This year, more than 100 exhibition houses, museums, private collections, galleries and project spaces invite you to discover contemporary art in Berlin. This time, the focus is on artistic-critical reflections on current issues, including climate change, AI and institutional criticism. An exciting supporting programme with performances, music, talks and much more awaits you. Because the choice is not easy, we have selected 11 highlights for you. You can look forward to an exciting art weekend.
Tip: Many of the exhibitions can be seen beyond the official duration of the Berlin Art Week from 13 - 17 September.
Tip 1: Meet in the BAW Garden at the Neue Nationalgalerie
The best starting point for a visit to Berlin Art Week this year is the BAW Garden around Neue Nationalgalerie. Here you will not only find all the information about the entire programme, but you can also get creative yourself at workshops. Take advantage of the lunch break for a yoga class, for which the mats are rolled out daily at 12 noon during BAW. From 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., artist and chef Caique Tizzi will spoil you with fruit snacks inspired by Mies van der Rohe's architecture. And all day long, the BAW Reading Garden invites you to linger under the shady trees around the Neue Nationalgalerie. For the sundowner, DJs will be playing in cooperation with Refuge Worldwide from 8 - 10 p.m., and together with "Videoart at Midnight", artistic films will be shown from 8.30 p.m. onwards on the theme of nature and environmental protection.
Performance highlights are the intervention Venus by Göksu Konak and the revival of the Yoko Ono performance Cut Piece. 59 years ago, the artist challenged the audience to cut off her clothes. For this year's Berlin Art Week, young female artists will interpret the project.
When: during the entire Berlin Art Week
Where: Potsdamer Strasse 50, Mitte
Tip 2: Get to know Berlin's neighbourhoods on a Berlin Art Week tour
On nine different tours, you will get to know the creative hotspots of various Berlin neighbourhoods. You'll go to Wedding, Kreuzberg, Neukölln, Mitte, Charlottenburg or to the Brücke-Museum, the Haus am Waldsee and the Georg Kolbe Museum in the west of Berlin. In the latter, you can see the fairytale-like works of Lin May Saeed, who deals with our idea, our image of animals, in "In Paradise the Snow Falls Slowly A Dialogue with Renée Sintenis". The exhibition also deals with the change in society's perspective on animals over the past 100 years - and refers to current issues such as the protection of species and industrial animal husbandry as the climate catastrophe progresses.
Depending on the distance and the neighbourhood, you will be on foot or by bike and explore exhibition venues, galleries and also exhibitions of the larger houses with an experienced guide at your side.
When: depending on the tour, in the afternoon from 14 to 17 September.
Where: you will be informed of the starting point when you buy your ticket.
More about the program at Berlin Art Week
Tip 3: Programming art at the Digital Art Lab at HAL
How do new technologies affect art and our society? The Digital Art Lab at the Haus am Lützowplatz (HAL) deals with this topic. Panels and workshops will focus on creativity and artificial intelligence, performance art in the context of new media and, of course, collecting digital artworks as well as NFTs. With the Digtial Art Lab, there will be a meeting place for digital art during BAW for the first time. In the accompanying exhibition "Unleashed Utopias", you can see current VR works, exchange ideas directly with the artists on site and even learn how to programme digital art yourself.
In the works exhibited by the winners of this year's VR Art Prize, you are immersed in virtual and augmented realities, for example in a posthuman world in which any human being can become pregnant. You will experience landscapes in which women who have had extraordinary bodily experiences describe their inner lives. Get a virtual hug from a bee and have your personal divination generated based on a Persian poetry book.
When: Opening of the exhibition on 8 September, Digital Art Lab from 13 September.
Where: Lützowplatz 9, Tiergarten
Tip 4: Discover young art and fashion at the Positions Art Fair
100 international galleries from 20 different countries show their selection of contemporary and modern art at this year's edition of the Positions Berlin Art Fair. You can also marvel at the light-flooded backdrop of the gigantic hangars at the former Tempelhof Airport. Talks and special exhibitions promise deeper insights into crypto art, NFTs, or the Berlin fashion world.
When: 14 to 17 September
Where: Tempelhof Airport - Hangar 5 & 6, Tempelhofer Damm 45, Tempelhof
Tip 5: Celebrate at the Gallery Weekend Festival
During Berlin Art Week, numerous galleries in Berlin will be inviting visitors with a special programme. In addition to exciting exhibition openings and group exhibitions, there will be readings, performances, music, sound and interventions by the artists represented by the galleries. You can also look forward to parties and DJ sets. You can find an overview of all galleries participating in our events calendar.
