Galleries & Exhibition Spaces in Berlin
Discover contemporary art
Berlin is one of the cities with the most exhibitions worldwide. At countless vernissages, in project spaces, in galleries, in salons, private flats and at art projects in public spaces, you can discover a lot in Berlin, even away from the big houses and events.
Galleries and art exhibitions
Berlin's gallery scene is as diverse as the city itself. Here you can discover contemporary art in large established art museums such as the Neuen Nationalgalerie, the Hamburger Bahnhoff or the KW Institut für Contemporary Art. In addition, there are hundreds of art exhibitions in private and municipal galleries, project spaces and exhibition rooms, of which we present a small selection here. We invite you on a foray through Berlin's art scene. The spectrum ranges from internationally renowned artists to exciting experimental art and street art. Because Berlin, art and creativity simply belong together.
Berlin Art Week & Gallery Weekend - Highlights of the Berlin Art Year
The highlights of the year certainly include the Berlin Art Week with the art fair Positions and the Gallery Weekend. In addition, new ideas and projects are always enriching the scene with pop-up events and exciting shows that you can discover in all corners of the city throughout the year. In many districts, artists open their studios to the public every year. Both the Universität der Künste (UdK) and the Akademie der Künste (AdK) invite you to look into their studios and ateliers on Open Day.
Caspar David Friedrich
Infinite Landscapes: April 19th – August 4, 2024. Major exhibition in the Alte Nationalgalerie on the work of the most important painter of German Romanticism with famous icons such as Monk by the Sea, The Arctic Ocean and the Chalk Cliffs on Rügen.
Contemporary art in Berlin can also be found in rather unusual places: from salons in private flats to record shops, bars and restaurants - Berlin's art scene is creative. Clubs like Kraftwerk, Tresor, Berghain or Wilde Renate open their rooms for exhibitions and events. In former factory halls, such as the Kunsthalle in the hangars at the former Tempelhof Airport or the Wilhelm Hallen in Reinickendorf, art becomes an experience.
Gallery districts in Berlin
The most important gallery districts in Berlin can be found in Auguststraße in Mitte, in City West and in Wedding. But there is also plenty to discover in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg and Neukölln. You can benefit from attractive discounts at some institutions with the Berlin Welcome Card.
By the way: the whole of Berlin is a gigantic open-air gallery. From sculptures in public spaces to urban art - why not combine your gallery tour with a stroll?
Galleries in Mitte: From Auguststraße to the Boros Bunker
In Berlin Mitte you will find numerous galleries along Auguststraße. Start at KW Insitute for Contemporary Art and stroll along Auguststraße to the EIGEN+Art gallery, for example. It's also worth taking a detour to the parallel Linienstraße, for example to the ifa Gallery, which looks at art across mental and territorial boundaries, to Martin Mertens or to the Galerie Neu in a former heating power station.
Art. Direct.
A unique alliance of artists and logisticians to create a new kind of online gallery. Our motto: Art is for everyone! That's why you'll only find originals at affordable prices.
Since 1994, Galerie neugerriemeschneider has been presenting exciting artists beyond Berlin's borders, in the beginning, for example, the then still unknown Olafur Eliasson. Today, Ai Weiwei and Billy Childish are also part of the programme of the internationally active gallery with branches in Miami, Basel and Hong Kong. 15 minutes' walk away, the private collector Christian Boros shows his collection in a converted bunker as part of 1.5-hour guided tours. You have to book these in advance.
On an international level, the Julia Stoscheck Foundation deals with video and digital art as well as new media. In the Schinkel Pavillon, beautifully located in the park of the Kronprinzenpalais, you will also find installations and sometimes quite provocative media art. From here you also have a wonderful panoramic view of important Berlin sights such as the Berlin Cathedral, the TV Tower and the Friedrichswerdersche Kirche, today also an exhibition space.
Also worthwhile are side trips to the collection of the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.), founded back in 1969, to the Galerie Thomas Schulte, one of the first gallery start-ups after the fall of the Wall, to Sprüth Magers and to the Tschechische Zentrum (Czech Centre) with its affiliated gallery.
The Akademie der Künste, with branches on Pariser Platz near the Brandenburg Gate and in Hansastrasse, is one of the oldest European cultural institutes with an international community of artists. If you want to know what the next generation of artists in the capital is up to, you can talk to them directly on a tour of the University of the Arts (in Charlottenburg). Every year in summer, many studios are opened for the Open Day.
Still an insider tip is the art exhibition in the German Bundestag - even though the foundation stone for the extensive collection was laid back in 1969.
Art and subculture in Berlin Mitte
A visit to the Neurotitan Gallery in Haus Schwarzenberg is a bit like a trip back to the wild Berlin of the 1990s. Organised as a non-profit association, the spirit of the creative awakening of the post-reunification period in Berlin lives on here right next to the Hackesche Höfe. In addition to art and subculture, impulses are sent into the city here in workshops and interventions. In the same building complex you will also find the Monsterkabinett, the Kino Zentral and the club bar Eschschlloraque Rümschrümp.
Photography and contemporary art in City West
Attention photography fans: Not far from the Zoologischer Garten, the c/o Berlin and the Helmut Newton Foundation are two renowned museums for photography enthusiasts in the immediate vicinity. A trip to Camera Work on Kantstraße is also worthwhile. In the streets around Savignyplatz you will find a whole series of private galleries, such as the CFA Gallery on Grolmannstraße.
