Exhibitions

Taylor Swift's song 'The Fate of Ophelia' is currently a global hit. It is driving teenagers, who are otherwise not interested in anything, in droves to a particular museum: the Museum Wiesbaden. It is renowned for its outstanding modern art collection. But thanks to Taylor Swift, one rather odd painting from the collection has achieved worldwide fame: Friedrich Heyser's 'Ophelia', painted around 1900 and very much in the spirit of the Wilhelminian era. The painting now has to be specially secured and is adored by Swifties thanks to the music video for the song, in which Swift steps out of a painting that looks very similar to transform herself into a showgirl. However, that's not the only reason to visit Wiesbaden. To celebrate its 200th anniversary, the museum is showcasing highlights of classical modernism in a special exhibition called 'Feininger, Münter, Modersohn-Becker...', most of which are on loan from private collectors. A real eye-catcher! Works by Willi Baumeister, Max Beckmann, Wassily Kandinsky, Erich Heckel, Adolf Hölzel, Alexej von Jawlensky, Ida Kerkovius, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, August Macke and Ernst Wilhelm Nay are included in the exhibition.

Friedrich Heyser, Ophelia, um 1900. Museum Wiesbaden, Sammlung F.W. Neess. Foto: Museum Wiesbaden / Bernd Fickert

The Berlin art scene of the 1980s is back. In the summer of 2025, the Berlinische Galerie presented a retrospective of Käthe Kruse, who was a member of the artist group and band 'Die Tödliche Doris'. The Weserburg in Bremen is set to become the first museum to present a comprehensive retrospective of the entire group. Founded in the punk movement by Wolfgang Müller and Nikolaus Utermöhlen, who were both still studying at the Berlin University of the Arts at the time, the group combined strategies from Warhol's Factory with influences from Fluxus, punk, wave, concept art, and anarchic and post-structuralist thinking. Active between 1980 and 1987, the group's membership was in constant flux, and it combined strategies from Warhol's Factory with influences from Fluxus, punk, wave, concept art, and anarchic and post-structuralist thinking. 'Doris' was not a star or a solo artist, but rather an amoeba-like network: an avant-garde meme that produced music, noise, light, strip shows, performances, films, books, gossip, furniture, paintings, object art, vinyl records, fashion, and radio plays — even an application for a seat in the Berlin Senate. The Bremen exhibition shows how groundbreaking this artistic work was, and explains why the group still has such a legendary reputation today.

Die Tödliche Doris auf dem Festival der Genialen Dilletanten, West-Berlin, 1981

On 17 November, Armin Müller-Stahl will turn 90 years old. To celebrate this milestone, the Kunsthalle Emden is presenting a major exhibition, ‘Night and Day on Earth’, dedicated to the multifaceted artist, who was born in Tilsit, East Prussia, in 1930. The exhibition explores the connections between Müller-Stahl's work as an actor and his visual art. The title is inspired by Jim Jarmusch's film 'Night on Earth' (1991), in which Müller-Stahl played a leading role. Showcasing a variety of works, the exhibition features early paintings, print cycles, and large-format allegorical and expressive paintings, as well as the most recent portraits of Jewish friends and companions.

It is complemented by interviews and documentaries that shed light on his development as an actor and painter. Müller-Stahl, an avid jazz fan and novelist, began his unique artistic career in post-war Germany. He became a prominent and celebrated film actor in the GDR, but was forced to leave the country in 1976 after signing an open letter protesting against the expulsion of Wolf Biermann from the GDR.
In the West, he became the face of German auteur cinema, working with directors such as Herbert Achternbusch, Alexander Kluge and Rainer Werner Fassbinder. He also took on major roles in Hollywood films, appearing alongside Jessica Lange in Costa Gavras' political thriller Music Box (1991). In this context, 'Night and Day on Earth' offers a picturesque and deeply personal self-portrait.

