Highlights from Berlin Art Week 2026
Berlin, where art heals. And reflects on time. A visual recording of Coeval’s tour through the must-sees of art in Berlin, right now and in the next weeks. We changed our perspectives as performers were walking on glass walls, felt the warmness of poetry, watched our houses from the point of view of bugs, and saw the darkness of Cattelan’s Night.
Our highlights from the 15th anniversary of Berlin Art Week, a project of Kulturprojekte Berlin with 125 partners and more than 300 events, under the artistic direction of Mona Stehle, capturing the vitality and diversity of Berlin’s art scene.
Kira Freije: Between Sunlight. Kindl
A sculptural reflection on gesture through not linear timeframes, by British artist Kira Freije (1985, London, shortlisted for this year’s Turner Prize), curated by Laura Smith.
Tender daily gestures at the core of layered scenes relying on iconography; historical tones blended with contemporaneity through the use of metal, fabrics, and found materials.
Images that are visually and conceptually recombined, suspended in fragments, yet holding a perfect balance, poetical. All the characters build a relation upon one another, capturing the very human need to seek companionship.
Exhibition at Kindl Berlin, 13.9.26 – 21.2.27.
Mischa Kuball: Boiler House. Kindl
An empty space, filled with light reflections. A rotating carousel of mirrors in a precise dance: this the work by conceptual artist Mischa Kuball (1959, Düsseldorf), curated by Kathrin Becker. Different timing makes the dance: low rotation ideally expanding the space, rapid rotation creating cutting fragments. Emptiness is not a state but a dynamic process. The site-specific installation inspects sociocultural structures as a part of Kuball’s research.
Exhibition at Kindl Berlin, 13.9.26 – 30.5.27.
Maurizio Cattelan: Night. Neue Nationalgalerie
The first major solo exhibition in Germany by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan captures a lot of attention. Between irony and ambiguity, the visitor can walk around the space of Neue Nationalgalerie and discover the works, which span through most recent and classics by the artist, as the dramatic and famous suspended horse ‘Novecento’. Works are visually strong, as death, power and uncertainty are inspected, and have a clear impact on the viewer; everything is a game between being hidden and being exposed, with a scenographic approach.
The exhibition is curated by Lisa Botti, curator at the Neue Nationalgalerie, with Klaus Biesenbach, director of the Neue Nationalgalerie, in close collaboration with Maurizio Cattelan, at Neue Nationalgalerie, 10.9.2026 – 7.3.2027.
PERFORM! Trisha Brown: Walking on the Wall (1971). Neue Nationalgalerie
On the occasion of the Art Week, we had the chance to attend the fifth edition of Neue Nationalgalerie’s performance art festival PERFORM! At the heart of this year’s programme is Trisha Brown’s Walking on the Wall (1971), a seminal work of the American postmodern dance movement restaged by the Trisha Brown Dance Company and presented on the exterior glass façade of the Neue Nationalgalerie. In the performative pièce, dancers slowly walk horizontally, suspended through ropes, literally walking on glass walls in meditative silence.
Arash Nassiri: A Bug’s Life. Fluentum collection
The single-channel film A Bug’s Life (2025) follows an insect puppet on a surreal nocturnal journey through an opulent Beverly Hills.
mansion. Guided by strings and a pair of glowing eyes, the puppet creeps past marble floors, gilded staircases, and precious furniture, treating the house both as a wonder and a hazard. This exhibition is definitely a must see. The spaces hosting the show are a fable-like building, becoming part of the show and making the visitor almost feel like the little bug depicted in Nassiri’s film (b. 1986, Tehran, based in Berlin), at the same time watching inside white doll houses revealing small cartoon frames about bugs.
The show is first institutional solo exhibition of Arash Nassiri in Germany and is curated by Raoul Klooker, at Fluentum collection, 10.9.2026 - 12.12.2026.
Projections Onto the East. Schinkel Pavillon with Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.)
Projections Onto the East is a project by n.b.k. in cooperation with the Schinkel Pavillon, conceived by Fabian Bechtle and Leon Kahane. In the beautiful spaces of the Schinkel Pavillon, the exhibition addresses the ideological attributions associated with the terms East and West, reflecting on sociopolitical matters, pointing out colonialism and post-colonialism, collectivity, individuality and repression, with works by several artists. Gabriele Stötzer’s papier-mâché casts become a protective armour made of everyday materials, and a rare Helmar Lerski’s photographical series combine a humanist visual language with social typology.
Exhibition at Schinkel Pavillon, 10.9.2026 - 8.11.2026.
Galerie Thomas Schulte, Charlottenstraße
For Berlin Art Week 2026, Galerie Thomas Schulte is presenting two exhibitions in the Charlottenstraße spaces. Life-Death by Katharina Sieverding (1941, Prague, considered one of the pioneering figures of German postwar art) is not just the historical document of an avant-gard generation, but an urgent reflection on times, holding suspensions between poles such as life and death, past and present. The 16mm film Life-Death (1969), with soundtrack by Kraftwerk, combines performance and filmic elements with a split screen creating reflections and repeated reworks. The concepts of repetition continues with a series of photographs capturing identities at the core.
Die Sein: Para Psychics Expanded (Excerpt) is Kerstin Brätsch’s (1979, Hamburg) first solo exhibition with the gallery. Monumental colourful installations, all of them site-specific, reveal themselves as paper expansions of drawings at the center. Transformation, energy and colours are not just elements, in this case they become living engines structuring the body of work. Even the floor is part of such immersive space, as it recalls patterns that Brätsch originally produced in stone mosaic.
At Galerie Thomas Schulte Charlottenstraße, 11.09.2026-7.11.2026.