If you are interested in Berlin artists, you should visit the Kommunale Galerie Berlin at Hohenzollerndamm 176. In addition to changing exhibitions, the gallery's Artothek lends 1400 modern and contemporary works of art on a temporary basis, most of them by Berlin artists: Paintings, photography, prints, objects and sculptures - and art for children. One focus is on city photographs. And digital art can be admired at DAM Projects near the Lietzensee.
Architecture and art in Prenzlauer Berg
Starting from Pfefferberg, you can explore the gallery scene in Prenzlauer Berg. The Aedes Architecture Forum in Pfefferberg, for example, has been dealing with architecture and urban design since 1980, albeit in different premises at the time. Since Prenzlauer Berg was largely undamaged in the Second World War, you will find many architecturally exciting buildings here, especially from the Gründerzeit. 300 buildings are listed, such as the Stadtbad Oderberger Straße..
Contemporary Art & Discourse in Schöneberg
Along Potsdamer Strasse and Lützowstrasse, not far from Potsdamer Platz and Gleisdreieckpark, you will find numerous galleries, such as Esther Schipper. Here you can expect not a static exhibition space, but a lively discourse on contemporary art including lectures, workshops, concerts and performances. A little further south, not far from the Haus am Kleistpark, is the ChertLüdde gallery on Hauptstraße in Schöneberg.
If you are interested in street art, we recommend a trip to Bülowstraße. Here you can walk past numerous murals to the Urban Nation Museum of Contemporary Art. A little insider tip is the Kleine Grosz Museum, dedicated to the Berlin painter Georg Grosz, with a nice café in the premises of the historic petrol station.
Galleries and exhibition spaces in Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg
In Berlin's trendy neighbourhoods, you'll find art on the street. Starting with the famous East Side Gallery, you can discover numerous other murals on a tour through Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg. Perfect starting points to explore the street art scene in Berlin are also Holzmarkt or Urban Spree. Here you can immerse yourself in Berlin's young urban art scene and experience exhibitions, concerts and more.
Exciting in a socio-critical context are also the many exhibition spaces that deal with topics such as diversity and social justice. With the neuen Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst (ngbk), you will find one of the most active and member-strongest art associations in Germany at Oranienstraße 25 - organised on a grassroots democratic basis since 1969.
The Kreuzberg/Bethanien art space (Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien) is only a seven-minute walk away. Once a deaconess hospital and, in the 1960s, the sung-about base of Berlin's squatter scene, the building has a chequered history. Today, the exhibitions in the Kunstraum place social and cultural contemporary processes in the context of contemporary art. On the border with Treptow is Flutgraben e.V., a non-profit art association with many studios, exhibition and project spaces.
Kreuzberg is also home to established galleries such as the BBA Gallery, which is run by a team of artists and regularly offers artist prizes. The private Galerie König, which represents around 40 international artists, is housed in a former church.
Contemporary art in Neukölln
Neukölln may not (yet) be one of Berlin's cultural centres, but there are still some galleries and interesting projects to discover in this district characterised by diversity. The perfect starting point is the KINDL - Centre for Contemporary Art (KINDL - Zentrum für Zeitgenössische Kunst). Its 1600 square metres of exhibition space include the former boiler house, which, at 120 metres high, often shows spectacular site-specific works.
Just a 15-minute walk from here, the Galerie im Körnerpark shows communal art. Stroll another ten minutes along the busy Karl-Marx-Strasse and you will reach the Galerie im Saalbau, also a municipal project. You can see how inventive the young trendy neighbourhood is at the Kunstbrücke Wildenbruch. In the summer of 2021, the historic toilet facility was converted into a whimsical exhibition space that recalls times when unusual, non-commercial art and cultural spaces were still a natural part of the cityscape.
Unusual cultural venues in Wedding
There are now numerous exciting cultural venues in the old working-class district. Former factory halls, barracks and other time-honoured walls provide the perfect backdrop for contemporary art and creative projects. In Silent Green, a former crematorium, concerts and exhibitions take place today. The same goes for the Wiesenburg, a former asylum for the homeless built in 1896, and the listed Uferhallen and Uferstudios on the former site of the Berlin transport company house studios and studios. A central cultural venue for all of Berlin - and also the starting point for the annual Berlin Art Week.
Excursion destinations: Art exhibitions in the countryside
There is also contemporary art to discover outside the centre of Berlin. Located close to the idyllic Grunewald forest, the Haus am Waldsee attracts visitors with its extensive sculpture garden. Founded in 1946, the exhibition house is now a permanent institution with important works by contemporary Berlin artists. Only a 25-minute walk away, the Brücke Museum houses the largest international collection of the Expressionist artists' group. Another 25 minutes away, at Köppe Contemporary in an art nouveau villa, you will discover changing exhibitions of young and established contemporary artists.
Other exciting destinations for art lovers are the Haus Lemke in Pankow, designed by Mies van der Rohe, the Liebermann Villa in the painter's former summer house on Wannsee or the Schwartzsche Villa in Steglitz. In this former summer residence of a Berlin banking family you will find a wide cultural programme today, as well as a nice café and a large beer garden.
A visit to the Spandau Citadel, one of the most important fortresses of the High Renaissance, also offers contemporary art.
The Haubrok Foundation shows mainly conceptual works in the Fahrbereitschaft in Lichtenberg, a former GDR commercial building from the 1950s. Nearby, Dark Matter is the world's only museum for light art and interactive installations.
