8 Must-See Shows at Berlin Gallery Weekend 2024
Xie Nanxing, f o r a d e c a s a #6, 2020. © Xie Nanxing. Courtesy of the artist and Capitain Petzel.
As spring blooms with new life, so does the upcoming edition of Berlin Gallery Weekend. Set to unfold between April 26th and 28th, this year holds special significance as it celebrates two monumental milestones. Firstly, the event commemorates its 20th anniversary, and secondly, it marks the inaugural edition under the new leadership of former head of communications at Schaubühne Berlin, Antonia Ruder, who brings a wealth of experience and a fresh vision.
And there’s plenty else to be excited about from the 55 galleries involved. Gallery hoppers can expect big things this year, with Andy Warhol’s later works taking over at BASTIAN and an intriguing dialogue between the early pieces of Hanne Darboven and Rosemarie Trockel at Galerie Crone. Keep an eye out for emerging talents like the 2024 Ars Viva Prize winner and the 2024 National Gallery Prize recipient Dan Lie, who will showcase their drawings and sculptures at Barbara Wien. Plus, don’t miss the dystopian rat race in Jenkin van Zyl’s work at Hua International.
Here, we pick the eight most notable shows from this year’s Berlin Gallery Weekend.
Engaged across various online platforms as a media artist, blogger, activist, and programmer, aaajiao makes work that isn’t just about clicking buttons, but rather offers a window into the ever-evolving landscape of the internet. Exploring topics like data processing, the blogosphere, and China’s Great Firewall, he tackles the gritty realities of our online existence, often—and unsurprisingly—casting a shadow of dystopia over his creations.
Recently, he’s homed in on the experiences of the younger generation, the digital natives swimming in the currents of cyber technology and social media. This newest work tackles the ever-expanding influence of computers, and how they are attempting to shape and restrict what we can do. In various media works, such as an anime-style video installation or vibrant silk screen prints, he traces the ways that algorithms shape our online behaviors, making us increasingly divorced from reality (think of the TikTok generation, constantly dancing to the tune of the platform’s algorithms). Moving beyond simply pointing out the issues, aaajiao uses videos, paintings, and sculptures to explore ways to break free from this system, seeking a path to disengage from the internet’s control and find tranquility away from its distractions and negativity.
During a stroll through Lisbon, Xie Nanxing stumbled upon a notebook, its pages a vibrant green and adorned with the crisp white lines of a football pitch. Inspired by this unexpected find, Xie was prompted to create a series of eight paintings, the collection titled “f o r a d e c a s a,” a playful nod to the Portuguese phrase for “the away game.”
In each painting, the prominence of the white markings reveals itself on the canvas with varying intensity. Take, for example, f o r a d e c a s a #1 (2020), where the lines boldly contrast against the verdant backdrop, drawing the eye with their striking presence. In contrast, f o r a d e c a s a #8 (2020), perhaps the most enigmatic piece in the series, sees the markings turn more subdued, almost imperceptible save for a daring emerald circle that dominates the composition, reminiscent of a center circle. In this piece, Xie works masterfully with the “canvas print” technique, a signature style honed over his 15-year career.
In her early teens back in the mid-1990s, Haley Mellin used to wander alone in the hills around her family’s home in San Anselmo, in northern California. Armed with only a sketchbook and watercolor paints, she’d create observational works of what she saw. Fast forward to today, and Mellin has emerged as a professional artist and dedicated conservationist, and is unveiling her first solo exhibition at DITTRICH & SCHLECHTRIEM.
Prompted by her love for preserving nature, Mellin founded the nonprofit Art for Acres, an organization that aims to protect 33 million acres of wilderness by collaborating with the arts community, in 2017. Additionally, she works with museums in Germany, aiding them in climate education and sustainability efforts.
Through the paintings and drawings in her exhibition, Mellin showcases her lifelong commitment to environmental justice and preserving diverse ecosystems. In the show, Mellin goes back to her roots with a series of observational paintings and drawings of landscapes. Inspired by her time in the field, she uses gouache and charcoal mediums due to their eco-friendly nature. Ranging from expressive to intricately detailed, these artworks stand as visual reminders of the ecosystems she tirelessly champions.
Frida Orupabo, detail of Hearts and Diamonds, 2024. Courtesy of Galerie Nordenhake.
Frida Orupabo began her artistic journey on Instagram in 2013, using it as a creative outlet and personal archive. It wasn’t long before filmmaker and artist Arthur Jafa spotted her unique talent, and in 2017, invited her to join an exhibition at the Serpentine Galleries in London. Since then, Orupabo has transitioned into making stunning large-scale collages that have snagged some well-deserved recognition along the way, including being featured in The Artsy Vanguard 2020, the Royal Photographic Society Honorary Fellowship in 2023, and the SPECTRUM – Internationaler Preis für Fotografie in 2025.
Now, for her second solo showcase at Galerie Nordenhake’s Berlin location, Orupabo unveils a fresh collection of her trademark prints, collages, and sculptures. Her pieces, intricately layered to sculpt complex forms, often feature Black, predominantly female figures, serving to rebuke the shallow portrayals of Black lives in mainstream media. Drawing from her own multicultural background—the artist was born in Norway to a white Norwegian mother and a Black Nigerian father—Orupabo reshapes archival materials to challenge the lack of representation. As she puts it, creating art that gazes back at the viewer is a powerful assertion of agency, a declaration that says, “I see you,” and refuses to be reduced to mere objecthood.
