The trouble with Gallery Weekend Berlin is that after visiting a few exhibitions, you stop looking at the art and begin simply ticking off the galleries. It starts well: you really scrutinise the work, give it a sniff, dutifully read the press text. But by Sunday afternoon, with sore feet (you’ve worn your best shoes), the attention you give an exhibition is comparable to that last-minute exam cramming: those frantic last seconds staring at a crumpled note in a desperate hope something sticks.
Luckily, many shows are still open – and well worth a slower post–Gallery Weekend visit.
Despite its crummy name, Zuzanna Czebatul’s ‘All the Charm of a Rotting Gum’ at Dittrich & Schlechtriem is an impressive but monstrous vision in the subterranean art space. A recreation of the Gigantomachy frieze from the Pergamon Altar, it raises all manner of ethical questions about historical appropriation and the aestheticisation of violence. On the other side of the wall, constructions of police defence equipment have been arranged into oily, proto-Christian forms – they’re amazing – like giant alien logos by HR Giger.
- Dittrich & Schlechtriem, Linienstr. 23, Mitte, Zuzanna Czebatul – ‘All the Charm of a Rotting Gum’, ends 21 June 2025, details.
Across the Volksbühne Dreieck, police shields appear again in Nadya Tolokonnikova’s (Pussy Riot) exhibition at Nagel Draxler. On the shield’s stainless-steel surface, the anarchy symbol has roughly been scratched. There’s also a recreation of the cell where she was imprisoned: what she drolly calls her “two-year durational performance”. The show monumentalises her hatred of Putin (even his death) and is not always successful.
- Nagel Draxler, Rosa-Luxemburg-Str. 33, Mitte, Nadya Tolokonnikova – ‘Wanted’, ends 30 August 2025, details.
A brisk walk away, at Sprüth Magers, Cyprien Gaillard’s video work, Retinal Rivalry, is a largely underwhelming spectacle. Although rumoured to have cost over €1 million to produce, once you’ve got over the 3D thrill and wallowed in his familiar themes of urban beauty and decay, history and erasure, it’s an enervating watch.
- Sprüth Magers, Oranienburger Str. 18, Mitte, Cyprien Gaillard – ‘Retinal Rivalry’, ends 26 July 2025, details.
Seeing so much over the weekend, it’s rare that works have the power to stop you in your tracks, but that was certainly the case with painter Michaela Eichwald’s second exhibition at Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi. One of the first paintings you see, Dialektik (2025), is a masterful whirlwind of serene chaos, with two rained-on chairs at its centre. With so many galleries wheeling out impactful installations or big-name artists, the small, soulful drawings of Hua International’s Tirdad Hashemi and Soufia Erfanian are intimate and quietly devastating.
- Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi, Schöneberger Ufer 61, Schöneberg, Michaela Eichwald – ‘Teil 2’, ends 12 July 2025, details.
Painter Horst Antes takes over both floors of Meyer Riegger with his geometric edifices, each one capped with a childlike little roof. Now 88 and still painting, Antes portraits were hugely popular in the 1960s – reflected in the significant disparity in prices compared to his more recent work.
- Meyer Riegger, Schaperstr. 14, Charlottenburg, Horst Antes – ‘Ich bin das Haus’, ends 21 June 2025, details.
Around the corner, Sylvie Fleury and Angela Bulloch are getting up to all kinds of mischief in the historic recreation of a 90s London show at the corner space of Mehdi Chouakri. A vast foiled figure lolls about on the floor, a decadent homage to rockstar life – you can almost taste the rollies and cheap alcohol. Considering he turned to painting late in his career, Anthony Goicolea’s paintings in Gallery Crone shine with a Doig-like luminosity. A little way away, Anne Imhof’s canvases pulse like broken analogue screens on the walls of Galerie Buchholz. In the back room, they’ve hung some low-key sketches and schematics from her recent theatre piece performed in New York.
- Mehdi Chouakri, Fasanenstr. 61, Charlottenburg, Sylvie Fleury and Angela Bulloch – ‘The Art of Survival/Baby Doll Saloon’, ends 26 July 2025, details.
- Gallery Crone, Fasanenstr. 29, Charlottenburg, ends 21 June 2025, details.
- Galerie Buchholz, Fasanenstr. 30, Charlottenburg, ends 21 June 2025, details.
It’s a reminder that Gallery Weekend is about selling, so don’t be put off from asking for the price list (they can tell from your shoes you won’t be buying anything).
