The best contemporary art spaces in Berlin

The city’s museum for modern art is Berlinische Galerie. Exhibitions here range from pop art to photography, and the large hall near the entrance usually houses an impressive large-scale installation. The current exhibitions are always set out on the expansive ground floor, but after you’re done make sure to head upstairs to check out the excellent permanent collection — ‘Art in Berlin’—which covers the period of 1880 to 1980 and includes paintings, prints, sculptures, and a wonderful section on architecture.

Sammlung Boros is definitely one of the stand-out art spots in Berlin, not just because it lets you experience an incredible privately-owned collection, but because it’s presented within the walls of a huge World War II bunker in Berlin’s Mitte district. The artworks on display change every four years and the only way to see it is by booking a tour (fortunately the groups are small) through their website. Be sure to plan ahead, however, as it’s often booked up for well over a month, but it’s certainly worth the effort to see incredible art from world-renowned artists like Kris Martin and Avery Singer.

Housed within a former brewery in Berlin Neukölln is one of the most impressive art spaces in Berlin—KINDL – Centre for Contemporary Art—a huge site that boasts a vast 1600m² of exhibition space. The last beer was brewed here in 2005 and the site was subsequently acquired by Salome Grisard and Burkhard Varnholt in 2011, who went on to renovate and open it as a non-profit space for art in 2016. After checking out an exhibition it’s worth sticking around, too. There’s a superb café (which is particularly impressive due to the six gigantic copper boilers leftover from the brewing days) and a beer garden that’s open during the warmer months.

A relatively recent addition to Berlin’s art scene is f³ – Freiraum für Fotografie, which was set up by the non-profit organisation Gesellschaft für Humanistische Fotografie (Society for Humanistic Photography). Their 200m² exhibition space in Kreuzberg opened in the spring of 2017 and they put on around five or six exhibitions a year. Whether it’s a solo show or group show bringing together different photographers working under a shared theme, the resulting exhibitions are often powerful and sure to leave a lasting impression.

Daimler Contemporary is quite an odd inclusion as it’s an exhibition space for the art collection of the international automobile company Daimler AG. What started in the 1970s as a small collection for dressing the walls of their corporate offices grew throughout the years, eventually culminating in the opening of a 600m² public exhibition space at Berlin’s Potsdamer Platz in 1999. The collection consists of art from the 20th century to the modern-day and includes work from hundreds of artists, including well-known names like Andy Warhol. Several themed exhibitions take place each year, often with a focus on minimalism and abstraction.

Sprüth Magers is one of the world’s most influential galleries, representing around sixty artists including names such as Andreas Gursky that are well known outside of the art sphere. Originally two separate galleries, Monika Sprüth and Philomene Magers merged their efforts, eventually opening their first gallery together in Berlin in 2008. There tend to be around ten exhibitions per year, and as it’s bigger than your average private gallery there are often three showing concurrently, making it well worth a visit.

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