Julius von Bismarck, Zwei Wölfinnen (Im Wolfspelz), 2024. © The artist / VG Bild-Kunst Bonn 2024. Photo © Julius von Bismarck. Courtesy of the artist and Esther Schipper Berlin/Paris/Seoul.
If you caught Julius von Bismarck’s exhibition at the Berlinische Galerie last year, you’ll remember his delightful kinetic sculptures. One standout was his life-size mechanical giraffe, gracefully tilting and bending on its own, its inner workings playfully exposed. Developing further on this series of monumental kinetic sculptures, his “Zwei Wölfinnen” (“two she-wolfs” in German) represent two versions of the animal: One resembles a taxidermied version, while the other is inspired by the iconic classical bronze of a she-wolf from the Capitoline Museums in Rome.
These two animatronic sculptures are constantly moving, shifting, and transforming to unveil their intricate mechanisms, emulating hand-held plush-puppet toys. Although this animal is traditionally seen as a predator, here, the wolf is seen as a pitiable, sympathetic creature, reducing it to little more than a limp rag doll. These two sculptures sum up ideas at the heart of Bismarck’s work, which explores the constructed notion of nature, and most especially the conceptual division between man from his surroundings.
Von Bismarck’s work will also be on view in a solo show at alexander levy’s Moabit space, where the artist will focus on AGI (artificial general intelligence) and its impact on the separation of humans from their own environment.
Kristina Schuldt, Weintropfen, 2024. Photo by Uwe Walter, Berlin. Courtesy of Galerie EIGEN + ART Leipzig/Berlin.
Kristina Schuldt, born in Moscow in 1982, brings a vibrant and provocative flair to her contemporary paintings, capturing the intricacies of women’s lives with a nod to the early 20th-century art scene. Influenced by Cubism and Surrealism, Schuldt’s canvases pulse with bold colors and fragmented shapes, reminiscent of Fernand Léger. Mixing oil and egg tempera, she blends abstraction and figuration, infusing her depictions of female forms with a dynamic energy. From intimate moments of reflection to physical confrontations between women, her work explores a range of themes, including the impact of social media on modern existence.
Having honed her craft under the mentorship of Neo Rauch, a prominent figure in the New Leipzig School, Schuldt has carved out her own space in the art world. Her participation in the acclaimed group exhibition “Now! Painting in Germany Today” in 2019, which took place across four prestigious German museums, solidified her reputation as a rising star in contemporary art. Now, for her exhibition with EIGEN + ART, Schuldt presents new works that continue her exploration into the tumultuous nature of emotion and offer a visceral experience of chaos and order, rebellion and transformation.
“territory,” featuring Mire Lee, Liu Yujia, Gala Porras-Kim, Tan Jing, and Zhang Ruyi
Sprüth Magers, Mitte
Apr. 27–June 29
Liu Yujia, still from Mushrooms, 2023. © Liu Yujia. Courtesy of the artist.
In a first for the gallery, Sprüth Magers is making history this year with an exhibition dedicated exclusively to Asian female artists. Centered around the titular theme of “territory,” the show delves into the concept of borders and boundaries, exploring how they can confine, but also, paradoxically empower at the same time. Gala Porras-Kim and Zhang Ruyi are known for making powerful visual statements through their sculptural works, and here are using erosion and deterioration to symbolize different aspects of territoriality: Porras-Kim references the use of natural processes in demolishing historical buildings to evade preservation regulations, while Zhang Ruyi interrogates the complexities of urban life during China’s rapid urbanization in the 1990s.
Tan Jing and Mire Lee take a more subtle approach, creating immersive experiences out of an unconventional mix of materials, while Liu Yujia’s videos utilize drone footage to transcend physical borders. At a moment where discussions about our national limits are more contentious than ever, this exhibition invites viewers to reflect on the physical, symbolic, and metaphorical meanings of these thresholds.
Clemens von Wedemeyer, still from Social Geometry, 2024. Courtesy of the artist and KOW, Berlin.
Clemens von Wedemeyer’s film works reflect on power structures in social relations, history, and architecture. As poet and critic Quinn Latimer aptly put it, “The filmmaker holds up architecture as a kind of socio-political mirror to the people it shelters, employs, or turns out, while deftly exploiting the advantageous atmospherics that both modernist ruins and postmodernist edifices reliably provide.”
The artist’s newest film dives into some of the big questions about how we all fit together and how societies work. Using white dots on a black background, the film creates intricate patterns to imitate connections between people and groups. As the patterns get more complex, it becomes clear that understanding human behavior isn’t just about looking at models or machines.
Wedemeyer has been exploring these ideas for 25 years, and “Social Geometry” continues that journey, exploring the nature of individuals to large groups and the sometimes confusing things they do. The work makes us think about how we’ve tried to understand society in the past and reminds us that sometimes our statistical models can miss the mark.
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that “All is broken in the night” is Frida Orupabo’s second solo show with Galerie Nordenhake. It is her second solo show at the gallery’s Berlin location.
