State of the Art

This multimedia art exhibition has been on display at the Schwules Museum since June with the aim of highlighting “the vibrancy of Ukrainian queer culture” amid war, destruction and despite an increasingly homophobic backlash. Through installations, video works, drawings, photographs and textile works, the history of the queer community is presented in three chapters: the first part is dedicated to its development at the time when Ukraine was still part of the Soviet Union, the second part highlights the period of optimism following independence from 1991 until Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, and the third section conveys a vivid picture of the attempt to somehow lead a self-determined life as a minority in a present marked by rampant violence and death.

Duration: 06. June 2025 – 26. January 2026

Since July the Schwules Museum has also been showing an exhibition of works by Petra Gall. The photographer moved to Berlin in 1981 at the age of 26 and from that moment on documented, according to the museum, the diverse movements and actions, in general “the comprehensive cultural, intellectual, and sexual productivity of the women's lesbian community” for two decades. On display are photographs of demonstrations on Walpurgis Night, squatting and simply exuberant impressions of concerts and parties such as those at the Schokofabrik which even still exists today. The exhibition was curated by Collin Klugbauer and Birga Meyer from the extensive estate of Petra Gall, which was added to the Schwules Museum's collection in 2012, six years before her death.

Duration: 04. July 2025 – 23. February 2026

Since August the permanent exhibition on “Queer Movements in Germany since Stonewall” has also been on display again at the Schwules Museum. It was created in 2019 as a “labor of love” in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut. The name of the exhibition says it all: it offers an entertaining and insightful look at 50 turbulent and combative years of the LGBTIQ community.

Permanent exhibition

In 1996 renowned fashion photographer Rico Puhlmann died in a plane crash near Long Island, New York, at the age of just 63. Until then the illustrator and photographer from Berlin-Friedenau had spent four decades shaping the aesthetic fashion sensibilities of millions of people with his work for magazines such as Brigitte, Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. Since June the Helmut Newton Foundation has been dedicating a retrospective to Puhlmann, showing numerous photo series, mostly from his estate, which reflect the whole variety of styles from the elegant Berlin chic of the 1950s to the casual American look of the 1970s, as well as his portraits of stars such as Naomi Campbell and Hildegard Knef.

Duration: 27.June 2025 –15. February 2026

This exhibition deliberately counters the illusion that “four decades after the start of the HIV/AIDS epidemic” it is possible to treat this topic as a “closed chapter.” Under the theme “The Political Dimensions of HIV/AIDS Today,” twelve works by international artists are on display in the rooms of the Neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst (nGbK) to visually address the unabated presence of the virus in our everyday lives. In addition an accompanying program of film screenings, performances and discussions complements the artistic perspectives with the viewpoints of activists and scientists on the complex political and social dimensions that remain inextricably linked to HIV/AIDS to this day: stigmatization, biomedicine, colonial significance and much more.

Duration: 11. September 2025 – 16. November 2025

Nationalist and reactionary movements are on the rise worldwide — which is why the Haus der Kulturen der Welt is undertaking this research project in an attempt to take a critical look at the threatening and steadily growing number of new manifestations of fascism in its aesthetic and social dimensions. To this end works by over 50 international artists and collectives have been selected and brought together to examine “historical and current contexts in which right-wing extremist ideologies thrive” through the diverse language of art: whether through digital formats, performances, photographs or painting. The explicit aim of the exhibition is to position “art not only as a medium of reflection, but also as an active force that opposes authoritarian aesthetics and ideologies”.

Duration: 13. September 2025 – 07. December 2025

The title of this exhibition deliberately alludes to David Bowie's famous 1972 album “Ziggy Stardust”: Erik Schmidt's works — whether paintings, collages or videos — are also permeated by the complex question of the meaning of identity in modern society. In this regard the show at Maschinenhaus M2 aims to transport visitors into Schmidt's “multi-layered aesthetic universe”. To this end works from three decades of his creative output have been linked together to form a narrative, dividing the exhibition into five chapters. The arc of tension ranges from “the confrontation with the other and the ironic distance to one's own self-image” to works that examine “clichés in the world of work in their relationship to masculinity in capitalist societies, to queerness and power structures” to “the beginnings of Schmidt's artistic practice”.

Duration: 14. September 2025 – 01. February 2026

This exhibition, subtitled “Perspectives by Woman Photographers of Magnum”, was already on display in New York in 2022. The occasion was the 75th anniversary of the renowned and in the show's title named photo agency Magnum Photos. In 2025 C/O Berlin will mark its own 25th anniversary by making this photo exhibition available to the Berlin public in a partially adapted and expanded version. The focus, in the truest sense of the word, is on the relationship between object and camera, the closeness between the photographers and their models, between “power and empathy”. The range of works on display includes documentary studies spanning several decades, as well as subtle snapshots as acts of self-empowerment.

Duration: 27. September 2025 – 28. January 2026

The permanent exhibition on the first floor of the Berlinische Galerie, which offers an insight into both the art and art history of the capital, includes the masterful paintings of Lovis Corinth (1858–1925) as part of its permanent repertoire. The gallery is now dedicating an exhibition to this progressive artist, who — unlike most of his contemporaries — mainly taught women and whose powerful style inspired generations of painters after him, such as the group known as the Young Wild Ones of the 1980s. To this end the gallery is “exploring” its collection, which includes a large number of Corinth's paintings, and is expanding its “series of monographic exhibitions on Berlin Modernism” with this show, which has already paid tribute to Jeanne Mammen among others.

Duration: 09. October 2025 – 25. January 2027

The exhibition “Liaisons” is inspired by the diversity that can emerge from different ideas of male friendships and the aesthetics of the male body. The starting point is the last portrait photo of the heterosexual sculptor Georg Kolbe taken in 1947 by the homosexual photographer Herbert List. The selected juxtaposition of their partially highly contradictory works is intended to trace the “artistic development of male body images in the early 20th century”, with List's works in particular displaying the differences in body image that emerge when the gay gaze underlies the work. This historical tension is complemented by the contemporary works of artists Harry Hachmeister and Jens Pecho, in order to highlight the ever-present “liaison” between “friendship, closeness, and the male body in art” in all its temporal breadth with this special exhibition.

Duration: 11. October 2025 – 15. March 2026

The name of photographer Diane Arbus is familiar to many people, even beyond the art scene. The Gropius Bau is now dedicating what it describes as “the most comprehensive exhibition of her work to date” to this visionary 20th-century artist, whose images shed light on the most intimate and hidden corners of society with a melancholy that is uniquely hers. On display are 454 photographs — many of them being shown for the very first time!

Duration: 16. October 25 – 18. January 2026

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