At Berlin Art Week 2025, taking place 10 – 14 September, gallery wanderers are set to discover reflections on the current contentious state of culture, politics and economics alongside intimate examinations of the intricacies of what it means to be human.
From painterly abstractions of the everyday and representations of the surreal depths of self-exploration, to courtroom theatre and queer legacy, we’ve selected the shows and performances you don’t want to miss this September.
Image credit: Issy Wood, Lobotomy goals study, 2025. Oil on linen. 92.5 x 92.5 x 5 cm
Issy Wood’s Magic Bullet
Location: Schinkel Pavillon, Oberwallstraße 32
Dates: 11 September 2025 – 31 January 2026
Schinkel Pavillon is known for its haunting, otherworldly and supernatural art offerings. In Magic Bullet – British artist Issy Wood’s first large-scale solo exhibition in Germany — never-before-seen works respond to the unique architecture and energy of the building while speaking to personal experiences.
Tiona Nekkia McClodden and Millie Wilson’s Lesbian Legacies #2 Archive Affections
Location: Scherben, Leipziger Straße 61
Dates: 11 September – 19 October 2025
Archive Affections, is the highly anticipated second exhibition in the Lesbian Legacies series. It brings together works by US artists Tiona Nekkia McClodden Millie Wilson as they explore “queer memory politics, lesbian historiography and institutional critique” through creative dialogue.
Image credit: Christelle Oyiri and Neva Wireko, Hauntology of an OG, video still, 2025. Courtesy the artists, LAS Art Foundation, Amant, and Pinault Collection. © Christelle Oyiri and Neva Wireko.
Christelle Oyiri’s Dead God Flow
Location: LAS Art Foundation @ Cank, Karl-Marx-Straße 95
Dates: 11 September – 19 October 2025
Head to Neukölln’s former department store-turned culture hub Cank for LAS Art Foundation’s latest project: a newly commissioned audio-visual installation by artist, DJ and producer Christelle Oyiri. Prepare to lose yourself in an audiovisual environment that harnesses the alchemy of video, sound and spatial design to explore how imagined futures influence identity.
Henni Alftan’s By the Skin of My Teeth
Location: Sprüth Magers, Oranienburger Straße 18
Dates: 12 September – 25 October 25 2025
During Berlin Art Week, 10 favourite Sprüth Magers will open a new solo exhibition by visual artist and narrator of everyday life Henni Alftan. Inviting the audience to rediscover the familiar, the show encompasses all-new paintings and the artist’s first-ever presentation of drawings.
Image credit: Benjamin Slinger, Enchanted, Well Lit, Aspirational – FT, 2023.
Group Exhibition Hands Down
Location: Åplus, Stromstraße 38
Dates: 12 September – 4 October 2025
Featuring works by Nicl Barbro, Lauren Keely, Hannes Mussner, Benjamin Slinger, Merlin Reichart, Manu Stehli and Anna Stüdeli, new group exhibition Hands Down sees artists explore the diverse and sometimes contradictory symbolism of the humble hand.
Perform! Joan Jonas: Mirror Piece I & II (1969/2025)
Location: Neue Nationalgalerie, Potsdamer Straße 50
Dates: 10, 11, 13, 14 September 2025
We are experiencing a resurgence of performance art in Berlin right now, but to understand its art-world trajectory it is essential to revisit iconic works from the past. First performed by artist Joan Jonas in 1969, Mirror Piece is one of the most influential examples of American feminist and conceptual performance art and is credited with redefining the relationships between visual art, performance and gender representation.
Image credit: Mark Leckey, Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore, 1999, DVD, 14′30″. Courtesy of the artist and Cabinet, London.
Mark Leckey’s Enter Thru Medieval Wounds
Location: Julia Stoschek Foundation, Leipziger Straße 60
Dates: 11 September 2025 – 3 May 2026
In another showcase of iconic and era-defining work, Julia Stoschek Foundation’s Mark Leckey retrospective Enter Thru Medieval Wounds combines key video works from 1999 to 2010 with more recent works, drawing on the influence and profundity of seminal pieces such as the artist’s 1999 portrait of British rave culture Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore.
Boglárka Börcsök & Andreas Bolm’s Subjoyride
Location: Sophiensæle, Sophienstraße 18
Dates: 10, 11, 12, 13 September 2025
A collaboration between Berlin-based choreographer and performer Boglárka Börcsök and filmmaker and artist Andreas Bolm, performative work Subjoyride is an invitation to “engage in a corporeal dialogue” with the work of the German Dadaist Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, who lived between 1874 and 1927. Expect unexpected explorations of the Baroness’s complex and creative eccentricities, spanning poetry, performance and sculpture.
Image credit: Selin Davasse, Corpus Iuris Artis: I. The Deposition, curated by soft power at Mouches Volantes, Cologne, 2025. Photo: Dirk Rose.
Group Exhibition Lichtaus Lichtan
Location: St. Matthäus-Kirche, Matthäikirchplatz
Dates: 12 September 2025 – 4 January 2026
Featuring the work of artists Vitória Cribb, Doku, Lukas Heerich, Leiko Ikemura, Ju Young Kim, Isa Melsheimer, Kristina Nagel, Norbert Schwontkowski, Minh Lan Tran, Nicole Wermers, Wendi Yan and Guan Xiao, group show Lichtaus Lichtan is anchored in ideas of “the in-between, of being on the move and of transfer spaces: phases and places of transition, spaces that are not conceived as final destinations, but as intermediate stations and episodes of waiting, reflection and change”.
Selin Davasse’s Corpus Iuris Artis: III. The Appeal
Location: Amtsgericht Mitte, Littenstraße 12–17
Date: 13 September 2025
With Corpus Iuris Artis, artist Selin Davasse presents a three-part exhibition that reimagines the art world as a courtroom, using the performance-based format of the work to address questions of ethics, power and representation within it. As part of the Pickle Bar-commissioned series She-Wailers, Corpus Iuris Artis: III.The Appeal plays out the proceedings of an imaginary Court of Appeals within the walls of a real courthouse.
Header image credit: Henni Alftan, Flood, 2025. Oil on linen. 150 x 300 cm © Henni Alftan. Courtesy the artist, Sprüth Magers and Karma. Photo: Aurélien Mole.
