin Art Week
MALA
Rooted in music and visual art as forms of encounter and change.
Rooted in music and visual art as forms of encounter and change, MALA creates temporary spaces for connection and exchange — unexpected, intentional, and full of possibility. Each project is an invitation to listen with your eyes and imagine with your ears, to talk with each other, and to explore the connections between artistic disciplines, social questions, and everyday life.
MALA is a hub for musicians and performers who think visually, for visual artists who treasure music and words, and for anyone interested in crossing boundaries rather than staying neatly within them.
MALA moves between senses, disciplines, and ways of experiencing the world.
Paola
MALA was founded by Paola Malavassi (b. 1978, San José, Costa Rica), a curator working across visual and performing arts. Her practice is rooted in giving space for these art forms to meet and engage with wider social and cultural contexts.
She has curated numerous exhibitions with Kasper König at Museum Ludwig in Cologne, led the Julia Stoschek Collection Berlin, and served as founding director of MINSK in Potsdam. Across these roles, she has developed exhibition formats and projects where visual art and music work together.
Paola on MALA:
“MALA brings together what I love most: music, images, ideas, and people. And yes, ‘mala’ literally means ‘bad’ in Spanish — my first language. It is a playful twist on my name, but also on the idea that ‘bad’ can be so good: unruly, imperfect, surprising, and full of possibility. I see myself as an ‘impresaria’. Wherever I have worked, I have found a way to bring music into the room — creating opportunities for musicians to meet new audiences and for people to encounter music in places and contexts where they might not expect it. MALA grows out of that instinct.”
Curatorial projects by Paola include solo exhibitions by artists such as Noah Davis, Stan Douglas, Wilhelm Klotzek, and Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt, among others.
In 2019, she curated the solo exhibition "Stan Douglas: Splicing Block", dedicated to the role of music in the work of the multidisciplinary artist. In 2023, she co-curated "I've Seen the Wall: Louis Armstrong on Tour in the GDR 1965" with Jason Moran, bringing together artists including Terry Adkins, Louis Armstrong, Pina Bausch, Romare Bearden, Peter Brötzmann, Darol Olu Kae, Norman Lewis, Glenn Ligon, Adrian Piper, Evelyn Richter, Lorna Simpson, Wadada Leo Smith, Rosemarie Trockel, and Andy Warhol.
In 2009, she organized the first encounter and collaboration between painter Gerhard Richter and musician and composer Steve Reich, featuring a live performance at Museum Ludwig and a concert at Kölner Philharmonie. In 2018, she commissioned and produced Jason Moran's performance "APEX VARIATIONS", responding to Arthur Jafa's video "APEX" (2013).
She has collaborated with musicians and ensembles including Ensemble Modern, Jason Moran, Robert Lippok, Steve Reich, Wadada Leo Smith, The Bad Plus, and Immanuel Wilkins.
Paola has taught at Freie Universität Berlin, Heinrich Heine Universität Düsseldorf, and Fachhochschule Potsdam, and currently teaches at Universität der Künste Berlin (UdK), Institut Kunst im Kontext.
Partners
Berlin Art Week Featured 2026
Spaces for artistic exchange
