In Berlin, it’s easy to lose touch with nature among the asphalt and urban landscape. What we sometimes forget is that you don’t have to leave the capital to exchange concrete for green. With this in mind, I visited the double exhibition Nature… In the Museum and Art… Beneath Pine Trees at the Brücke-Museum. Opened in 1967, the Brücke-Museum is located directly on the edge of the Grunewald forest. It’s hard to imagine a more fitting setting for these two exhibitions. Both exhibitions explore the relationship between humans and nature, and how museums can not only present nature but collaborate with it. The exhibition begins inside the museum. Around one hundred works by the Brücke artists — including Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Max Pechstein, and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff — encounter contemporary works by atelier le Balto and artist Lizza May David. From the very beginning, a sense emerges that the boundaries between interior and exterior dissolve. The large windows open the museum up to the forest, while hand-lettered recycled wooden signs made with natural pigments carry the theme into the exhibition’s design. In the educational space, Outreach, created in collaboration with the Zabriskie Bookshop for Culture and Nature and the Curando Initiative, the exhibition visit becomes a dialogue. Questions such as “What do I see when I think of nature?” or “What connects me to other living beings?” are addressed directly to you. Rather than simply allowing the artworks to speak for themselves, the exhibition encourages you to take a personal position. Through these contributions and an accompanying workshop program, the space evolves throughout the exhibition.
With these questions in mind, the journey continues outdoors along the educational trail, Art… Beneath Pine Trees. This is where the exhibition’s concept becomes especially exciting. The art does not remain inside the museum but becomes part of nature, exposed to wind and weather. At the beginning of the trail, you encounter Andreas Greiner‘s model of the Brücke-Museum, which will gradually transform over time through the effects of the elements. Labeled second-hand mirrors guide you towards the individual stations, while automatically directing your gaze more closely towards your surroundings. Guerilla Architects encourage you to adopt new perspectives through their carefully positioned works, while Club Real, with its “Council of Living Beings”, invites you to put yourself in the position of the creatures living in your immediate environment. My personal favorite, however, is Jenny Kendler‘s “Venus”, made from earth. Suddenly, it becomes part of the Grunewald and is entirely impermanent, degrading with the weather. Instead of protecting artworks from decay, the Brücke-Museum does the opposite. It makes the transformation part of the artwork itself. Perhaps this is precisely what makes this double exhibition so fascinating. It doesn’t simply present nature as a subject; it allows nature itself to become a collaborator. While the exhibition “Nature… In the Museum” is on view from 05.07-25.10.2026, the educational trail “Art… Beneath Pine Trees” will remain in place for several years. An exhibition that will not look the same the second time you visit as it did the first.
Text: Isabelle Marten / Photos: Nick Ash
Brücke-Museum, Bussardsteig 9, 14195 Berlin–Dahlem; map
@brueckemuseum
@Lizzamaydavid
@zabriskiebuchladen
@andreas.greiner.berlin
@guerillaarchitects
@jennykendler
