The Best Shows to See in Berlin Right Now

Monica Bonvicini | Capitain Petzel | 1 May – 7 June

‘It is Night Outside’ marks Berlin-based artist Monica Bonvicini’s first solo with Capitain Petzel. Titled after a video installation making its debut in the show, this body of mostly new work continues Bonvicini’s multidisciplinary exploration of gender dynamics and power structures. Steel sculptures of handcuffs, mirrors and chain links are set to elicit a range of emotions – from playful voyeurism, as visitors observe themselves in the reflective surfaces of Love Is Blind (Nero Lucido) (2025), to a sense of unease due to the cold, impenetrable nature of Hard Nosed (2025). In works on paper, images of chain links echo those found in the sculptures, paired with typography of derogatory slurs for women such as Bitch, Vamp (light) and Vamp (pink) (all 2023) – language Bonvicini hopes will serve as a call to reclaim female power and agency.

Puppies Puppies | Trautwein Herleth | 2 May – 7 June

Jade Guanaro Kuriki-Olivo (a.k.a. Puppies Puppies) is set to present a new body of work at Trautwein Herleth. In ‘Degenerate Art (Transexual)’, she uses found objects to reflect on her experience as a trans woman. Preliminary photos of the show feature nude mannequins wearing masks inspired by those seen on the LGBTQ+ dating app Grindr, oversized sculptures of breast implants and acrylic lettering that forms the acronym ‘HRT’ (hormone replacement therapy). Rendered in vivid pop-art hues, these works reflect the artist’s enduring engagement with the language of contemporary culture – a defining element that propelled her early rise in the art world.

Lena Henke | Galerie Thomas Schulte | 2 May – 14 June

For this year’s Gallery Weekend, New York-based artist Lena Henke will present two new works in her solo show ‘Horizontale and Vertikale Skulptur’ at Galerie Thomas Schulte’s Corner Space. Combining contemporary production techniques with various sculptural conventions, from the renaissance figure to the readymade, the sculptures include a giant orange horse’s hoof sculpted from granulated rubber (Her Courts of Clay, 2025) and, hanging horizontally from the ceiling, a cast-aluminium assemblage of human and animalistic features, including a horse’s leg (Unforced Error, 2025). This piece echoes the equine form of its counterpart, highlighting the recurring motif of horses in Henke’s practice. The building’s storied history – once home to Berlin’s first fashion department store – provides a fitting backdrop for Henke’s work, which often seeks to intervene in and reconfigure urban space.

Phung-Tien Phan | Schiefe Zähne | 2 May – 14 June

German-Vietnamese artist Phung-Tien Phan’s signature soft toy dinosaurs often appear surrounded by domestic objects. Their precarious positions elicit both comedy and tension, reflecting the artist’s enduring concern with consumer culture and the confining, disorienting realities it provokes. Phan continues her ongoing series in the first room of ‘Kein Charakter’, her second solo exhibition at Schiefe Zähne. In Dino Anh Phan (2025), one of her signature dinosaurs is aggressively bound to a mirror with an abrasive string, a clown nose ironically attached to its tail. In Girl at Heart (2025), another dinosaur appears to be suffocating inside a cellophane bag, with the sleeve of a preppy outfit wrapped around its neck offering a strange kind of comfort or companionship. The second room will construct an abstract cityscape composed of painted canvases, where rough, child-like depictions of tower-block windows and rainbows contrast sharply with the sombre colour palette in which they’re rendered.

Frank Auerbach | Galerie Michael Werner | 3 May – 28 June

Renowned for his expressionist portraits that lay bare the raw emotion and psychological depth of his subjects, German-British painter Frank Auerbach is the focus of a comprehensive new retrospective at Galerie Michael Werner. Spanning six decades of his work, the show marks both the first posthumous presentation of Auerbach’s art and his first showing in Berlin since he left the city as a child to escape Nazi persecution. Curated by art historian and Whitechapel Gallery director Catherine Lampert – who modelled for Auerbach for decades – the exhibition features early pieces exploring the urban landscape around his Mornington Crescent studio in London, where he worked from 1954 until his death, alongside late self-portraits. Throughout are intimate portrayals of regular sitters, including his wife Julia and son Jake. To coincide with the show, the latter will premiere his film, Frank Auerbach: Life and Death (2025), followed by a Q&A at Filmkunst 66.

Cyprien Gaillard | Sprüth Magers | 2 May – 26 July

Sprüth Magers is presenting the German debut of Berlin-based artist Cyprien Gaillard’s longest film to date, Retinal Rivalry (2024). Using dual images to create striking 3D visual effects, the work juxtaposes the natural and constructed elements of Gaillard’s adoptive home country, producing a sense of anachronistic distortion, where landscapes and man-made sites sit side by side in uneasy tension. Rather than focusing on traditionally celebrated German monuments, Retinal Rivalry turns its gaze to unexpected locations – from a makeshift Michael Jackson memorial in Munich to a Burger King in a former Nuremberg electrical substation built for Nazi rally grounds. By highlighting overlooked, layered spaces, Gaillard’s film reframes how history lingers in the everyday.

Zuzanna Czebatul | Dittrich & Schlechtriem | 2 May – 21 June

Examining how heritage, appropriation and state power shape cultural identity lies at the heart of Berlin-based artist Zuzanna Czebatul’s practice. In ‘All the Charm of a Rotting Gum’, her first solo exhibition at Dittrich & Schlechtriem, she turns her focus to the Pergamon Altar – an Ancient Greek monument (200–150 BCE) originally located in modern-day Turkey, now housed in the Berlin museum that shares its name. Exactly how Czebatul will ‘conceptually reinterpret’ this symbol of imperial power remains to be seen. The press text vaguely mentions a ‘discursive space’ and a newly created relief that blends police combat gear with the geometry of Christian sacred art. However the artist approaches it, the exhibition promises to be a timely reflection on the role of cultural artefacts in expressing state power – particularly resonant as debates over restitution intensify and world leaders continue to weaponize visual culture to assert ideology.

_{Main image: Zuzanna Czebatul, ‘All the Charm of a Rotting Gum’, 2025, studio view (detail). Courtesy: © Zuzanna Czebatul and DITTRICH & SCHLECHTRIEM, Berlin}