Portraitfoto Armin Mueller Stahl Foto Niko Schmid Burgk ©Niko Schmid-Burgk

We all want an alternative history. Some people tell it. Take the Polish artist, Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, for example. A Bergitka Romani, she grew up in a Romani settlement in Czarna Góra, at the foot of the Tatra Mountains. She still lives and works there today. After studying art in Krakow in 2004, she started making her distinctive art from fabric and cardboard. The results are often monumental textile images that tell the story of life in Romani communities and historical events related to war, violence and persecution from a female perspective. The artist frequently brings scenes from her family archives or her own life to life. She captures generations of women in the simple, everyday life of her hometown in the 1960s and '70s, first against the backdrop of the communist regime in Poland, then in a globalised world.

Mirga-Tas's colourful and often ornamental works combine elements of folk art with influences from other art movements, such as the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and '30s, and the paintings of the African-American artist Kerry James Marshall. The Kunstmuseum's exhibition is the most comprehensive display of her work in Germany to date and includes her gigantic cycle 'Re-Enchanting the World‘, which was exhibited at the Polish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2022, making her world-famous.

Courtesy Museum Weserburg
Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, Re-enchanting the World, 2022, exhibition view, Małgorzata Mirga-Tas: This is not the end of the road, Bonnefanten, Maastricht, Niederlande, 2024, Courtesy the artist, Frith Street Gallery, London, Foksal Gallery Foundation, Warsaw and Karma International, Zürich, © photo: Peter Cox

Just at the right time. With 'Queer Modernism. 1900 to 1950', the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen is presenting the first comprehensive European exhibition to showcase the significant contributions of queer artists to modernism. Featuring over 130 pieces, including paintings, drawings, photographs, sculptures, films, literature, and archival materials, the exhibition showcases the work of 34 international artists from the first half of the 20th century. It presents an alternative history of modernism in which queer artists placed themes such as desire, gender, sexuality and the politics of self-representation at the heart of their work. It also recounts stories of queer life during wartime and periods of resistance. Legendary modernists such as Jean Cocteau, Leonor Fini, Duncan Grant, Hannah Höch, Lotte Laserstein, Jeanne Mammen and George Platt Lynes are among those featured.

Gluck, Bank Holiday Monday, c. 1937, Private collection, courtesy of The Fine Art Society Ltd © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025

William Kentridge is arguably South Africa's most prominent artist – and rightly so. ‘Listen to the Echo’ is the title of the major retrospective currently on display at the Folkwang Museum, which also marks Kentridge's 70th birthday. The echo could be that of South African history, the colonial era, and above all, apartheid – the consequences of which Kentridge has explored in his work for almost half a century. One hundred and sixty works from five decades are on display in Essen. Kentridge’s drawings, animations, and stage-like installations populated by shadows, surreal machines, and everyday objects have a theatrical and musical quality. The echo also represents this – the opera that Kentridge loves so much.

One of the exhibition's main works, 'Black Box/Chambre Noire' (2005), was created in 2005 with support from Deutsche Bank as a commissioned piece for the Deutsche Guggenheim. Now on loan from the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, this mechanical miniature stage is being displayed in a German museum for the first time in many years. In this piece, Kentridge links the memory of the genocide perpetrated by German soldiers against the Herero people in German Southwest Africa in 1904 with a pointed critique of the European Enlightenment.

lliam Kentridge
Drawing for Self-Portrait as a Coffee-Pot (2 Private Thoughts), 2021
Privatsammlung
Courtesy Kentridge Studio, © William Kentridge, 2025

Petrit Halilaj's childhood and youth were shaped by war and displacement. Born in 1986 in Kosovo, the artist frequently returns to his homeland to visit significant places in his hometown and explore collective history, his own biography, fairy tales and legends. However, he also examines the non-human history of animals, plants and ecological systems, which has also been affected by humans. Halilaj's poetic installations provide a space for freedom, longing, intimacy and identity, even where there is otherwise none. To this end, he often collaborates with others. His works have been exhibited internationally, including at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Venice Biennale. His first institutional solo exhibition in Berlin is an opera that explores the possibilities of collective dreaming to bring forth open and emancipatory worlds. For this project, he has invited the Kosovo Philharmonic Orchestra, founded after the Kosovo War, which is celebrating its 25^th anniversary this year.

