B CELL City

Independent Multimedia Pioneer CAM Art Co. Celebrates 60th Anniversary in Berlin with Three-Night Avant-Garde Performance Series

Thursday, October 29 to Saturday, October 31, 2026

CAM Art Co., the second-oldest independent multimedia company in the United States, is proud to announce its 60th Anniversary celebration. The milestone will be marked by a series of international events in Berlin over three consecutive evenings, from Thursday, October 29 through Saturday, October 31, 2026.

The celebration honors six decades of boundary-pushing multimedia art, tracking the company's historic journey from its 1966 roots in South Bend, Indiana to its ongoing operations in New York City. The three-evening program centers on excerpts from "B Cell City," presented here as an immersive multimedia video art installation dealing with life and cancer. Based on an original collaborative work by company founder Charles Matz and current director Antonio Lai da Teulada, the exhibition features shout poetry, ambient sound design, and live performances by an international roster of artists from New York, Berlin, Parma, Barcelona, and Venice.

Event Schedule & Nightly Programming: 

Thursday, October 29 at 7:00 PM — The Vernissage & Opening Night

The celebration opens with a featured performance by acclaimed New York soprano and film/opera consultant Darynn Zimmer, whose career includes collaborations with major American composers Philip Glass and Anthony Davis, and director Robert Wilson. Zimmer will read bilingual passages (English and German) from a libretto written for a secular oratorio. Joining her will be the outstanding New York and Berlin-based classical and jazz flute player and composer, Michael Laderman. Matz penned this original poetic work on mortality during the first four of his 16 years of cancer treatment at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan. The performance bridges CAM Art Co.’s artistic mission with an international network of scientists, medical researchers, and artists addressing cancer and the environment.

Friday, October 30 at 7:00 PM — "In Company of the Poets"

The second evening presents a multilingual word-music concert based on a Spanish epyllion written by Matz. Inspired by the title of Eichendorff’s 1833 novel "Dichter und ihre Gesellen" (The Poets and their Companions), Matz’s final poetic work, "In Company of the Poets," reflects on Alexander von Humboldt’s historic 1799 expedition to Cumaná and Caracas, drawing text from Humboldt's 1810 work "Vues des Cordillères et Monuments des Peuples Indigènes de l’Amérique." The performance weaves together baroque and indigenous influences, drawing poetic inspiration from Spanish icon Luis de Góngora and the historic Peruvian author El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega. The text will be performed by Barcelona-Berlin artist and engineer Cristina Fernandez, featuring special guest guitar and vocal arrangements by Daniel Sousa, a member of the influential, Billboard-recognized Venezuelan band, La Vida Bohème.

Saturday, October 31 at 7:00 PM — Closing Night Performance

The anniversary block concludes with a headline performance by international multimedia artist,prominent VJ and video-maker, Clare Ann Matz. Born in New York, raised in Venice, and now based in Parma, Italy, Clare Ann has been on stage since the age of 12, when she performed in the children's chorus at the Metropolitan Opera House. As the videographer behind CAM Art Co.’s visual projections, her closing set will blend her original Italian and English multimedia material with live performances of her father’s historic, early shout poems.

About CAM Art Co. & Founder Charles Matz

Founded in 1966 by American author and performing artist Charles Matz at the University of Notre Dame (Indiana), CAM Art Co. was established to bring oral poetry into the electronic age. The company gained notoriety when Matz performed radical anti-Vietnam War "shout poems" alongside a rock band in front of 100,000 people at Notre Dame's football stadium. Due to the couple's active participation in the Civil Rights movement, the Matz family faced death threats from the KKK, prompting a move to Venice’s Dorsoduro district, where they remained for 23 years.

In Europe, Matz collaborated with legendary BBC Radio 4 producer Piers Plowright and formed close artistic friendships with Umberto Eco, Andrea Zanzotto, Peggy Guggenheim, and William Weaver.

A proud descendant of the great German Romantic poet Josef Benedikt von Eichendorff, Matz’s extraordinary life spanned global battlefields and historic cultural institutions. At 19, he landed in Normandy on D-Day as an American soldier, marching through Paris and arriving in Berlin-Mitte by the summer of 1945. In 2011, French Ambassador François Delattre awarded him the Légion d’Honneur for his role in liberating France.

Matz was also a master iconographer, designing over 40 stained glass windows for the Washington National Cathedral, including the famous Creation west end rose window, unveiled in 1976 in the presence of Queen Elizabeth II and U.S. President Jimmy Carter. An educator until the very end, he taught a full university schedule of 102 students over Zoom during his final semester. He passed away on February 11, 2021, at the age of 96, leaving behind a completed 600-page memoir, several unpublished screenplays, and works written in English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Tarahumara, and Taino/Arawak. He is interred in the crypt of the Washington National Cathedral with his sister, Irene Veronica Matz-Le Compte.

Website: www.camartco.com