NO TIME FOR FOMO: WHAT BERLIN’S ART SCENE HAS TO OFFER THIS FALL

The city is bustling, and so is our calendar. September is here, bringing with it art, and with it a stack of openings, talks, and performances. To help you keep track, here are some suggestions for the next few days. We’re starting with something slightly intellectual: Crit Club is back in Berlin. Since its first event, Trauma has been bringing art discourse to the stage as a competitive sporting event. This time, the Elisabethkirche in Mitte is being transformed into a debate arena, with the central question: “Should art be competitive?” — including an appearance by the Berlin Adler Football Team. If you want to see art in a more conventional way, start at the Schering Foundation project space (Unter den Linden 32–34) with kennedy+swan. With The Red Queen Effect, the duo’s works deal with AI-supported diagnostics, fantasies of immortality, and the economization of the healthcare system. Marc Henry’s solo show Theorie der feinen Leute is running in Mitte at Galerie Anton Janizewski. The title refers to Thorstein Veblen’s “The Theory of the Leisure Class” (1899) – and Henry translates this analysis of consumption and distinction into large-format paintings that combine modernism, surrealism, and digital collage vocabulary.

Next stop: Kreuzberg, Russi Klenner. The gallery presents Stella Winter’s first solo show. It’s colorful and overloaded, in the best way. Between Bridges shows Sofia Reyes Alucinación, the Colombian artist’s first solo exhibition in Europe. Her works range from self-portraits to surreal collages. “Portrait, document, love letter, and diagnosis all at once,” says Reyes. The works of Julius Bobke are also a document and an ambivalent love letter to the overwhelming demands of everyday life as an artist in the city. This weekend, the Berlin artist is launching his Artist Book, yet untitled, in the project space roam, next to the Jewish Museum, and filling the space with a solo show. The exhibition opens on Friday, followed by the book launch with Mimosa Brunch on Saturday. Also not to miss: this year, the Paint Shop opened in Neukölln, setting itself the goal of initially only exhibiting FLINTA*. After some very good opening exhibitions, the project space now presents Paula Santomé with The Beginning of Everything. For those who want to venture further afield: Fluentum is opening Jordan Strafer’s Dissonance. The American artist transforms the venue into a 1990s talk show studio and continues her ongoing film trilogy Loophole. Courtroom drama meets reality TV aesthetics, and the audience becomes part of the next episode. Or head to the Wilhelm Hallen for the festival Hallen, with its largest edition to date and 36 participants from galleries, collections, and institutions. If you want to get involved, Kunstforum invites you to a zine workshop (12.09.2025) with archive material, sketches, and collages. As always, there’s too much to see, but that’s exactly what makes it so appealing: a weekend of non-stop sprinting from off-spaces to institutional heavyweights.

Text: Inga Krumme / Photos: Tanzini di Bella, Imago, Amy Poncher / Credit: Jordan Strafer; Heidi, Berlin; Julius Bobke

St. Elisabeth Kirche, Invalidenstr. 3, 10115 Berlin–Mitte; map
Crit Club 10.09.2025 ab 19h. Entry free, RSVP here.

@traumaisforever

Schering Stiftung, Unter den Linden 32–34, 10117 Berlin–Mitte; map
The Red Queen Effect 11.09.–30.11.2025. Vernissage 10.09. from 18h.

@scheringstiftung

Galerie Anton Janizewski, Weydingerstr.10, 10178 Berlin–Mitte; map
Marc Henry Theorie der feinen Leute – Opening 11.09.2025 from 18h.

@antonjanizewski

Russi Klenner, Luckauer Str.16, 10969 Berlin–Kreuzberg; map
Stella Winter Soloshow from 11.09.2025.

@russiklenner

Between Bridges, Adalbertstr.43, 10997 Berlin–Kreuzberg; map
Sofía Reyes 11.–14.09.2025, daily 11–19h.

@betweenbridgesfoundation

Roam Project Space, Lindenstr.91, 10969 Berlin–Kreuzberg; map
Julius Bobke yet untitled: Opening 12.09.2025 from 18h. Book Launch & Mimosa Brunch 13.09.2025 from 14h.

@roam_projects_______

Paint Shop, Hasenheide 12, 10967 Berlin–Neukölln; map
Paula Santomé The Beginning of Everything. Special opening hours during Berlin Art Week: 10.–14.09.2025. Fr 18–22h, Sa & So 14–19h.

@paintshop_berlin

Fluentum, Clayallee 174, 14195 Berlin–Dahlem; map
Jordan Strafer Dissonance – Opening & Live Film Shoot 10.09.2025 from 18h.

@fluentumcollection

Wilhelm Hallen, Kopenhagener Str. 60–68, 13407 Berlin–Reinickendorf; Stadtplan
Zine Workshop 12.09.2025, 14–18h. No registration needed. Participation from age 12.