Image: 
Petrit Halilaj, RU (Aves Migrantis), 2017-22 (detail)Exhibition view New Museum, New
YorkInstallation consisting of 79 elements, wood, earth, glue, brass, resinInstalled dimensions
variableImage courtesy the artist and Chert Lüdde, BerlinPhoto by Dario Lasagni
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Hans Peter Feldmann, who passed away in 2023 aged over 80, was one of Germany's most important conceptual artists. The Guggenheim Museum in New York honoured his whimsical and subversive work, and he held major exhibitions in Germany and abroad. Nevertheless, the eccentric Düsseldorf native remained rather under the radar in terms of public awareness. This may be due to his almost austere reserve, or to the radicalism and whimsicality with which he questioned the lofty aura of art. His best-known works include a slightly deformed pink David loosely based on Michelangelo's original, a cross-eyed Nefertiti and Wilhelmine family portraits adorned with clown noses.

However, Feldmann was interested in much more than just humour. For him, art was a trivial, everyday phenomenon and form of communication — a democratic affair. Everyone is exposed to it, and everyone consumes it. Now, the first major retrospective since his death is on display in Düsseldorf. Showcasing the range of Feldmann's work, 120 pieces are on display, including his early photographs from the 1970s, sculptures made from everyday objects, expansive installations, and more recent pieces which are being exhibited here for the first time.

Image: 
Hans-Peter Feldmann, Familie mit roten Nasen, 2015, Ölgemälde, übermalt, 96 x 84 x 4 cm, Galerie Mehdi Chouakri, Berlin © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025

In her first solo institutional exhibition worldwide, Charmaine Poh — Deutsche Bank's “Artist of the Year” — explores themes of time travel, power structures, ecology, care and resistance. Based in Berlin and Singapore, Poh works with video, installation, sculpture, text and performance. Her multimedia narratives focus on identity, feminism and queerness in Southeast Asia. The story of the "Majie" is told in her 3-channel video installation The Moon is Wet (2025), created especially for this show. The "Majie" refers to migrant, mostly celibate domestic workers in Singapore who have worked as cooks and nannies in Singapore since the 1930s and formed their own communities in which they also entered same-sex intimate relationships. Singapore's economic rise is as closely linked to the flow of water as it is to the migration of labour. This retrospective exhibition advocates care for the threatened Earth, as well as protection for women and the LGBTQ+ community. Poh's work addresses the blurring of boundaries between the 'natural' and the 'artificial'. As in ecology, she advocates empathy when dealing with new technologies and in the digital space.

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Charmaine Poh
The Moon is Wet,Videostill, 2025
© Charmaine Poh

Gröting is a sculptor whose work encompasses not only physical materials, but also feelings, relationships, and inner worlds. She creates works that translate psychological and social relationships, as well as human and non-human history, into physical forms. She produces an ever-evolving 'lexicon' of videos and sculptures that draw our attention to absence, and to the physical and emotional gaps between humans, animals, façades, and other things. Key themes for the artist, who was born in 1961, include repressed traumas of the 20^(th) century and German history, as well as the complex relationship between civilisation and nature. She has been one of the most influential figures in contemporary German art since the 1990s. In her work, she renders the invisible visible by focusing on processes or interactions that often go unnoticed in everyday life. These may be the moulded, intimate space between two people during sexual intercourse, or the encounter between her dog and a wolf, as depicted in 'Wolf and Dog'. The Städel Museum is presenting a solo exhibition featuring eight films from 2015 to 2025. These include Gröting's latest video work, Matthias, Helge and Asta (2025), in which Matthias Brandt asks Helge Schneider and the artist the question, 'Have you failed?' We can already reveal that the answer is as astonishing and absurd as a Beckett play.