#KerstinBrätsch
Not All Travellers Walk Roads - Of Humanity as Practice, 36th Bienal de São Paulo at Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW)
With the exhibition Not All Travellers Walk Roads—Of Humanity as Practice, the 36th Bienal de São Paulo comes to Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) in Berlin. Taking place in Germany for the very first time, the Berlin edition of one of the oldest and most influential biennials brings the poetical and warm healing power of art at the center. The exhibition reveals a constellation of artistic positions, including newly conceived, readapted, and site-specific works.
Starting from Conceição Evaristo’s poem Of Calm and Silence (‘Da calma e do silêncio’), in which she writes: ‘Not all travellers / walk roads / there are submerged worlds / that only the silence / of poetry penetrates’, the exhibition focuses on the practice of humanity. Listening and healing are the purpose, understanding that as humans, not only we are interconnected with all beings, but we can feel and inspect such a connection.
Conceived by Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, alongside co-curators Alya Sebti, Anna Roberta Goetz, and Thiago de Paula Souza, co-curator at large Keyna Eleison, strategy and communications advisor Henriette Gallus, and deputy co-curators André Pitol and Leonardo Matsuhei. The Berlin edition is curated by Alya Sebti. Works by Amina Agueznay, Malika Agueznay, Akinbode Akinbiyi, Leo Asemota, Maria Auxiliadora, Aline Baiana, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Rebeca Carapiá, Manauara Clandestina, Christopher Cozier, Gervane de Paula, Théodore Diouf, Juliana dos Santos, Cevdet Erek, Theo Eshetu, Tanka Fonta, Forensic Architecture, Laila Hida, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Leiko Ikemura, Mao Ishikawa, Julianknxx, Lidia Lisbôa, Mohamed Melehi, Emeka Ogboh, Olu Oguibe, Alberto Pitta, Ana Raylander Mártis dos Anjos, Ming Smith, Sérgio Soarez, Chaïbia Talal, Wolfgang Tillmans.
At HKW Berlin, 12.9.2026 – 6.12.2026.
Lucia Tallová: Moving Clouds. Palais Populaire
Clouds as a symbol of change and transience, and describing inner movement. All works by Lucia Tallová (1985, Bratislava) are very delicate, and often expand in space, with painting, collage, installation and sculptural elements. Combining paper, found objects and vintage books, the artist layers a new narrative for the feminine, giving an empowering perspective to look at, starting from the past, both from a vintage 19-20th centuries aesthetics and mythology.
Tallová is Deutsche Bank “Artist of the Year” 2026, and the exhibition, the artist’s first institutional solo show in Germany, is curated by Britta Färber, Head of Art and Culture at Deutsche Bank.
At Palais Populaire Berlin, 10.9.2026 - 4.1.2027.
Carsten Höller: Fly on Amanita. Passage Hermannplatz, Berlin
An exhibition space inside Berlin’s Hermannplatz U-Bahn station (inspired by Lucio Amelio’s Parisian Pièce Unique), a radical project displaying art directly in public space, this time with a video installation of a green bottle fly on white background.
That’s Fly on Amanita by German artist Carsten Höller (1961, Brussels), who since Nineties creates immersive installations that provoke states of disorientation, exhilaration, and doubt. This time, at the intersection between scientific experiment and artistic experience, within an endless loop the insect cleans itself, approaches a pale orange jello drop, feeds, enters an altered state, recovers, and flies away. Addiction here is a cycle of desire, release, and return. Mushrooms, particularly Amanita muscaria, function as agents of transformation. A leayered reflection inside the underground urban landscape.
The work is curated by Udo Kittelmann and it’s visible at Passage, Hermannplatz U-Bahn station, 12.9.2026 - 11.10.2026.
C/O Berlin
C/O Berlin is an exhibition venue for photography and visual media. As a charitable foundation, C/O Berlin presents works by renowned artists, promotes young talent and invites visitors on a journey of discovery through our visual culture.
We signal Carrie Mae Weems’s and Stelios Kallinikou’s exhibition.
The Heart of the Matter by Carrie Mae Weems (1953, USA) is an extensive retrospective of the internationally acclaimed artist. A strong, beautiful, of rare quality pointing out issues of power and memory in photographs, videos, installations.
Cliffs Among Dreams is Stelios Kallinikou’s (1985, Cyprus) exhibition as part of After Nature Prize 2026. Photography and works containing subtly visible but powerful contradictions. A reflection on confines and infrastructures and their limits in a dialogue between such thresholds and nature. At C/O Berlin, 12.11.2026 - 3.2.2027 (Carrie Mae Weems), 12.11.2026 - 20.1.2027 (Stelios Kallinikou).
Felice Bricks: out-of-the-way things. Stallmann Gallery
Little glimpse of an extra suggestion. A fresh contemporary gallery focusing on international emerging artists, this time presenting Felice Brick’s works. Little creatures, fun and gentle, brought to life as the artist combines fabrics into soft and volatile installations. Sometimes fairies, sometimes delicate monsters, sometimes curious insects, each creature shows its own personality, as the research goes towards showing what’s under the veil and give freedom.
At Stallmann Gallery Berlin, 11.9.2026 - 6.11.2026.
Many more to see in Berlin, this is just a little list of what you can visit in the city. All neighbourhoods are filled with art, spanning through masters and contemporary. Definitely one of the bests spots for the art passionates.
Thank you Berlin Art week board, Mona Stehle, Kulturprojekte Berlin, and Nicola Jeffs. We also had the possibility as a part of our tour to enjoy our stay at the beautiful Bristol hotel, in the Western area of the city.
Words by Clarissa Despota
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