@wilhelmhallen

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Culture, Medienpartnerschaft

AIR CUSHIONS AGAINST THE APOCALYPSE, ROAD MOVIE AGAINST THE MYTH: THE BERLINISCHE GALERIE FOR ART WEEK

The Berlinische Galerie’s birthday summer is drawing to a close. Before it ends, Berlin Art Week adds one last highlight. Three artists, two formats, and a festive end to a season that, while not consistently sunny, was celebratory nonetheless. In his first feature film Slack, Cyrill Lachauer climbs freight trains across the U.S., traveling along the societal margins with photographer Mike Brodie. The search is not only for lost fathers but also to explore how images can have an impact in a world shaped by TikTok aesthetics and drug crises. At the center is the memory of Brodie’s late partner, Mia Justice Smith, nicknamed Slack, whose ashes become a symbol for a generation trying to find itself between post-punk, drifting, and an uncompromising desire for freedom while exposing the American Dream as a farce. Slack (2025, 60 min.) is neither a conventional documentary nor pure fiction, but a cinematic drift — poetic and contradictory. Its German premiere is on Saturday (13.09.) at Babylon*.

Other drifts take form in the sculptures of Abie Franklin and Daniel Hölzl. After Hölzl’s work Soft Cycles adorned the museum’s canopy for the Berlinische Galerie’s 50th anniversary, the two now present Bycatch as part of the Hallen Art Festival. Inflatable tetrapods (precisely engineered coastal defense structures from the 1950s) proliferate like organic flotsam. The title references bycatch in fishing: everything unintentionally caught in the net. Bycatch embodies the paradox of our present: that every protective measure creates new risks. A summer drifting in all directions one last time — Slack, Bycatch, Soft Cycles.

Text: Inga Krumme / Credit: Abie Franklin & Daniel Hölzl; Cyrill Lachauer

Berlinische Galerie, Alte Jakobstr.124–128, 10969 Berlin–Kreuzberg; map
Artist Talk with Cyrill Lachauer and Mike Brodie at the IBB Video Room (in English)
14.09.2025 Free admission, but RSVP here.

Babylon Berlin, Rosa-Luxemburg-Str. 30, 10178 Berlin–Mitte; map
Slack premiere 13.09.2025. Free admission, remaining tickets are at the door.

Bycatch as part of the Hallen 06 Art Festival (06.–14.09.2025), organized by Wilhelm Studios.

@berlinischegalerie
@cyrilllachauer
@abiefranklin
@hoelzldaniel
@hallen_kunstfestival

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Culture, Medienpartnerschaft

WHOSE HEIMAT? — HOMELAND, BELONGING & COLONIAL LEGACIES AT HKW’S HEIMATEN FESTIVAL

Heimaten Festival explores belonging and homeland with concerts, film screenings and discussions at HKW. The German word “Heimat” describes a feeling of being at home. But it also has a darker meaning, one which nativist politicians and movements have used to exclude minorities who, they say, can never call Germany their home. Opening next Friday (12.09.2025) at HKW, the Heimaten Festival turns this idea on its head: Heimat isn’t about being anchored to the fatherland, but a shifting sense of belonging that crosses borders. The program runs until December and spans concerts, debates, workshops and screenings across Germany, Austria and Switzerland. At the kick-off at HKW, hip hop collective BSMG host a night of resistance through music, tackling colonial legacies and the global rightward shift (12.09 20h30). Following this on 13.09 is the panel talk Is the Diversity Party Over?, asking how anti-racist initiatives can survive political hostility and shrinking state funding.

Meanwhile, colonial injustices are brought into focus at the screening of The Empty Grave, a documentary that follows Tanzanian families searching for ancestors’ remains taken under German rule (14.09 17h30). Beyond HKW, Berlin Postkolonial and activist Mnyaka Sururu Mboro will be leading a series of Witness Walks through Berlin, confronting the city’s colonial past (throughout September and October). Together, the events reimagine Heimat, pointing to a future that’s less fatherland and more flux.

Text: Benji Haughton / Photos: Philipp Czampiel, Jonas Lumke & Hanna Wiedemann

Heimaten Festival runs at HKW and other venues from September to December 2025. You can view the full program of free events as well as a list of the festival’s network members on the website.

@hkw_berlin

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Culture

OF GLASSES AND BELLS: PERFORMANCE ART FESTIVAL AT THE NEUE NATIONALGALERIE

More than fifty years ago, Joan Jonas performed her Mirror Pieces for the first time. She was in her early thirties, searching for ways to make the female body visible as a contested territory while freeing it from external attributions. “The mirror was a metaphor for me,” she once explained. “A means of changing the image and involving the viewers as reflections, so that they feel uncomfortable when they see themselves in public.” As part of Perform!, the festival series at the Neue Nationalgalerie, her groundbreaking piece is being revived. From 10.–14.09.2025, in the afternoons on the museum’s terrace, performers will demonstrate how much feminist potential mirrors and Plexiglas panes still hold today. Reflections are also central to the work of Corey Scott Gilbert, aka vAL. The artist, who began his career as a solo dancer with the Lyon Opera Ballet, uses mirrors not to fragment his own body, but to observe the audience. In his new work Bellied, he reverses the roles of performer and viewer.

