New: Alec Soth
Magnum Photos member Alec Soth drove through the USA again in 2019, not only to take photos, but to buy old ones. More than just a road trip told through stills, this exhibition is an essay on the value, weight and meaning of photos. It’s also an optimistic show about aging. Soth ponders why people want to capture their lives; many of those who are photographed are also photographers themselves. Soth’s exhibition, which has already opened, is part of Berlin Photo Week, which starts on September 2nd.
- Reinbeckhallen Foundation Reinbeckstr. 11, Schöneweide, Thu/Fri 16:00–20:00 Sat/Sun 11:00-20:00, 5/3 €, until 4.9.
Last Chance: Marx and capitalism
Marx was a man of contradictions. “There was no general theoretical concept in Karl Marx’s work,” says curator Sabine Kritter about the exhibition “Karl Marx and Capitalism” at the Deutsches Historisches Museum – a bold claim about the thought of a philosopher who famously categorised society into proletariat, bourgeoisie and capital. The defining motif of the DHM exhibition is to highlight the ambivalences in his work. Marx, for example, condemned the bloodlust of counter-revolutionaries but approved of the potential violence of communards from the working class. His work “On the Jewish Question” was anti-semitic, but at the same time hostility towards Jews was not essential to his work. Visitors of this exhibition do not have to be nerdy Capital scholastics. “It’s about understanding Marx’s thoughts and actions in a simple way,” says Sabine Kritter. Marx in the Deutsches Historisches Museum: here’s what the curator says.
- Deutsches Historisches Museum Unter den Linden 2, Mitte, daily 10-18, €8, concessions, through 21.08.
Last Chance: Billy Childish
Billy Childish is a musician, poet and painter. Being pulled in so many directions doesn’t always work out, but it does for this multi-talented Brit. His introspective paintings are made with dynamic colours and flat brushstrokes that dissolve into the abstract directly on raw canvas and thus reveal a characteristic formal language. In the works presented at neugerriemschneider, the artist deals with the motif of the untouched landscape. Sometimes the oversized paintings are dreamy and luminously light, sometimes graphically expressive and mysterious – in any case they draw you in.
- neugerriemschneider Linienstraße 155, Mitte, Tue-Sat 11:00–18:00, until 20.08.
Last Chance: Sculptures by Rebecca Horn and Fred Sandbeck
Fittingly for the opening of Documenta in Kassel on June 18, Galerie Thomas Schulte is exhibiting a work that Rebecca Horn already presented at the major 1982 exhibition: a kinetic sculpture in which beauty and danger are united, the Peacock Machine. At Schulte, the sculpture is accompanied by the works of US sculptor Fred Sandback, who died in 2003 and created three-dimensional bodies in empty spaces with acrylic yarn.
- Galerie Thomas Schulte Charlottenstr. 24, Mitte, Tue–Sat 12:00–18:00, until 20.08
Last Chance: New Queer Photography
In 2020, Berlin art director Benjamin Wolbergs collected the perspectives of 52 queer photographers from around the world for his book New Queer Photography. The exhibition based on this book is now on display at Kreuzberg’s Fotoraum F3, featuring works by 15 artists. Many of the exhibition participants come from the underground scene, but since being featured have won major clients such as Gucci or Vogue. The contributions are international, and the above photo was taken by Clifford Maika Elan in Vietnam.
- F3 – Freiraum für Fotografie Waldemarstr. 17, Kreuzberg, Wed–Sun 13:00–19:00, 5/ 3 €, until 21.08.
Last Chance: Vergoldet / Doré
All that glitters is not gold, but should silence be golden? The 25 artists in the exhibition at Schloss Biesdorf, which is being organized by guest curator Harald F. Theiss, use real and fake gold in order to discover the symbolic value of the precious metal. Clemens Wolf gilded a parachute and Via Lewandwosky made a broom that could have been Scrooge Mcduck’s. Karin Sander, Michael Müller and Antje Blumenstein will also take part.
