A guide to Berlin Art Week 2026

Berlin Art Week returns from 9–13 September 2026 for its fifteenth edition, with a city-wide programme across museums, galleries, private collections, project spaces and Positions Berlin Art Fair. Over five days, exhibitions, performances, talks, screenings and special events will take place across Berlin, with around 120 partners participating in this year’s edition.

With so much happening across the city, knowing where to start can be a challenge. From major exhibitions at institutions including Gropius Bau, Neue Nationalgalerie, Hamburger Bahnhof and Haus der Kulturen der Welt to performances, talks and projects taking place in galleries and independent spaces, there is plenty to discover throughout the week.

In our guide, we’ve highlighted some of the exhibitions and events worth making time for, as well as where to stay when visiting Berlin.

Exhibitions

Kreuzberg: Kunst und Migration seit 1960

Vlassis Caniaris, Kind, 1980, collection of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, courtesy: the Estate of Vlassis Caniaris and Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich/Paris © The Estate of Vlassis Caniaris, photo: Sebastian Schaub

#FLODown: At Gropius Bau, Kreuzberg, Kunst und Migration seit 1960 will examine the relationship between migration, artistic practice and everyday life in the district from the 1960s onwards. The exhibition will begin with the labour migration that followed recruitment agreements with countries including Turkey, Italy and Greece, and will consider how artists responded to the social realities created by these changes. Bringing together works by artists including Mehmet Aksoy, Nuray Demir, Pınar Öğrenci, Vlassis Caniaris and Azade Köker, the exhibition will draw attention to cultural activity that has often received little recognition, while exploring how questions of work, identity, discrimination and belonging have appeared in artistic practice over several generations.

Date: 10 September 2026 – 17 January 2027. Location: Gropius Bau, Niederkirchnerstraße 7, 10963 Berlin. Website: Gropius Bau / Berlin Art Week⁠. berlinerfestspiele.de

Metaxy: Between Destruction and Reconstruction

#FLODown: Metaxy: Between Destruction and Reconstruction will consider the uncertain space between destruction and rebuilding. Drawing on the realities of war, crisis and displacement, the exhibition will examine loss, memory, reconstruction and social change, questioning the idea that rebuilding represents a straightforward return to normality. Instead, it will focus on the tensions and political choices that emerge when societies attempt to create new structures from the remains of the old.

Date: 11 September – 6 December 2026. Location: Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg 10, 10557 Berlin. Website: Akademie der Künste⁠. Discover more.

Feda Wardak Avant la Nuit, in Arbeit © Feda Wardak

Guerrilla Girls

#FLODown: The Guerrilla Girls will bring their long-running critique of sexism, racism and inequality in the art world into Berlin’s public space with a new work on the façade of n.b.k. Known for their bold interventions, the anonymous feminist collective will use the building as a platform to question representation and institutional power, continuing a practice that has made their work central to debates around equality in contemporary art.

Date: From 10 September 2026. Location: n.b.k., Chausseestraße 128/129, 10115 Berlin. Discover more.

Guerrilla Girls, 2016 © Photo Katie Booth

Not All Travellers Walk Roads - Of Humanity as Practice

36th Bienal de São Paulo, Berlin Edition

#FLODown: For the first time, the Bienal de São Paulo will come to Germany, with its 36th edition taking over Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin. Curated by Alya Sebti, the exhibition will bring together more than 30 artists, with works adapted or newly conceived for Berlin, exploring humanity as a living practice grounded in listening, coexistence and care. Drawing on the poetry of Conceição Evaristo, the exhibition will consider how we relate to one another, to histories and places, and to the more-than-human worlds around us, creating new connections between the Bienal’s original presentation in São Paulo and the social, cultural and architectural context of Berlin.

Date: 12 September – 6 December 2026. Location: Haus der Kulturen der Welt, John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10, 10557 Berlin. hkw.de

View of the 36th Bienal de São Paulo, "Not All Travellers Walk Roads - Of Humanity as Practice," 2025. Image courtesy of Fundação Bienal. Photo by Levi Fanan.