Tip: For her exhibition "Burning in the Forest of the Night", Slovakian artist Katarina Kudelova draws with gunpowder and equips her animal sculptures with fireworks - an explosive warning to human treatment of animals and nature. And a sign of common destiny. Destruction seems inherently inevitable - unless a miracle happens. To kick off her exhibition at the BBA Gallery, she lets one of her works go up in smoke.
When: Opening on 15 September 6 - 9 pm, Festival 16/17 September
Where: 51 locations & galleries in Berlin
Tip 6: Explore sound at Berlin Atonal at Kraftwerk Berlin
The Berlin Atonal Festival is one of twelve special projects presented in the new section "BAW Featured". In addition to six concerts on the two festival weekends, you can explore the Kraftwerk complex on four weekdays with the project "Universal Metabolism". This experimental exhibition format is specially tailored to the raw industrial setting. Experience performances, video art and audiovisual works that are atmospherically coordinated and end each day in a different performance. Find out which other projects and venues are part of the festival programme in our calendar of events.
When: 7 to 17 September
Where: Köpenicker Straße 70, Mitte
Tip 7: If the Berlin wind blows my flag shows art before the fall of the Wall
2024 marks the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The 30+ years before are the focus of the cooperation project between daadgalerie, n.b.k. and Galerie im Körnerpark. In order to save West Berlin from cultural isolation, cultural workers from all over the world were invited to the city to grow beyond its borders as part of a residency programme. The exhibition reflects on the role the programme played in networking artists and creative practices during the Cold War - and how the cultural-political orientation was reflected in the selection procedures.
When: 14 September 2023 to 14 January 2024
Where: several venues, opening on 13 September at Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Chausseestraße 128/129, Mitte and at daadgalerie, Oranienstraße 161, Kreuzberg
Tip 8: See socially critical art at KINDL - Centre for Contemporary Art
The KINDL is participating in the Berlin Art Week with several exhibitions this year. In Emma Talbot's silk paintings, sirens, witches and ghosts warn of the ecological and political catastrophes of our present, but also point to alternatives. POLY.A Fluid Show is about new forms of coexistence, bringing together eleven international artists.
When: Opening 16 September 6 - 9 p.m., 17 September 2023 to 25 February 2024
Where: Am Sudhaus 3, Neukölln
KINDL - Centre for Contemporary Art
Tip 9: Explore the self and its representation at KW Institute for Contemporary Art
Tomorrow, I will become an island is the title of Coco Fusco's first major retrospective. In her works, the Cuban-American artist deals with feminism and postcolonial theories and questions the power structures of authoritative institutions. Videos, photos, texts, installations and live performances by the multidisciplinary artist will be shown. Also on show are the works of Kameelah Janan Rasheed, who plays with the effect of language and its representation - opening up entirely new scope for the possible meaning of words and text. The Berlin Art Week exhibition is rounded off with the group exhibition "Skin in the Game", in which artists show groundbreaking prototypes of their work with which they established themselves in the art world.
When: 14 September 2023 to 7 January 2024
Where: Auguststraße 69, Mitte
KW Institute for Contemporary Art
Tip 10: Visit the big art festival in the Wilhelm Hallen
Once again this year, the halls of the former iron foundry in Reinickendorf open for Berlin Art Week. This time, the works of over 50 national and international artists will be exhibited on the 9,000 square metres of industrial space. A total of 19 galleries will be participating in the art festival in Hall #4. In addition, local studios will be opening their doors and art will also be shown and celebrated on the outside grounds. Look forward to performances, music and workshops for all ages.
When: 9 to 17 September 11 am - 8 pm
Where: Kopenhagener Straße 60-72, Reinickendorf
Tip 11: See the photo reportages by Mary Ellen Mark at C/O
For the Berlin Art Week, C/O Berlin presents five iconic projects by US reportage photographer Mary Ellen Mark. On display are projects Mark worked on in the 1970s and 1980s, for which she brought people on the fringes of society in front of her camera, including a travelling circus family and a mother living on the streets with her ten children. In Ward 81 she portrays women in a psychiatric ward in Oregon, Falkland Road is a photo reportage about sex workers in Mumbai. Mark's series have been published in major international newspapers such as Time, GEO and the New York Times Magazine, and some have also been published in book format.
When: Opening Friday, 15 September 20h00; 16 September 2023 to 18 January 2024
Where: Hardenbergstraße 22 - 24 Tiergarten