- Schloss Biesdorf Alt-Biesdorf 55, Biesdorf, Wed-Thu, Sat–Mon 10:00–18:00, Fri 12:00–21:00, through 21.08
Louise Bourgeois: The Woven Child
A difficult relationship with her father and a deep love for her mother inspired Louise Bourgeois’ great artistic output. In her sculptures and installations, such as the doused spiders and cages, so-called “Cells”, the artist, who died in 2010, expressed fear, sexuality, pain and security, from the core beyond the purely personal. In the show “The Woven Child” her late textile work comes into focus.
- Gropiusbau Niederkirchnerstr. 7, Kreuzberg, July 22–October 23, Mon–Wed 10:00–19:00, €15/€10 until 23.10
Tresor 31: Techno, Berlin und die große Freiheit
“It should feel like a ruin from an alternative future,” says curator Adriano Rosselli about the ambitious artwork which forms the centre point of this 8 week long show at Kraftwerk. Here, the artist Anne de Vries has recreated the former Tresor nightclub with sand on a 1:1 scale, accompanied by an audio tour that lets you hear stories from the club’s legendary history. But there is plenty more to see in this immersive exhibition. Film installations from Arthur Jaffa and Robecca Salvadori play on the bottom floor, while visitors can check out materials from the club’s history or browse the Hard Wax record store on the upper level. There’s plenty to find, so visitors should come ready to explore the halls of this former power plant.
The accompanying music program can be found here
- Kraftwerk Berlin Köpenicker Str. 70, tickets and times here until 28.8.
12th Berlin Biennale
The 12th Berlin Biennale kicks off on June 11, featuring 77 international artists and collectives. This year’s event is curated by the French artist (and part-time Berliner) Kader Attia and takes as its focus the dark legacy of colonialism. Spread across six different venues, this year’s edition will even set up a project space on Wilhelmstraße, at the site of the Berlin Conference. Here in 1884 at the official residence of Otto von Bismark, representatives of Europe’s colonial powers carved up Africa between them. In an interview with Exberliner, curator Kader Attia said that the Biennale will focus on four “blind spots” of Western thinking with regard to its colonial history: the links between colonialism and fascism, environmental destruction, questions of restitution and feminism from the colonial perspective. Read our full article here.
- Akademie der Künste Hanseatenweg 10, Tiergarten, Wed-Mon 11:00-19:00
- Akademie der Künste Pariser Platz 4, Mitte, Wed-Mon 11:00.-19:00
- Decolonial Remembrance Culture in the City Wilhelmstr. 92, Mitte, 0-24 h (window)
- Hamburger Bahnhof Invalidenstr. 50-51, Tiergarten, Tue-Fri 10:00-18:0, Thur 10:00-20:00, Sat-Sun 11:00.-18:00
- Kunst-Werke (KW) Auguststr. 69, Mitte, Wed-Mon 11:00-21:00
- Stasi Headquarters. Campus for Democracy Ruschestr. 103, Haus 7 + 22, Lichtenberg, Wed-Mon 11:00-18:00
- All venues: 11/6-18/9/2022,Ticket: 18/ 9 €, free admission at decolonial remembrance culture and Stasi headquarters up to 18 yrs, those with Berlin Pass & 1st Sun of every month.
- Opening event: June 10, 19:00-22:00, admission free
The Worlds of Schliemann
In 1844, at the age of 22, Heinrich Schliemann took a job in an import-export firm and was sent to St Petersburg to conduct business. He quickly learned Russian and Greek (he claimed it took him just six weeks to learn a language) and used his skills to conduct more trade internationally. By the time he retired at just 36, he’d started a bank in Sacremento, sold gold in California, cornered the market in indigo dye and profited from becoming a military contractor in the Crimean War. And this is only where his story begins. Following Schliemann’s success in business, he retired to become a full-time archeologist and devoted himself to finding the remains of the mythical city of Troy, mentioned in Homer’s Iliad. What’s even more remarkable: he managed it. A new exhibition at James-Simon-Galerie revisits his disputed legacy.
Read our full review of the show here.
- James-Simon-Galerie, Bodestraße, 10178 Berlin, until 06.11.
The Little George Grosz Museum
Skull-faced soldiers, war profiteers, sex workers, politicians and bank clerks all wander the streets of Berlin in the grotesque and compelling pictures of Geroge Grosz, who might be the greatest visual chronicler of the interwar period in this city. Strangely, for someone who so defined an era, he’s not had a dedicated museum until now. In the appropriately urban setting of a converted petrol station off Bülowstrasse, Das kleine Grosz Museum (The little Grosz Museum) opens on May 13.