Maurizio Cattelan: NIGHT — Preis der Nationalgalerie 2026

#FLODown: Maurizio Cattelan will take over the Neue Nationalgalerie with NIGHT, presented as part of the Preis der Nationalgalerie 2026. Known for his dark humour, provocative imagery and irreverent approach to the art world, Cattelan will bring works from his career into dialogue with Mies van der Rohe’s monumental modernist building. The exhibition will create an encounter between one of contemporary art’s most recognisable figures and one of Berlin’s defining architectural landmarks.

Date: 10 September 2026 – 7 March 2027. Location: Neue Nationalgalerie, Potsdamer Straße 50, 10785 Berlin. Website: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Discover more.

Maurizio Cattelan, Detail, 2026 © Neue Nationalgalerie - Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz / Ivan Erofeev

Ryuichi Sakamoto: seeing sound, hearing time

#FLODown: Hamburger Bahnhof will present the first major European retrospective of Japanese composer and artist Ryuichi Sakamoto, exploring his pioneering approach to electronic and experimental music and his constant redefinition of the boundaries between sound, film, performance and visual art. Across seven works and five large-scale installations, the exhibition will feature Sakamoto’s three-dimensional sound environments, including IS YOUR TIME (2017), which transforms a piano damaged by the 2011 tsunami into an instrument for earthquake data. Works developed with artists including Shiro Takatani, Carsten Nicolai and filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul will further highlight Sakamoto’s expansive approach to sound and its relationship to time, space and image.

Date: 11 September 2026 – 20 June 2027. Location: Hamburger Bahnhof, Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, Invalidenstraße 50, 10557 Berlin. Website: Hamburger Bahnhof / Berlin Art Week⁠. Discover more.

Portrait of Ryuichi Sakamoto © 2020 KAB Inc. , Photo: Neo Sora

Carrie Mae Weems: The Heart of the Matter

#FLODown: C/O Berlin will devote its autumn programme to Carrie Mae Weems, with The Heart of the Matteroffering a survey of more than four decades of the American artist’s work. Weems has used photography, video and installation to examine the ways race, gender and power are embedded in everyday life, often turning her camera on the domestic spaces, institutions and monuments through which history is constructed. From the intimate staging of the Kitchen Table Series to her photographs of plantations, museums and Black religious communities, her work asks who gets to shape the picture of the past.

Date: 12 September 2026 – 3 February 2027. Location: C/O Berlin, Amerika Haus, Hardenbergstraße 22–24, 10623 Berlin. Discover more.

The Louvre, 2006–ongoing; from the series Museums © Carrie Mae Weems and reproduced courtesy the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, and Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin

Lucia Tallová: Moving Clouds

#FLODown: Slovak artist Lucia Tallová, Deutsche Bank’s “Artist of the Year” 2026, will have her first institutional solo exhibition in Western Europe at PalaisPopulaire with Moving Clouds. Working across painting, collage and installation, Tallová uses photographs from old books and magazines alongside found objects, furniture fragments and natural materials to create evocative, dreamlike worlds. Her work explores memory, loss and ecology, as well as overlooked female histories, tracing how the past lingers in objects, images and the landscapes around us.

Date: 10 September – 30 November 2026. Location: PalaisPopulaire, Unter den Linden 5, 10117 Berlin. palaispopulaire.db.com

Lucia Tallová © Lucia Tallová, Foto: Miro Nota

Hallen 07

#FLODown: Across 9,000 square metres of industrial space at Wilhelm Hallen, Hallen 07 will bring together Berlin galleries, institutions and artists in a large-scale group presentation. Participants including ChertLüdde, Esther Schipper and Robert Grunenberg will contribute to a broad survey of contemporary practice, while performances, workshops, readings, live music and discussions will turn the venue into a meeting point for Berlin’s art community. Rather than following a single curatorial theme, the project will emphasise the collaborative character of the city’s gallery scene.

