Berlin Art Week 2023

by Lorna McDowell // Aug. 22, 2023

The 12th edition of Berlin Art Week is almost upon us! Running from September 13th to 17th, the event will present a wide-reaching program that highlights the diversity of the Berlin contemporary art scene and features over 100 of its key players—from museums and art institutions, to private collections, project spaces and numerous galleries.

This year’s program focuses on themes of representation, sustainability, war and for the first time, digitization. Both national and international artists go beyond traditional formats of exhibition-making with insightful works that span a range of mediums including sound, performance and virtual reality.

The hub of this year’s festival will be situated at Neue Nationalgalerie. Here, Berlin Art Week invites visitors to a series of events that include free, open air performances and workshops, as well as the opportunity to enjoy drinks and snacks while perusing information on the full Berlin Art Week program. From this starting location, you can set off alone to explore BAW offerings across the whole city, or join one of the various organized tours to help you to make the most out of this year’s line up.

Anan Fries: ‘Posthuman Wombs,’ 2023, stills // Copyright Anan Fries

First on your list might be Haus am Lützowplatz, where the Digital Art Lab will serve as the meeting place for digital art during Berlin Art Week 2023, hosting talks, panels, workshops and performances that will accompany the exhibition ‘Unleashed Utopias: Artistic Speculations on the Present and Future in the Metaverse.’ Featuring work by VR Art Prize scholarship holders, the exhibition explores how new technologies might create a more just and utopian coexistence. Visitors can immerse themselves in utopian visions via virtual reality and site-specific installations. A participating artist to note is Marlene Bart, who works with digitized artifacts from natural history, which she activates within virtual worlds in order to bring fresh perspectives to our ideas about nature.

Another Berlin Art Week highlight takes place at alpha nova & galerie futura, a cultural space in Berlin with an emancipatory focus on collaborations with women artists and FLINTA*. ‘I Made You to Find Me’ engages with motherhood, female identities and matrilineal connections across generations. Artists Yujie Zhou, Cai Yaling and Magdalena Kallenberger work with photography, installation art and textile works to create visual dialogues that explore the many possibilities of female identity exploration, as well as notions of finding and being found.

Zhou Yujie: ‘Grandma and laceleaf,’ 2019-2023, photograph, fine art print 3mm Alu-Dibond, 50x50cm // Copyright Zhou Yujie

At PalaisPopulaire, La Chola Poblete’s first solo exhibition in Germany ‘Guaymallén’ examines the consequences of colonialism and white supremacy in the artist’s home country of Argentina. Named Deutsche Bank’s Artist of the Year 2023, La Chola Poblete reflects on her indigenous and queer roots in her watercolors, sculptures, installations and performances, including a new performance in collaboration with artist and trans activist Lola Bhajan. Another performance to add to your calendars takes place at Hebbel am Ufer (HAU2) , which presents the world premiere of ‘GORGON’, a flute opera written, composed and directed by artist Marianna Simnett and commissioned by LAS Art Foundation. Simnett draws on Greek mythology to explore the horror and beauty of society in transition, integrating AI as a medium within live performance. The show brings together a celebrated cast including AI technologist Moisés Horta Valenzuela, choreographer Margrét Bjarnadóttir, set designer Emilia Margulies and costume designer Yao Liao.

La Chola Poblete: ‘La Virgen y el cordero (From V√≠rgenes Chola’s series),’ 2022 // Copyright La Chola Poblete, photo by Florencia Liste

Other than those above, there are many artists, both new and well established, to engage with during Berlin Art Week 2023. Among these, internationally famed artist Ai Wei Wei presents his fifth solo exhibition at neugerriemschneider, entitled ‘Know Thyself’ and displaying new works in his ongoing project of recontextualising art historical and contemporary images through deconstruction and reconstruction in Lego bricks. And Cuban-American artist Coco Fusco’s first major retrospective ‘Tomorrow, I Will Become an Island’ takes place at KW Institute for Contemporary Art. Tracing the artist’s significant influence on contemporary art discourse, the show presents a broad selection of videos, photographs, texts, installations and live performances from the 1990s to the present.

As well as the usual program, a selection of 12 special projects complements the festival this year for ‘BAW Featured’. The projects have been chosen by a jury for their artistic quality, contribution to the evolving cartography of Berlin and their relevance to Berlin Art Week 2023. Judges Krist Gruijthuijsen, Catherine Nichols, Mona Stehle and María Inés Plaza Lazo chose from more than 90 applications to bring you a range of artistic exchanges, exhibitions and explorations that could be considered emblematic of Berlin art right now. Look out for the chosen projects and don’t miss out on this special highlight of this year’s program. Before we forget, here is our list of beautifully designed places to stay and eat during Berlin Art Week 2023. And be sure not to miss our annual Berlin Art Week Hit List with our recommendations, coming soon!