It was also our art editor’s pick of the month.
- Das kleine Grosz Museum, Schöneberg, until 30.09.
Nina Canell
Photo: Nina Canell und Robin Watkins (Video Still)
Berlin-based artist Nina Canell has a new show at Berlinische Galerie. Her work is very focused on process. Accordingly, one work in this show is simply a room filled with seven tonnes of mollusc shells laid out on the floor. This might seem bizarre, but we soon learn that calcite, or crushed seashells, are a key ingredient in concrete and sense the natural world that is exploited for our manufactured urban landscapes. Nature and technology also collide in some of her video works, made in collaboration with Robin Watkins.
- Berlinische Galerie, Alte Jakobstraße 124 – 128, 10969 Berlin, until 22.08.
Julia Stoschek Collection
Time and again, the utopian potential of art is evoked as a space in which something new can emerge through experimentation. Quite what this might look like is shown in 25 video works ranging from Joan Jonas’s early performance videos to the animated worlds of Jacolby Satterwhite. At the same time, visitors can view the newly acquired multimedia and interactive installation, “Piña, Why is the Sky Blue?” Stephanie Comilang and Simon Speiser have created an AI work through interviews with activists and healers in the Philippines and Ecuador. As a kind of spiritual memory, it preserves valuable knowledge for future generations.
Get our full review of At Dawn from the Julia Stoschek Collection here!
- Julia Stoschek Collection, Leipziger Str. 60, Mitte, Sat/Sun 12–18, 5€, free admission under 18, until 04.12.
Michel Majerus
Photo: © Michel Majerus Estate, 2022 / Courtesy neugerriemschneider, Berlin
At the age of only 35, Michel Majerus (1967-2002) died in a plane crash. In his short creative phase, the Luxembourg painter and Berlin resident became a formative figure of the 1990s. He mixed pop culture and art history, extended painting from the canvas to space, and was one of the first to use digital tools. On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of his death, his work is being honoured with the exhibition series Michel Majerus 2022 in several Berlin art venues. To kick things off, the Michel Majerus Estate is showing works by the artist together with works by his two professors Joseph Kosuth and K.R.H. Sonderborg. Read our full preview here.
- Michel Majerus Estate Knaackstr. 12, Prenzlauer Berg, 28.4. 11-18, 29.4. 11-21, 30.4. 11-19, otherwise Sat 11-18, until 18.3.23
Fedir Tetyanych
Few people know Fedir Tetyanych. The Ukrainian artist (1942-2007) could make art out of just about anything. Tetyanych wrote poems, manifestos, painted, created sculptures from garbage, as well as costumes and spaceships, performed in the streets and made films. Originally trained as a public monument artist in the USSR, he began creating his own visionary system in the 1970s using elements of cosmism, ecological thinking and transhumanism. Some of his wondrous, multifaceted works, saved from the shelling of Kyiv, can be seen in the CCA Gallery. ‘Everywhere is my eternal home, my endless body,’ wrote Tetyanych in his manifesto. You can add Berlin to that list now.
- CCA Berlin – Center for Contemporary Arts Kurfürstenstr. 145, Schöneberg, Thu–Sat 11:00-18:00, until 3.9.
Sumpf der Wunder (Swamp of Miracles)
What would the right life look like in the wrong world? Should we just face the violent present? Artists such as Benjamin Busch, Anne Duk Hee Jordan, Jeewi Lee and Barnabás Sebessy (pictured) deal with our reality and current dystopian visions of the future, while trying out new orders for our world in hypothetical, absurd and pseudo-documentary scenarios.
- Kunstbrücke am Wildenbruch Weigandufer/corner of Wildenbruchbrücke, Neukölln, Wed–Sun 12:00-18:00, until 30.10.
Die Neuen 2022
The Berlin Artists’ Association accepted eight new members this year (hence die Neuen). Now they present their work in this new exhibition ‘Form.Multiple – The New 2022’. The works range from classic wood carvings to experimental screen printing and digital collages. The Polish-German artist Kama Jackowska prints her abstract pictures on delicate Chinese paper. Katrin Salentin uses image manipulation to shape human bodies into grotesque creatures, while Fumiari Ogawa’s lacquered plastic sculptures (pictured) seem to run away.
