WINTERLIGHTS 2026

With WINTERLIGHTS, the art gallery has once again been transformed into a luminous winter wonderland, a visit to which has become a much-loved winter tradition for many Berliners and visitors alike.

Berlin-based light and media artist Christopher Bauder has created a poetic forest landscape across 1,000 square metres, featuring over 600 trees – most of which float from the ceiling – and more than 250,000 lights that coalesce into a shimmering tapestry of colour, brilliance and reflection. The entire space becomes a stage, and the light takes centre stage as the narrative protagonist.

Bauder, a self-confessed Christmas romantic, brings the nostalgic warmth of Christmas traditions into the present day. He transforms Berlin’s grey winter days into a festive splendour and combines classic winter motifs with radically contemporary light art. The result is a whole new perspective on what we call ‘the festive season’: familiar, yet otherworldly.

At the heart of WINTERLIGHTS lies a

spacious ice rink, which, for the first time, becomes an integral part of the light installation itself. Thousands of lights embedded in the ice transform the surface into an oversized, dynamic screen. Colours, patterns and animations drift beneath skaters’ blades, spread across the ice and merge with the room’s light choreography. With every movement, visitors themselves become part of the spectacle, literally gliding through the light.

The inverted winter forest is also getting an update this year with festive fairy lights. In recurring 45-minute cycles, a newly composed sequence of light, movement and sound unfolds.

The Dutch musician Chris Kuijten once again masterfully accompanies the production with his soundscape.

Visitors can glide through the light installation themselves on the ice rink. But even without skates, WINTERLIGHTS can be experienced in all its diversity: as a journey of wonder, strolling and lingering.