Image: 
Asta Gröting
Wolf and Dog, 2021
Videostill
4K UHD-Video, Farbe, Ton, 9:58 min
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025

No female American photographer is as legendary as Lee Miller, who was a model and Man Ray's muse, as well as a war correspondent for Vogue and the woman who bathed in Hitler's bathtub. In April 1945, David E. Scherman photographed Miller in Hitler's private bathroom. This radical performative gesture, staged immediately after the couple returned from Dachau concentration camp, where they had photographed the camp's liberation, is considered one of the most extraordinary images of the 20th century. This autumn, Tate Britain will present the largest Lee Miller retrospective ever. The exhibition covers the full range of her work, from her involvement in French Surrealism to her war reporting. It demonstrates how her innovative and fearless approach broke new ground in photography, producing some of the most iconic modernist images.

Around 230 vintage and modern prints, including works displayed for the first time are presented alongside unpublished archive material, offering a unique insight into her photographic and artistic legacy. Born in 1907, Miller modelled in New York before moving to Paris, where she became part of the avant-garde. She moved to London in 1939 at the outbreak of war, partly due to her romantic relationship with the British artist and curator Roland Penrose and quickly became a leading fashion photographer for British Vogue.

Alongside original magazines and archive material, the exhibition showcases her pioneering works, including 'You Will Not Lunch in Charlotte Street Today' (1940) and 'Fire Masks' (1941), created in London during the Blitz. As a war reporter, she travelled throughout Europe, documenting the brutal reality of war and its consequences. In the years after 1945, she remained closely connected to an international circle of artistic friends. These portraits of Isamu Noguchi in New York, Dorothea Tanning in Arizona, Henry Moore and Jean Dubuffet, who visited Miller's Farley Farm in Sussex, were her most impressive post-war works.

Lee Miller, David E. Scherman dressed for war, London 1942. Lee Miller Archives. © Lee Miller Archives, England 2025. All rights reserved. leemiller.co.uk

This multisensory exhibition, created by Oscar-winning Mexican filmmaker Alejandro G. Iñárritu, bridges the gap between cinema and visual art. To mark the 25th anniversary of his legendary debut film Amores Perros (2000), Iñárritu presents previously unseen footage revisiting the timeless themes of the film. Spanning three episodes, Iñárritu depicts love, hate, dreams, and death in Mexico City, where the lives of the characters intersect fatefully through a serious car accident. These haunting outtakes, stored in the film archive of the National Autonomous University of Mexico for a quarter of a century, capture the charged socio-political reality of Mexico City that remains relevant decades later. As part of Sueño Perro, Mexican writer and journalist Juan Villoro will design a visual and acoustic installation for the first floor of the building. Sueño Perro is the third collaboration between Fondazione Prada and Iñárritu.

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Still from Amores Perros (2000) by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Courtesy Rodrigo Prieto. © Alta Vista Films.

Now aged 90, New York artist Eleanor Antin is something of a godmother to Cindy Sherman. Sherman took the art world by storm with her pioneering photography series Untitled Film Stills (1977–1980), in which she portrayed herself in stereotypical female roles from American popular culture, such as secretary, sixties-housewife, and film noir blonde. Antin, who was almost twenty years older than Sherman, had a background in conceptual art and had previously been a writer and an performer. After moving to San Diego in the early 1970s, she began integrating language, character, costume and voice into painting, sculpture and photography. She created various alter egos that appeared in her films and performances, including a disenfranchised king, two frustrated ballet dancers and a helpless nurse. Like Sherman, Antin was interested in showing how gender images are based on social hierarchies and power relations. However, she never achieved the same popularity as Sherman. This may be because her work is more poetic and playful. Alternatively, it could be since Antin was surrounded by a lively community of left-wing artists and writers in San Diego, where she taught at the university and took a more political stance on feminism. Antin is currently being re-evaluated, and this high-calibre exhibition will undoubtedly contribute to this.