Date: 5 – 13 September 2026. Location: Wilhelm Hallen, Kopenhagener Straße 60–72, 13407 Berlin. Disfover more.

Jeewi Lee: Residual Memories

#FLODown: Jeewi Lee, recipient of the GASAG Art Prize 2026, will have her first institutional solo exhibition in Berlin at the Berlinische Galerie. For Residual Memories, Lee will work primarily with sand, using the material to consider what can be preserved, transformed or lost over time. Across sculpture, painting and installation, she will trace sand’s journey from a natural substance to a fundamental component of concrete, glass and technology, while reflecting on its growing scarcity. The exhibition will extend Lee’s interest in the marks and histories held within seemingly ordinary materials, combining close observation with questions of memory, time and disappearance.

Date: 11 September 2026 – 5 April 2027. Location: Berlinische Galerie, Alte Jakobstraße 124–128, 10969 Berlin. berlinischegalerie.de

Jeewi Lee, Inner Monologue Popenguine 25-80, 2026 © Courtesy of Jeewi Lee & Phillip C. Reiner

Talks

Hamburger Bahnhof Art Week Talks: “Art Spaces East”

#FLODown: Hamburger Bahnhof will host Art Spaces East, a discussion series examining the role of museums and art institutions in eastern Germany. Museum directors, curators and cultural figures will consider how institutions respond to regional identity, local art scenes and shifting social and political conditions, while exploring their role within the communities they serve. The programme will look at the changing cultural landscape of the region and the challenges facing its museums today.

Date: 11 September 2026. 11am -5pm. Location: Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, Invalidenstraße 50, 10557 Berlin. Discover more.

Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin / Foto: Kulturprojekte, Alexander Rentsch

Live performances

Perform! at Neue Nationalgalerie

#FLODown: The fifth edition of Perform! will bring live performance into Mies van der Rohe’s Neue Nationalgalerie, pairing Trisha Brown’s landmark Walking on the Wall from 1971 with a new work by Kiani del Valle. The programme will treat the museum’s vast glass hall and architecture as an active part of the performances rather than simply a backdrop. Date: 10 - 14 September 2026. Location: Neue Nationalgalerie, Potsdamer Straße 50, 10785 Berlin. Discover more.

Isaac Chong Wai, Nearly a hundred performers form a “horizon” by matching their heights at Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin. Photo by Ivan Erofeev. Courtesy of Neue Nationalgalerie.

LABOUR (Farahnaz Hatam and Colin Hacklander): soft thought at KW Institute for Contemporary Art

#FLODown: soft thought is a newly commissioned performance by Berlin-based artist duo LABOUR, Farahnaz Hatam and Colin Hacklander, presented for the Kyiv Biennial’s closing weekend. Rooted in Berlin’s electronic and experimental music scene, the four-hour work considers listening, uncertainty and collective experience through percussion, spatialised sound, dance, conversation, moving image and live acts. Taking place across KW’s entire building, the performance has no fixed beginning or end, inviting audiences to move through a constantly shifting composition.

Date: Saturday, 12 September 2026. Location: KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Auguststraße 69, 10117 Berlin. Discover more.

Tower of silence by Farahnaz Hatam and Colin Hacklander at the Julia Stoschek Foundation, Berlin 2024; photo: Evelyn Bencicova.

Ordinary Tales of City Madness at Hotel Adlon Kempinski

#FLODown: For one night, Sunny Pudert will transform a suite at the Hotel Adlon Kempinski into an intimate setting for readings and performance. The project will create an unusual collision between contemporary art and one of Berlin’s most recognisable luxury hotels, using the private atmosphere of a hotel room to explore the stranger and more chaotic sides of urban life.

Date: 11 September 2026. Location: Hotel Adlon Kempinski, Unter den Linden 77, 10117 Berlin. Discover more.