Isaac Chong Wai also seeks to involve the audience. Represented at the 2024 Biennale with a video work exploring spatial experience through choreography, he now presents The horizon we can never touch. In this performance, participants adjust their body height so their heads form a straight line — some kneel, others rise onto their tiptoes. What matters is the negotiation that culminates in the horizon line. Who follows whom? Who defines the norm as the group arranges itself along the Neue Nationalgalerie’s 50-meter-long glass façade? The power of the collective also lies at the heart of Yoko Ono’s performance, Bells for Peace. The premise is simple: anyone who wishes to take part brings a bell (or borrows one from the Nationalgalerie, while supplies last). At the close of the festival on Sunday (14.09), which also marks the end of Ono’s exhibition Dream Together, participants ring their bells in unison for peace. Ono demonstrates how a small instrument can produce an enormous sound. Whether such sounds will hasten peace is uncertain, but they will fill the Berlin evening air with sweet music and hope.

Text: Laura Storfner / Photos: Florian Hetz, Joan Jonas, Iain Macmillan / Credit: Artists Rights Society (ARS), VG Bild + Kunst Bonn, 2025, New York, Courtesy of the artist and Gladstone; Yoko Ono

Neue Nationalgalerie, Potsdamer Str.50, 10785 Berlin–Tiergarten; map

Perform! 2025 – The fourth annual performance festival for Berlin Art Week features Joan Jonas, Isaac Chong Wai, and Corey Scott Gilbert, with a closing performance by Yoko Ono, 10.–14.09.2025. Admission to all events is free.

@neuenationalgalerie

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Culture, Medienpartnerschaft

NO STANDSTILL — STILL MOVING EXPLORES MOVEMENT IN ALL ITS FORMS WITH SOUTHERN AFRICAN ART

In the group exhibition at Bode, voices from southern Africa rethink movement — politically, poetically, personally. September in Berlin always feels like a state of emergency: the city is full, the streets are crowded, minds are overloaded, school has started up again, and everything is in motion. The title of the exhibition (opening tomorrow, 05.09.2025) at Bode could hardly be more fitting: Still Moving. Curated by choreographer and interdisciplinary artist Jessica Nupen, the exhibition brings together voices from southern Africa who understand movement beyond a purely physical phenomenon, and as something political, poetic, and personal. The works span mediums such as painting, sculpture, and installation, opening a dialogue between memory and ritual. Renowned artists such as William Kentridge, Sam Nhlengethwa, and Misheck Masamvu are presented alongside younger artists, including Boemo Diale, Nthabiseng Kekana, Frances Goodman, and Rosie Mudge.

The curatorial approach reveals the many ways movement can be conceived and visualized. Kentridge, internationally known for his playful animations and dynamic drawings, engages with the erasures and contradictions in history. Nhlengethwa translates jazz into a language of survival. Masamvu paints the fragile terrain of Zimbabwe with raw, rhythmic energy. Diale and Kekana explore the body as an archive, Goodman frames it as a battlefield, while Mudge transforms it into a shimmering surface full of contradictions. Together, their works create a panorama that renders movement tangible as a choreography of identities, memories, and spaces. Or, as Nupen puts it: “The exhibition challenges us to rethink our ideas about movement”. And perhaps feel them anew — movement as transformation, as a cautious or powerful gesture, as something ever present, even in silence.

Text: Hilka Dirks / Credit: Boemo Diale; Misheck Masamvu; Sam Nhlengethwa; Bode

Bode, Karl-Marx-Allee 82, 10243 Berlin–Friedrichshain; map

Still Moving until 19.10.2025. The opening takes place on 05.09.2025, featuring a live music performance by Bastian Duncker (saxophone), Sebastian Böhlen (guitar), and Sidney Werner (bass).

@bode.gallery

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Language

NO TIME FOR FOMO: WHAT BERLIN’S ART SCENE HAS TO OFFER THIS FALL

AIR CUSHIONS AGAINST THE APOCALYPSE, ROAD MOVIE AGAINST THE MYTH: THE BERLINISCHE GALERIE FOR ART WEEK

WHOSE HEIMAT? — HOMELAND, BELONGING & COLONIAL LEGACIES AT HKW’S HEIMATEN FESTIVAL

OF GLASSES AND BELLS: PERFORMANCE ART FESTIVAL AT THE NEUE NATIONALGALERIE

NO STANDSTILL — STILL MOVING EXPLORES MOVEMENT IN ALL ITS FORMS WITH SOUTHERN AFRICAN ART