Exhibitions 2021

Yayoi Kusama is one of the world’s most important contemporary artists. The Gropius Bau devoted the first comprehensive retrospective in Germany to Kusama’s work. Presented across almost 3000 m², the exhibition offered an overview of the key periods in her oeuvre, which spans more than 70 years, and featured a number of current works as well as a newly realised Infinity Mirror Room.

Hella Jongerius: Woven Cosmos

29 April to 15 August 2021

At the heart of Hella Jongerius’s artistic practice is the connection between industry and craft, as well as traditional knowledge and technology. The Gropius Bau presented a solo exhibition devoted to the artist and designer that continued to develop over the course of time.

Everything Is Just for a While

28 May to 17 October 2021

Previously little-known video footage their our own, public and private collections were boldly edited together in Everything Is Just for a While to mark the Berliner Festspiele’s 70th birthday and offer a new perspective on artistic positions from around the world that continue to amaze us today.

Seeing and understanding the world through children’s eyes – the exhibition Takeover explored this desire. It was a collaboration between the Gropius Bau and the Stiftung Brandenburger Tor, the Kulturstiftung der Berliner Sparkasse.

As In House: Artist in Residence 2020, the artist and theoretician Zheng Bo embarked on the question of how plants practice politics. His exhibition Wanwu Council 萬物社 expanded upon themes that Zheng Bo had worked on during his one-year residency at the Gropius Bau.

Thea Djordjadze’s artistic practice can be understood as a process of continually reusing, reconfiguring and rearranging objects. The Gropius Bau hosted an extensive exhibition of the Berlin-based artist’s work which engaged in a dialogue with the historic building.

30 years after the demise of the Soviet Union, the Gropius Bau presented The Cool and the Cold: Painting from the USA and the USSR 1960–1990, an extensive group show that brought together works held by the Ludwig Collection from six international museums.

The video installation A Continual Cry explored liveness in the absence of the performer’s live presence.

Zanele Muholi self-identifies as a visual activist and has been documenting the life of Black LGBTQIA+ communities since the early 2000s in intimate and powerful photographs across South Africa and beyond. The Gropius Bau hosted Muholi’s first major survey in Germany.