Berlin Art Week has grown its reputation in tandem with the art scene in the city. Famous for its institutions, public art spaces and private collections, Berlin also hosts many commercial galleries and is home to many artists. This year, the city is kicking off the autumn season with exhibitions by Patti Smith, Mark Leckey, Katharina Grosse and Carrie Mae Weems.
Due to political tensions in Berlin at the moment, some members of the art community, who are on strike, are sidestepping the event. Others are going ahead as normal, or participating in Spore Initiatives’ ‘Unsettled Earth’ (exploring ‘practices and infrastructures that construct relations of land and life anew amid ongoing settler-colonial violence and ecological catastrophe’ in Palestine), which is on view throughout the week.
‘This year is one of our most ambitious yet, and as always, Berlin Art Week marks the beginning of the new season: a change in tempo as fall approaches, when the art world and creative communities return from summer eager to experience a wide range of new shows, live events, and unique presentations,’ Mona Stehle, director of Berlin Art Week tells Wallpaper*. ‘With over 100 museums, galleries, project spaces, and collections opening their doors, the scope of Berlin’s contemporary art scene will be on full display.’
The city is famous for its performance art. Highlights during the week include the ‘Perform!’ festival at Neue Nationalgalerie, now in its fourth year; artist Joan Jonas features, and there will also be a performance of Yoko Ono’s Bells for Peace on 14 September.
Julia Stoschek and Mark Leckey unite to present work
(Image credit: Courtesy of the artist Gladstone Gallery Brussels New York and Galerie Buchholz Berlin Cologne New-York)
The city is also home to some prestigious private collections. The Julia Stoschek Foundation will open the largest survey of work by Mark Leckey to date: ‘Enter Thru Medieval Wounds’ will open on 10 September and showcase work from an extensive collection. ‘Christelle Oyiri: Dead God Flow’ is being presented at CEL: Foundations by the LAS Foundation, and Achim Freyer Kunsthaus is showing ‘Dissonance’ by Jordan Strafer.
Other highlights include Adam Pendleton’s Black Dada works at Pace’s Berlin location and Turner Prize winner Jessie Darling’s first comprehensive show in Berlin at Galerie Molitor.
‘I’m especially looking forward to this year’s “Featured” section, which showcases special formats, projects, and initiatives from the independent scene,’ Stehle adds.
A still from Loophole, by Jordan Strafer, a film available to view at Fluentum as part of ‘Dissonance’
(Image credit: Courtesy of Loophole)
This strand includes ‘Humans in Transit–Stories of refugees in Libya and on the Mediterranean Sea (2015–2025)’ at Refuge Worldwide. Organised by Médecins Sans Frontières, it unites four artists who have created 400 portraits of people who’ve arrived in Germany since 2015. Also, part of ‘Featured’ is Gisela Getty’s ‘Ashes to Rishikesh’, in which Getty documents the death and dying of her twin sister.
Crit Club returns for the second year, run by artist Cem A (widely known for their satirical art world meme Instagram account @freeze_magazine). This very Berlin event pitches thinkers against each other to ask, ‘Should art be competitive?’ Other talks can be found on the event website.
Google Pixel is launching its new phone with a collaboration with Gia Coppola, who has shot the film Edie using only the device. It will screen at an immersive installation conceived with Julian Klincewicz at Supermarque concept store.
Hamburger Bahnhof is showing a film by Marketa Lazarova
(Image credit: Studio Filmowe Barrandov / Statni fond Ceske Republiky)
At the Hamburger Bahnoff, the city’s main contemporary art museum, you can find Petrit Halilaj’sa’s ‘An Opera Out of Time’, for which he has composed an opera with the Kosovo Philharmonic. At Fluentum, there are a plethora of shows, including Cornelia Parker with ‘Stolen Thunder (A Storm Gathering)’ and Phoebe Collings-James with ‘The subtle rules the dense’.
‘Berlin’s cultural landscape has long been shaped by its diversity; this section emphasises how vital the independent scene is in sustaining the city’s cultural identity amid current challenges,’ says Stehle.
Berlin Art Week 2025 runs 10-14 September, berlinartweek.de/en
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