- Verein der Berliner Künstler Schöneberger Ufer 57, Tiergarten, Tue–Fri 15:00–19:00 / Sat + Sun 14:00–18:00, opening 5.8. 19:00, until 21.8.
Keine Flagge in der Sonne
In their exhibition ‘No Flag in the Sun’, Dolores Zinny and Juan Maidagan are showing works created since the duo arrived in Berlin from South America in the early 2000s. Her installations, drawings and sculptural objects address the use and appropriation of spaces. And her thesis emerges that the passage of time does not necessarily bring about a change or democratisation of our actions and thinking. Above all, the books on display such as Luftkrieg und Literatur by German scholar W.G. Sebald make for excellent reading!
- Daad-Gallerie Oranienstr. 161, Kreuzberg, Thurs–Sun 14:00–19:00, until 25.9.
Wolf Vostell/Boris Lurie
This one is not for the faint of heart. But Wolf Vostell (1932-1998) and Boris Lurie (1924-2008) were never ones to beat around the bush. The two artists shared a deep friendship and a difficult subject: the Shoah and crimes against humanity. While Wolf Vostell from Berlin tried to trace the horror of the Holocaust with installations and paintings, Boris Lurie from New York, himself a concentration camp survivor, wanted to show the continued existence of inhuman systems in a new guise with his collages and objects (pictured).
- Kunsthaus Dahlem Käuzchensteig 12, Dahlem, Wed–Mon 11:00–17:00, €8/5, until 30.10.
Dissonance
Curators Christoph Tannert, head of Künstlerhaus Bethanien, and Mark Gisbourn have published a book titled Dissonance. Platform Germany. It focuses on 81 painters who shaped contemporary painting in Germany, but whose names are not necessarily known to everyone. Oska Gutheil (pictured), Grit Richter and Tegene Kunbi (winner of the Grand Prize of the Biennial of Dakar Dak’Art 22) are among the 40 selected artists shown in the exhibition that accompanies the book.
- Künstlerhaus Bethanien Kottbusser Str. 10, Kreuzberg, Tue–Sun 14:00-19:00, until 11.9.
Georg Thumbach
Without doubt, Apartment No. 834 in the Corbusierhaus, a heritage-listed residential high-rise between the Olympiastadion and Grunewald, is one of the most special art destinations in Berlin. On the eighth floor, architect Peter Ottmann has converted a two-storey former three-room apartment into an exhibition space. The works of art by the painter and sculptor Georg Thumbach in the ‘Forest’ exhibition are no less captivating than the location: large-format charcoal drawings of an incredibly detailed forest. Dense branches and sun-drenched deciduous forests alternate on 2 x 1.5 metre sheets of paper. From the black and white microcosm of the Bavarian Forest to the green-grey macrocosm of Berlin.
- Corbusierhaus C834 Flatowallee 16, Westend, 8th floor, Sun 14:00-18:00, or by appointment [email protected], free admission until August 28, artist talk with Georg Thumbach on Wed August 3, 7pm
Rust
Three high-profile perspectives, one story: the decline of the Rust Belt, once the heartland of US industry. Architectural photographs by Bernd and Hilla Becher enter into a dialogue with Stephen Shore’s subjective, documentary-style photographs of people and cities in a material and psychological downward spiral. LaToya Ruby Frazier offers the most up-to-date view, capturing the political, social and economic effects of the ongoing crises in intimate portraits.
- Sprüth Magers Oranienburger Str. 18, Mitte, Tue–Sat 11:00-18:00, until August 27
Deborah Poynton
The unsettling works of South African artist Deborah Poynton are painted in exquisite detail. ‘Folly’, the title of Poynton’s exhibition, provides much food for thought, just as the ostentatious sensuality of her paintings requires more than just a cursory glance. The longer you look, the more you see and the more questions you will have.
- Haus am Lützowplatz Lützowplatz 9, Tiergarten, Tue–Sun 11:00-18:00, until 4.9.