Alternde Meister at Berliner Ensemble + Gemäldegalerie

#FLODown: Ersan Mondtag and Nadim Samman will bring theatre into the Gemäldegalerie with Alternde Meister, creating a contemporary vanitas in dialogue with the museum’s Old Master paintings. Twenty-five performers from different generations will appear throughout the galleries, placing living bodies alongside centuries-old images. The performance will explore ageing, mortality, disappearance and endurance, bringing the worlds of theatre and the museum into close proximity.

Date: 11–13 September 2026. Location: Gemäldegalerie, Kulturforum, Matthäikirchplatz, 10785 Berlin. Discover more.

Alternde Meister von Ersan Mondtag und Nadim Samman © Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin / Katrin Hammer

The Ear is the Eye of the Soul at Reethaus

#FLODown: Reethaus presents The Ear is the Eye of the Soul‹, the original music composed for the Holy See Pavilion at the 61st Biennale di Venezia. Inspired by Hildegard of Bingen and featuring contributions from Meredith Monk, Kali Malone, FKA twigs, Carminho and Terry Riley, the work was installed earlier this year in the Giardino Mistico. During Berlin Art Week, Reethaus brings the work into a collective listening experience, celebrating the release of the LP, co-produced with Analogue Foundation and distributed by Bella Union and Heni.

Date: 11–13 September 2026. Location: Reethaus, Berlin. Discover more.

"Die Ohren sind die Augen der Seele", Alexander Kluge zitiert Hildegard von Bingen. © Alexander Kluge, March 2026

Leyla Yenirce + Solomon Garçon at Konzerthaus Berlin

#FLODown: Leyla Yenirce and Solomon Garçon will combine spoken word, field recordings, noise, ambient music and techno in a performance shaped by feminist resistance. Presented at the Konzerthaus, the work will bring experimental sound and club culture into dialogue with one of Berlin’s most established musical institutions.

Date: 13 September 2026. Location: Konzerthaus Berlin, Gendarmenmarkt, 10117 Berlin. Discover more.

JJJJJerome Ellis, Music For The Garden. Courtesy JJJJJerome Ellis, Foto / photo: Liz Ligon

JJJJJerome Ellis at Haus am Waldsee

#FLODown: JJJJJerome Ellis will explore the relationship between stuttering, voice and Black musical traditions in a performance centred on language, sound and identity. His work challenges conventional ideas of fluent speech, treating interruption and difference as sources of rhythm, expression and possibility.

Date: 13 September 2026. Location: Haus am Waldsee, Argentinische Allee 30, 14163 Berlin. Discover more.

Berlin Art Week 2026 will take place 9–13 September 2026. Visit berlinartweek.de for the full programme of events.

Where to stay

Hotel Adlon Kempinski Berlin

If you’re coming to Berlin for Berlin Art Week, where you stay can make all the difference. With exhibitions and openings scattered across the city, the best base is somewhere that makes getting around easy, while giving you somewhere genuinely special to return to.

Präsidenten Suite Bedroom. © Hotel Adlon Kempinski Berlin.

The Hotel Adlon Kempinski Berlin does exactly that. Directly opposite the Brandenburg Gate, its location puts much of Berlin’s cultural life within easy reach, while the hotel itself offers a quieter change of pace. During Art Week, one of its suites will host Sunny Pudert’s Ordinary Tales of City Madness, bringing readings and performance into the hotel. Spacious rooms, polished service, an excellent breakfast and a spa round out a stay that works particularly well for a busy week of art.

Click here for our full review of Hotel Adlon Kempinski Berlin.

View of Brandenburg Gate from Suite, Hotel Adlon Kempinski Berlin. © Gerard Alvarez/ Hotel Adlon Kempinski Berlin.

Top tip

Whilst navigating the city, we recommend getting a Berlin WelcomeCard, which gives unlimited access to Berlin’s buses, trams and trains. It also includes discounts and free entry to select museums and landmarks, depending on the ticket type, which is useful if you want to include a bit of sightseeing between gallery stops.