Gallery Weekend Berlin: Must-see exhibitions for your radar

2025-04-25T07:00:00Z

As galleries across the city open their doors to a global programme of artists and shows, we take a look at some of our highlights of Gallery Weekend Berlin 2025

Gallery Weekend Berlin returns for its 21st edition from May 2-4, 2025, uniting 52 galleries across 61 locations throughout the German capital. With over 80 exhibitions on view, the weekend presents an exciting mix of emerging and established artists from more than 20 countries, offering a window into the dynamic scene of contemporary art today. Backdropped by a city with relentless creative energy, the weekend invites visitors to traverse Berlin’s layered neighbourhoods, from the industrial edges of Kreuzberg to the quietude of Charlottenburg. This year’s edition introduces several notable developments, including a posthumous exhibition of Frank Auerbach at Galerie Michael Werner, presented by Michael Werner Gallery. Titled Frank Auerbach, it marks his first show in the city of his birth, featuring up to 30 works, including his final self-portraits and paintings of his wife, Julia. This exhibition is a sentimental homecoming for the artist, who left Berlin as a child during Nazi persecution. Across town, Galerie Guido W. Baudach presents Tokyo-based artist Hinako Miyabayashi’s first solo exhibition with the gallery, showcasing her new paintings that explore the tactile relationship between the artist and materials.

Courtesy: Contemporary Fine Arts

In Charlottenburg, Galerie Buchholz unveils Cold Hope, a new series of large-format paintings by Anne Imhof. Drawn from stills of coming-of-age films, the images are fractured and reassembled, passing through stages of translation to leave behind dreamlike impressions. Just around the corner, Société presents Charades, a darker, surreal installation by Marianna Simnett. Here, ancient mythology is explored within the confines of intimacy through video and painting. Swans, bodies, and boundaries converge in a psychological labyrinth that probes the depths of desire, control, and vulnerability. Nearby at Crone, Anthony Goicolea’s Double Standard captures private moments in suspended time. His painted figures linger in ambiguous spaces that are caught in emotional in-betweens. In Mitte, Nagel Draxler presents Isolation Cell, a powerful installation by Nadya Tolokonnikova, which sees a reconstruction of the artist’s own prison cell. Her work is informed by her harrowing experiences in a Russian penal colony, speaks to the violence of confinement and the resilience of the human spirit. Alongside it, Tolokonnikova’s Prison Letters and PUNK’S NOT DEAD series deepen the exploration of political liberation.

Portrait Nadya Tolokonnikova © Pussy Riot

Over in Kreuzberg, Puppies Puppies (Jade Guanaro Kuriki-Olivo) at Trautwein Herleth creates a dialogue between minimalism, pop art and Grindr. Through their unique lens, digital relationships and identity politics come together, creating a commentary on our increasingly mediated existences. The work fits somewhere between personal and universal, inviting viewers to confront the complexities of modern communication and self-representation. At Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler, Klaudia Schifferle’s Play the Red Line offers a visual score that bleeds figuration and abstraction. The artist’s dynamic composition responds to the shifting rhythms of human interaction and emotional tension. The work captures the sense of play and tension, exploring how line and form can land the delicate balance between control and release. In Schöneberg, Molitor presents Diane Severin Nguyen’s Metamorphosis, traversing photography, video, and material transformation. The artist’s debut at the gallery invites viewers into an alchemical process of light and texture intertwined to reflect the fluidity of identity. For their first participation at Gallery Weekend Berlin, NOME presents Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley’s immersive solo show, confronting themes of identity, misrepresentation, and discomfort. With a mix of animation, painting, sound, and performance, the artist welcomes visitors to experience a world that subverts narratives surrounding marginalised communities.

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