Image: 
Eleanor Antin
Nurse Eleanor, R.N., 1976/2007
Courtesy the artist

Kerry James Marshall is one of the most eminent black artists of our time. Born in the southern United States in 1955, he later moved to Los Angeles. His family lived close to the headquarters of the Black Panther Party, which had a decisive influence on his sense of social responsibility and artistic career. Having studied painting at Otis College of Art and Design in LA in the 1970s, Marshall developed a distinctive style: a new form of history painting in which black, almost two-dimensional figures fill everyday and historical scenes alike. Inspired by the works of Bill Traylor, a self-taught artist born into slavery in Alabama, his paintings use elements of Western history painting, which primarily depict colonial and white power structures. Marshall contrasts these with a black perspective that challenges historical racist stereotypes.The Royal Academy of Arts is now presenting the largest exhibition of the American artist's work in Europe to date. To celebrate Marshall's 70th birthday, the exhibition 'The Histories' showcases over 70 of his works, including paintings, prints, drawings, and sculptures, illuminating his long career. Marshall's powerful, large-format paintings address the legacy of the civil rights and Black Power movements. They portray historical figures such as Olaudah Equiano and Harriet Tubman and depict monumental scenes of contemporary Black life, elevating the everyday to the epic.

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Kerry James Marshall, De Style, 1993. Acrylic and collage on canvas, 264.2 x 309.9 cm. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Purchased with funds provided by Ruth and Jacob Bloom. © Kerry James Marshall. Photo: © Museum Associates/LACMA

Sandra Mujinga is an artist, DJ and musician. Her interdisciplinary practice combines visual art, performance, music and online platforms. Her works include performances, sculptures, installations, films and sounds, through which she creates alternative realities that challenge our view of the world. Having won the Berlin National Gallery Prize in 2021 and achieved international recognition at the Venice Biennale in 2022, Mujinga presents her most ambitious work to date at the Stedelijk. Born in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1989, the Norwegian artist has transformed the basement gallery into a barren, otherworldly space. Sound, light, mirrors and sculptures conjure up a supernatural space populated by 55 identical figures. Are they humans, deep-sea creatures or aliens? Some ghostly figures tower on pedestals. Others are almost swallowed by shadows. All of the creatures are multiplied by mirrors, and as visitors move through the green, foggy landscape, the light and sound change, transforming the installation into an immersive, dystopian experience.

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Sandra Mujinga, Spectral Keepers , 2020. Mit freundlicher Genehmigung der Künstlerin und The Approach, London. Foto: Plastiques

The Singapore Biennale will enter its eighth edition in 2025. Organised by the Singapore Art Museum (SAM), this renowned art event primarily focuses on Southeast Asia, but has also developed an international appeal. This year, the Biennale coincides with the city-state's 60th birthday. The phrase 'pure intention' is also linked to how Singapore is perceived right now and its future intentions. Featuring over 80 local and international artists and taking place across various locations throughout the city, the Biennale invites visitors to 'rediscover Singapore through the transformative lens of art' and become more aware of 'the multi-layered stories that shape us as individuals and as a society'. By doing so, the Biennale aims to stimulate critical dialogue on contemporary issues from a Southeast Asian perspective.
The event features many new artists, as well as established names such as Pierre Huyghe, Kapwani Kiwanga, Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Ming Wong.

Key Visual of the Singapore Biennale 2025. Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum

The New York-based artist Joyce Pensato (1941–2019) combined the gestural formal language of American Expressionism with the coolness of conceptual painting and Pop Art. Her cartoon characters, such as Homer Simpson, Felix the Cat, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and even her own characters, such as 'The Juicer', delve deep into the American psyche of the late 20th century and address the latent male violence hidden behind these archetypes of mass culture. Pensato became internationally famous in the early 2000s as part of a renewed female movement in US painting and has influenced a younger generation of New York artists, including painters as Christopher Wool and Charlene von Heyl. The ICA retrospective spans Pensato's career, from her early Batman drawings (1976) to her colourful, gestural abstractions in oil (1980s) and comic paintings (2000–2019). It is a journey into the dark cosmos of one of the most important US painters.

Joyce Pensato, I Must Be Dreamin' (2007) Photo: Larry Lamay. © The Joyce Pensato Foundation. Courtesy of Petzel, New York.

