• Art
  • Art and museums are back: What you can see this week

Art

Art and museums are back: What you can see this week

Some of our favourite spaces have reopened their doors, with others to soon follow. But which exhibitions should you visit, and where? Our art editor surveys the landscape.

Image for Art and museums are back: What you can see this week

Some of our favourite spaces have reopened their doors, with others to soon follow. But which exhibitions should you visit, and where? Our art editor surveys the landscape. Photo: IMAGO / imagebroker

Art fans, the time has come. Museums and galleries in Berlin have been allowed to reopen after more than four months of closure. With rain forecast for the days ahead, it’s time to take advantage of our favourite spaces. The process to get inside is similar to last year’s: at each museum, visitors must pre-book a slot through an online ticketing system and wear a medical mask at all times. Information should be found on each museum or gallery’s website.

Anyone with their heart set on seeing a show should move quickly: the city’s infection rate often moves quickly, and should it rise above 100 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, the Senat will shut the doors.

[Lockdown loosening: The new rules for Berlin.]

The world-famous institutions on Museum Island will once again reopen on March 16. The Germanic Tribes exhibition at the Neues Museum and James-Simon-Galerie has been extended until March 21. There you can see the everyday tools of these agrarian societies, along with sensational finds like the intricate shield boss from the famous princely grave of Gommern. The Pergamonmuseum, the Pergamon-Panorama and the Alte Nationalgalerie will be admitting visitors to their permanent collections. Tickets for these museums, plus state-run venues such as Hamburger Bahnhof, can be booked from Friday, March 12.

KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Mitte has just announced its reopening for March 17. There you’ll be able to see the nightmarish fairytales of Amelie von Wulffen’s career survey featuring drawings, paintings, videos and sculptural pieces. [Read the four-star review here.]

The long-awaited retrospective of the Japanese avant-garde painter Yayoi Kusama is currently being set up behind closed doors at Gropius-Bau. It promises to be the art exhibition of the year; however, it’s unlikely that their doors will open as scheduled on March 17. A more likely date, according to management, will be sometime in the middle of April.

You can start booking a time slot at the Julia Stoschek Collection. Their excellent new exhibition A Fire In My Belly, featuring works by Laure Prouvost and Barabara Hammer, is an impactful ride through the complexities of societal and personal violence.

Image for Art and museums are back: What you can see this week

Berlinische Galerie will reopen on March 16 with an exhibition about postmodern architecture in West and East Berlin in the 1980s. Photo IMAGO / Ritter

The Berlinische Galerie expects to open March 16, which gives everyone the chance to see their architecture show Anything Goes about postmodern architecture in West and East Berlin in the 1980s. Despite being fully set up, no visitors have had the chance to see it.

The Palais Populaire will open from March 14, but the new collection exhibition Ways of Seeing Abstraction is pushed back to March 27. That said, their current exhibition showcases a great collection of work from neo-expressionist painter K.H. Hödicke.

Hamburger Bahnhof will open its doors on April 1 to host a solo exhibition by the Wuhan-born painter Xinyi Cheng, a young artist with a rising reputation. The exhibition is filled with vibrant images of bare-chested men in surreal scenarios full of intimacy and intrigue.

C/O Berlin is planning to open their space again on March 27 with the exhibitions Send me an Image / Nadine Ijewere / Anne Ehrenstein. Visitors will be able to book their tickets shortly.

The Schinkel Pavillon is set to open this Friday, March 12 (open Friday – Sunday 12-7pm) and is already taking online bookings. Their new show Sun Rise | Sun Set is a must-see, which you can read about in April’s ExberlinerThe Georg Kolbe Museum is opening on March 13. There, you’ll be able to see the fantastic ceramic beasts of Japanese artist Shinichi Sawada.

Due to a lack of tourists, both the Berliner Dom and the DDR Museum will only reopen at the end of March.