Tabea Blumenschein/Ulrike Ottinger
Hollywood divas, angry rebels, androgynous trans people. The shrill images alternate with cool, elegant photographs. The exhibition ‘Mitspiel’ gives insights into the art of two remarkable Berliners: the illustrator, actress and musician Tabea Blumenschein, an artist, who died in 2010, was the ‘it’ girl of the West Berlin art scene of the 70s and 80s. There are also shots by the photographer and director Ulrike Ottinger, who not only filmed with the Blumenschein, but also documented the wildlife of West Berlin’s subculture.
- Berlinische Galerie Alte Jakobstr. 124–128, Kreuzberg, Wed–Mon 10:00–18:00, 10/6 €, until 31.10.
Material Nation
How does longing for a home that no longer exists feel? What if you were born in a country that no longer exists or is currently occupied, destroyed? In photographs and installations, artists from Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe use childhood memories of the Balkan wars to deal with the transformation processes of the 1990s in the post-socialist states.
- Urania At Urania 17, Schöneberg, Wed–Sun 12:00–18:00 until 21.08
House of Paper
The private museum, founded by entrepreneurs Annette Berr and Ul Vohrer, opened last year and is dedicated exclusively to paper art. It is not about paper as a mere image carrier. The predominantly female artists create, scrape, cut and thus unfold the sculptural potential of this everyday and at the same time multifaceted material. In the current exhibition “Seduce me, paper”, Aja von Loeper shows how she uses a beech stylus to press relief-like structures out of a white sheet of paper, alternating between torn fibers and marble-like surfaces. Equally seductive is Christiane Feser’s paper art, which cleverly combines photography and cutting techniques into illusory images.
- House of Paper Seydelstr. 30, Mitte, Fri–Sun 10:00–17:00, 8.50/6 €, until 30.9.
Horse Girl
Teenage girls and horses – this is the stuff that films, books and clichés all the way from the 1950s to the present day are based upon. Interestingly, social research even ascribes subversive potential to the youth subculture of ‘horse girls’. Beyond well-known images from pop culture and scientific classifications, artists approach the subject of ‘horse girl’ in this exhibition of the same name with fine drawings and ambivalent sculptures.
- Gallery Zwinger Mansteinstr. 5, Kreuzberg, Tue–Sat 12:00–18:00, until 10.9.
Chto Delat / Istvan Kantor
“What to do?” is the name of the Petersburg collective “Chto Delat”, which brings together art, activism and political theory in its practice. What to do when your critical voices, which were once tolerated, no longer find anywhere to resonate – is the underground the only place left for thinking, working and dreaming? The collective negotiate, together with other Russian thinkers over what to do in the face of war in their latest video work, which they present next to drawings by Istvan Kantor. The Canadian-Hungarian artist uses charcoal and childlike strokes to capture images on paper that, with their tension between inexperience and brutality, create a depth far removed from the flood of images in the media.
- KOW Lindenstraße 35, Kreuzberg, Tue–Sat 12:00–18:00, until 20.8.
Ergün Çağatay
Ergun Çağatay (1937–2018) was one of the most famous photographers from Istanbul. He worked for the Associated Press, was seriously injured in a bomb attack in Paris in 1983, and traveled to Central Asia. In Germany he photographed immigrants from Turkey, drove with them to coal mines in the Ruhr area, photographed them on the assembly line at Ford Cologne as well as during the turbulence of German unification in 1990. The Museum Europäischer Kulturen honors Çağatay in a retrospective with more than 100 Recordings, a media installation and a magazine with articles by the writer Dilek Güngör and the photographer Candida Höfer.
- Museum Europäischer Kulturen Arnimallee 25, Dahlem, Tue–Fri 10–17, Sat-Sun 11:00–18:00, 8/ 4 €, under 18s and ALG II free, first Sunday of the month free, Tickets: smb.museum, until 7.2.2023
Max Liebermann
The wide horizon, the sea, the beach, the bathers. For Max Liebermann, the Netherlands and especially the little village of Noordwijk were places of bliss where he could capture real life, away from the art world. July 20 marks the 175th anniversary of the Berlin painter’s birthday. The Liebermann-Villa is celebrating this anniversary with the exhibition “Coast in Sight. Max Liebermann in Noordwijk” taking us back to those summers between 1905 and 1913 and showing us oil paintings and pastels.
- Liebermann-Villa Colomierstr. 3, Wannsee, Wed–Mon 10:00–18:00, 10/ 6 €, under 18s free, until 19.9.
Sibylle Bergemann Travelling
Parallel to Sibylle Bergemann’s major retrospective at the Berlinische Galerie, Galerie Kicken Berlin is showing a selection of photographs by the Berlin photographer, who died in 2010. These include rarely seen pieces such as the still portrait of the timelessly melancholic Benedite Leuwerda (1994) or “Frieda, New York” from 1991. The exhibition is part of the “Sheroes of Photography” series, with which the gallery pays tribute to female artists.
- Kicken Berlin Kaiserdamm 118, Charlottenburg, Tue–Fri 14:00–18:00, until 9.9.
Sascha Wiederhold
His ‘Bogenschützen’ (1928) has been in the permanent exhibition of the Neue Nationalgalerie since 2021, and his life’s work is now being rediscovered: Sascha Wiederhold (1904-1962) painted constructivist, futuristic, colourfully Orphistic-Cubist paintings such as ‘Sailboats’ in the harbour (above). The Neue Nationalgalerie is showing around 50 works by Wiederhold, who became a bookseller under the Nazi dictatorship, when art became too risky.
- Neue Nationalgalerie Potsdamer Str. 50, Tiergarten, Tue–Wed and Fri–Sun, 10:00–18:00, Thu 10:00–20:00, €12/€ 6, under 18s and ALG II are free, free on the first Sunday of the month, Tickets, through 08.01, 2023
Georg-Kolbe-Museum
The team at the Georg-Kolbe-Museum presents works by two “couples” under the title Artificial Biotopes. Berlin artist Anne Duk Hee Jordan arranges her installations of water and plants next to filigree sculptures by the sculptor Wilhelm Lehmbruck, who died in 1919. The second couple is the architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and the sculptor Georg Kolbe, whose former studio building in western Charlottenburg is the museum’s headquarters.
- Georg-Kolbe-Museum Sensburger Allee 25, Charlottenburg, Mon–Sun 10:00–18:00, €7/ €5, under 18s and first Sunday of the month free, through 28.08
Tiina Itkonen – Ice Has a Memory: Greenland’s Vanishing Song Lines
Tiina Itkonen works with researchers from the Piniartoq project who are studying the effects of global warming in Greenland. The artist from Helsinki takes photos, and then the scientists write texts about them. It’s also about ice and bears, but above all about the consequences of ice loss for the local population. Itkonen has been traveling in Greenland for 20 years – she has an insight into the island like few other Western European artists. Itkonen will occupy the ground floor of the Persons Projects gallery, while Ilkka Halso, Sanna Kannisto, Sandra Kantanen and Mikko Rikala will be exhibiting photographs on the subject of ecosystems on the first floor.
- Persons Projects Lindenstr. 34–35, Kreuzberg, Tue–Sat 11:00–18:00, through 03.09
Mila Teshaieva
The Museum Europäischer Kulturen is presenting the war diary of the Ukrainian photographer Mila Teshaieva in the exhibition “Splinters of Life”. From the beginning of March to the end of April, i.e. shortly after the military escalation, the native Ukrainian published her impressions in photographs and personal texts on the website dekoder. From this work, 18 large-format examples can now be seen in a chronologically sorted tour, showing everyday life in times of terror. There are no proud soldiers in uniform, no explosions or circling warplanes. Her pictures illuminate civilians in their new everyday life between destruction and reconstruction.
- Museum Europäischer Kulturen Arnimallee 25, Dahlem, Tue–Fri 10:00–17:00, Sat–Sun 11:00–18:00, €8/ €4, first Sunday of the month is free, through Jan 15, 2023
Songlines
From the so-called fifth continent comes ‘Songlines – Seven Sisters Create Australia’, an exhibition with around 300 paintings, films and objects supervised by Margo Neale, Senior Indigenous Curator at the National Museum, and an Indigenous Board of Trustees. The show explains an Australian creation myth: that of the ‘Seven Sisters’, who flee from a pursuer through deserts and escape him thanks to magic.
- Humboldt Forum Schlossplatz, Mitte, Wed–Mon 10:00–20:00, €12/6, under 18s and ALG II frei, book a time-slot here, until 31.10.
Blick zurück nach vorn (Looking back to the future)
On Fasanenstraße, close to the Literaturhaus and Grisebach auction house, the Kornfeld Gallery is celebrating its tenth birthday. For the anniversary, the gallery is showing an overview of works by artists it represents, including Nick Dawes from Johannesburg/London, here with ‘17th’, 2022, in oil on canvas. With a focus on painters (e.g. from Berliners Christopher Lehmpfuhl, Tammam Azzam and Franziska Klotz), the group show is as diverse as it is stunning.
- Galerie Kornfeld Fasanenstr. 26, Charlottenburg, Tue–Sat 11:00–18:00, 02.07 until 03.09.
Sibylle Bergemann
Berlinische Galerie is paying tribute to the Berlin photographer Sibylle Bergemann with a retrospective running until October. On display will be over 200 (partly) unpublished snapshots featuring some of her colour travel photography taken post 1989.
The photography of her friends Arno Fischer and Ute Mahler will also be on display, as well as some lesser-known shots from Bergemann’s early career, like this chic trio captured in 1968 on East Berlin’s Unter den Linden.
- Berlinische Galerie Alte Jakobstr. 124–128, Kreuzberg, Wed–Mon 10:00–18:00, free admission on the first Sunday of the month, book a slot here, until 10.10.
Every Day at the Museum
Every Day at the Museum showcases the favourite artworks of 30 guards who work across Berlin’s museum network, featuring the likes of Azzad Ismail Dhif (pictured here) next to the bust of King Akhenaten in the Neues Museum. This novel exhibition takes place in the Gemäldegalerie, on Museum Island, in the Museum of European Cultures and Köpenick Palace and is the brainchild of the Museum of Islamic Art, where many guards from Syria work.
- Pergamonmuseum (among others) Bodestraße, Mitte, Tue-Sun 10:00-18:00, €12/ 6, under 18 and ALG II free, book a slot here, until 2.10.
Sculpture garden at Haus am Waldsee
When the sculpture park behind the Zehlendorf Villa reopens to the public on June 26, the trees, bushes, lawns, paths and lake outside and Thomas Florschuetz’s photos inside will both complement and contradict each other perfectly. The garden was reconstructed in the English style of the early 1920s, while, inside, Florschuetz depicts scenes of modernism, architecture, still lifes and even portraits of plants from politically charged buildings that recall both the progress and dislocation of modern times, like the old Ethnological Museum in Dahlem shortly before its exhibits were moved to the Humboldt Forum (pictured). There will be a celebration for the park’s reopening on June 26, featuring a talk from Georg von Gayl, the landscape and garden architect behind the restoration.
- Haus am Waldsee Argentinische Allee 30, Zehlendorf, Tue–Sun 11:00–18:00, €7/5, under 18s and ALG free, until 28.08., website
No Master Territories
Pioneers of feminist film from the 1970s to the 1990s are the focus of No Master Tertitories at the Haus der Welt der Kulturen (HKW). The list of names is long, and ranges from the late actress and director Chantal Akerman, to the photographer Gundula Schulze Eldowy, to Helena Amiradżibi. Films can be seen in the exhibition hall and in the cinema, in a weekly repeating programme.
- HKW John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10, Tiergarten, Wed-Mon 12:00–20:00, €7/ 5, under 18s and Mondays free, until 28.8.
Ansehen! Art and Design by Women 1880-1940
After cataloging the 20,000+ objects in the collection of the Bröhan Museum, the curators realised that only about 1,500 were made by women, about 7.5 percent. Nearly 1,000 male artists compared to 99 females – including Chana Orloff (pictured) – and the intriguing question remains: how did these 99 women hold their own in the face of such adversity? Who would choose this path, given the obstacles? The new special exhibition aims to provide answers – through biographies and more.
- Bröhan-Museum Schloßstr. 1a, Charlottenburg, Tue–Sun 10:00–18:00, €8/ 5, under 18s, first Wednesday and Sunday of the month free, book a slot here, until 04.09.
POSTOST: Україна / Ukraine
What does it mean to grow up in a post-Soviet country? How does an Eastern European country shape its national identity today? What do you do when the air raid sirens wake you up? The exhibition “POSTOST: Україна / Ukraine” shows artworks by Ukrainian artists with themes ranging from everyday life under threat and stories about identification, cohesion and belonging. Some of them have been living in Berlin for a long time, like the great photographer Boris Mikhailov, others like musician Maria Kebu have only been here for a few weeks, and some are in Ukraine, like Sasha Kurmaz, most recently a scholarship holder at the Akademie der Künste Berlin. There will be performances and live music at the opening on Saturday.
- Karl-Marx-Straße 84 Neukölln, opening Sat 18.6., 14:00–22:00, Tue–Sun 13:00-21:00, 7€, free entry every first and third Thursday of the month,until 19.09,
Film art by Pauline Curnier Jardin
The second exhibition at Chert Lüdde’s new location also deals with the surroundings of the gallery. Pauline Curnier Jardin, winner of the 2019 National Gallery Prize, focuses on a Schöneberg cinema run by women, the Luna-Lichtspiele, which even survived World War II. When Curnier Jardin won the prize, she exhibited a visceral film installation at Hamburger Bahnhof about a religious festival in Italy in honour of St. Agatha. Blood flows again in the only film, 2022.
- Chert Lüdde Hauptstr. 18, Schöneberg, Tues–Sat 12:00–18:00 until 03.09.
Woodcut
Berlin’s Kupferstichkabinett has some fantastic works in its archives and this show is a great chance to visit some of them. Woodcut will display more than 100 pieces on paper, including masterpieces from Albrecht Dürer, Edvard Munch and Käthe Kollwitz. The woodcut is the oldest printmaking technique, and this show starts at the beginning, with early works dating from the 15th century.
- Kupferstichkabinett until 11.09
Earth Indices. Processing the Anthropocene
Haus der Kulturen der Welt has done pioneering work with its exhibitions and events on the Anthropocene – the geological age marked by human impact on the planet. The exhibition ‘Earth Indices’ is based on the findings of a group of international scientists who researched the practices and instruments that leave geological traces. The artists Armin Linke and Giulia Bruno accompanied the Anthropocene Working Group and provide comment and elaboration on their work throughout the exhibition. The show marks the end of the Anthropocene series at HKW, along with the tenure of long-time director Bernd Scherer.
- Haus der Kulturen der Welt John-F.-Dulles-Allee 10, Tiergarten, Wed-Mon 12-20, free admission, until 17.10.
All Hands On: Flechten
Finally, the Museum of European Cultures (MEK) strikes again with a major exhibition. “All Hands On: Weaving” presents masterpieces of art, craft and design, anonymous pieces made of straw and bark as well as the new work “The Woven Garden” (photo.) by Olaf Holzapfel, a participant in Documenta five years ago. A welcome occasion for a subway ride to Dahlem: which is also worth a trip for beer gardens, bookstores at the university, parks and the Domäne Dahlem agricultural museum a short distance from the MEK. Perfect for a long weekend.
- Museum Europäischer Kulturen Arnimallee 25, Dahlem, Tue–Fri 10:00–17:00, Sat-Sun 11:00–18:00, 8/ 4 €, under 18s free + Berlin Pass free, Timeslot tickets here, until further notice.
Old building, new content: the Neue Nationalgalerie
The freshly done-up Neue Nationalgalerie is presenting works from its collection dating from 1900 to 1945 under the title “The Art of Society”. These are arranged, not according to art styles, but to social and political themes. The exhibition doesn’t just consist of the museum’s combined inventory from East and West Berlin, but also features works borrowed from artists, such as Auguste Herbin’s glowing portrait of the writer and anarchist Erich Mühsam. The new collection is flanked by a posthumous presentation of works from the sculptor Alexander Calder and by a solo exhibition by the Berlin artist Rosa Barba on the architecture of Mies van der Rohe.
- Neue Nationalgalerie Potsdamer Str. 50, Tiergarten, Mon-Sun 10:00-20:00, Tue-Sun 10:00-18:00, Thu until 20, 14€, concessions