When they hear the title of the latest California Biennial, some might think of the political situation in the United States and around the world. However, the current biennial at the Orange County Museum of Art focuses on a different theme: late adolescence, a rollercoaster ride of hope and future potential, as well as fears and despair. The title is inspired by the eponymous album by Southern Californian punk rock band Emily's Sassy Lime, founded in 1993 by three Asian-American teenagers. The biennial explores young adulthood from various perspectives, featuring works by renowned Californian artists reflecting on their youth and collaborations between artists and their children. In an era of uncertainty, this exhibition pays tribute to teenagers, both past and present, who have fearlessly shaped their cultural landscape, and to the young individuals who will define tomorrow's world. International art stars such as Laura Owens and Miranda July are also taking part.

After touring London's Tate, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, and Berlin's Gropius Bau, 'Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind is now making its way to the United States. Chicago is the only stop. Visitors will have the unique opportunity to experience one of the most comprehensive retrospectives on Yoko Ono, celebrating the life's work of the artist, musician and activist. Featuring over 200 pieces, including performance recordings, music and sound recordings, scores, films, photographs, installations, and archival materials, the exhibition traces Ono's entire career, from her beginnings in New York where she established herself as a pioneer of Fluxus and conceptual art through radical performances, to her later work. This includes the famous 'Cut Piece' (1964), in which Ono sat on stage and invited audience members, mostly male, to cut her dress with scissors – an act that is still shocking today. The exhibition also honours her collaborations with legendary musicians such as John Cage, Ornette Coleman and her late husband John Lennon. More recent works include Ono's ongoing ‘Wish Tree’ project (1996–present), as well as public artworks and actions that embody her commitment to peace, including ‘Imagine Peace’ (2003) and ‘Peace is Power’ (2017). This is a must-see exhibition.

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Yoko Ono, Apple, 1966. Installation view, Yoko Ono: One Woman Show, 1960–1971, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, 2015. © Yoko Ono. Digital Image © 2015 MoMA, N.Y. Photo: Thomas Griesel.

Roppongi Crossing is the name of a series of thematic exhibitions held every three years at the Mori Art Museum. Launched in 2004, the series provides an overview of the contemporary art scene in Japan, offering a unique insight into the artistic themes and mood of each era. For the eighth edition, the Mori Art Museum curators are collaborating with two guest curators from Asia to showcase the work of 21 artists and artist groups under the theme ‘What Passes Is Time. We Are Eternal'. The theme is transience and eternity. The exhibition includes not only painting, sculpture and video, but also crafts, handicrafts, zines and collective projects. These include the bowls and objects of renowned ceramist Kuwata Takuro, as well as the psychedelic-organic embroidery of Oki Junko on centuries-old fabrics. Also featured are the immersive installations by Studio A.A. Murakami, which combine influences from traditional Asian art with the latest technology. These installations include machines that produce giant, cell-shaped soap bubbles and fleeting, cloud-like sculptures made of steam.

Image: 
A.A.Murakami
New Spring
2017
nstallation view: Studio Swine x COS, New Spring, Salone del Mobile 2017, Milan

From December, Brisbane will host Presence, a comprehensive exhibition by Icelandic-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson. It will feature significant new installations, photographs, and sculptures. The highly anticipated exhibition was developed by Eliasson and his studio specifically for the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA). Spanning the entire ground floor of the GOMA, it comprises over 20 pieces by the artist from 1993 to the present day. The spectrum ranges from the groundbreaking work 'Beauty' (1993), in which a rainbow appears to float in a veil of fine mist, to the immersive rock landscape and small stream of 'Riverbed' (2014), to a series of never-before-seen works developed specifically for 'Presence'. These include two large new installations dealing with the polarisation of light: 'Your negotiable vulnerability seen from two perspectives' (2025) and 'Your truths' (2025). Chris Saines, director of QAGOMA, says of Eliasson's work, 'It forces us to think about how we relate to the world visually, spatially, and kinetically.'

Key Visual of the Singapore Biennale 2025. Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum