These Berlin Exhibitions are worth a visit in Spring!
You can engage with classical and contemporary art in Berlin's numerous museums and galleries, especially those with a queer focus. Make sure not to miss these 5 intriguing exhibitions in spring of 2023!
Photography as a Way of Life
The exhibition Photography as a Way of Life shows queerness in all its facets: tenderness between same-sex couples, protesting and scuffling by demonstrators of the Homosexual Action West Berlin, and vulnerability and extravagance in drag. The photographer, Rüdiger Trautsch, from Hamburg was considered one of the most important chroniclers of the gay and queer movement in Germany. His images create a fascinating balancing act between documentation and art, making them a fundamental part of queer historiography in Germany. The exhibition features images of queer art icons such as Andy Warhol and Robert Mapplethorpe, of gay life in West Germany spanning five decades, and of footage of the last Folsom events before the pandemic in Berlin. Rüdiger Trautsch died in 2021.
Photography as a Way of Life. Rüdiger Trautsch, 50 years of pictures
June 16 until September 18, 2023
Schwules Museum, Lützowstraße 73, 10785 Berlin
U Nollendorfplatz
Website of Schwules Museum
Anxiety of Subimago
Gay, critical, sensitive: the works of Slovakian painter Andrej Dúbravský explore the distance between man and nature. In addition to completely deserted landscapes, there are portraits of flower-numbed bees and the queer perennial favourite, namely the depiction of insects in various stages of metamorphosis. There are also corporeal and sensual works on display. On a wall hung in several layers with discarded canvases, for example, Dúbravský exhibits large-format paintings with sweaty depictions of tightly packed runners' bodies: definitely worth a view!
Anxiety of Subimago
April 28 until July 1, 2023
Dittrich & Schlechtriem, Linierst. 23, 10178 Berlin
U Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz
Website von Dittrich & Schlechtriem
Body Language
Body Language is a small but select exhibition at Kornfeld Galerie in Charlottenburg: the five exhibiting artists from South Korea, Italy, Germany, Chile, and Georgia are dedicated to the perception of corporeality and the associated themes of suffering, strength, alienation, and identity. Particularly touching are the androgynous photographs of Valentina Murabito and the genderfluid, surrealistic paintings of Pablo Benzo.
Body Language
April 29 until June 21, 2023
Kornfeld Galerie, Fasananstr. 26, 10719 Berlin
U Uhlandstraße
Website von der Kornfeld Galerie
New on the Scene: Friedrich the Great in Charlottenburg
The newly designed permanent exhibition in the New Wing of Charlottenburg Palace revolves around the King Frederick the Great (1712-1786), rumoured to have most probably been gay. In the 16 rooms on the upper floor of the famous Berlin palace, light is shed on different facets of the Prussian monarch's life, room by room. Even the interior décor provides a glimpse into the epoch of the time. The rooms have been furnished with paintings that hung there then. In addition, on display too is furniture from the Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam, where Frederick the Great lived. The new exhibition simultaneously provides an insight into the court culture of that era.
Neu in Szene: Friedrich der Große in Charlottenburg
Until further notice
Schloss Charlottenburg – Neuer Flügel, Spandauer Damm 10-22, 14059 Berlin-Charlottenburg
U Richard-Wagner-Platz
Website of Schoss Charlottenburg
Berlin History from an Afro-German Perspective
Mandenga Diek was the first African to be issued German citizenship in 1896. The Diek family living in Germany now belong to the 5th generation. The fact that the past 130 years were not easy and remain difficult for them today (as for other Afro-German people), becomes clear in the exhibition In the Footsteps of the Diek Family. For a long time, little attention was paid to the history of Black people in Germany. In the 1980s, parts of the Black women's movement began researching and documenting the history of people of colour in Germany and recorded this, among other things, in the book, Farbe bekennen: Afro-German Women on the Traces of their History. The exhibition in the Schöneberg Museum focuses on the Diek family but also uses their story to tell those of many other Afro-Germans in Germany.
Beirut and the Golden Sixties: A Manifesto of Fragility
January 27 until October 1, 2023
Im Schöneberg Museum, Hauptstraße 40/42, 10827 Berlin-Schöneberg
S Schöneberg
Website der Ausstellung Auf den Spuren der Familie Diek
Website des Schöneberg Museum
Further information
Subscribe to Place2be.Berlin's Instagram channel for the latest info and impressions from Berlin!
The Place2be.Berlin city map shows you interesting queer locations all over Berlin.
You can find a complete overview of all events for every single da on the event pages of SIEGESSÄULE, Berlin's famous queer city magazine.
