The Best Museums and Art Galleries in Berlin

Apart from the many Berlin art galleries staging exhibitions of world-renowned artists, there are also interesting art spaces and cultural initiatives with niche foci.

Berlin, which was reinstated as the capital of Germany in 1990 after its ideological, political and military division established during the Cold War officially ended, has always been a hotbed of artistic expression. The Berlin Wall’s west-facing side became a canvas, contributing to a vibrant street art scene that exists to this day, both in the form of eye-catching graffiti and in Berlin’s East Side Gallery, the longest open-air gallery in the world. Right after the wall came down, artists from more than twenty nations flocked to the city to cover the 1.3-kilometer-long stretch of wall with paintings. Some of them became iconic, like Dmitri Vrubel’s My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love, depicting a kiss between Honecker and Brezhnev, and Birgit Kinder’s Trabi—Test the Best, which shows a Trabant breaking through the wall.

Other urban art forms continue to shape the city’s visual landscape, and several notable public sculptures are another element of Berlin’s art scene, like the blue and red boxing men, Untitled (Boxers) by Keith Haring, or the 30-meter-tall aluminum sculpture on the river Spree, Molecule Man by Jonathan Borofsky.

The most famous art site might be the centrally located Museum Island (Museumsinsel). The complex received UNESCO World Heritage status in 1999 and is home to five museum buildings focusing on different art forms (paintings, sculptures and crafts) or periods (antiquity or the period between the French Revolution and the First World War). The most famous exhibit at the site is The Bust of Nefertiti, located in the New Museum (Neues Museum).

Apart from the many well-established Berlin art galleries staging exhibitions of world-renowned artists, there are also art spaces and cultural initiatives with niche foci, such as Art Laboratory Berlin, which presents works at the intersection of art, science and technology, or the Center for Net Art (Zentrum für Netzkunst), which has been staging exhibitions of net art artworks. A more recent addition to Berlin’s cultural map is a branch of the Swedish photography museum Fotografiska, which opened its doors to the public in September of 2023. Located in the former art squat, Tacheles, with staircases and hallways covered in graffiti, the museum shows the work of both emerging talents and established photographers.

Ultimately, Berlin is home to more than 200 museums and around 440 galleries—visiting them all, even as a local, is nearly impossible. We created this guide to the art galleries of Berlin to help you spend your time wisely on your next trip to this culturally rich hub of the arts.

Berlin’s Best Art Galleries and Museums

Gropius Bau

Gropius Bau is one of the most important exhibition spaces, not only on the artistic map of Berlin but also internationally. It is located in an elegant neo-Renaissance building first opened in 1881 and designed by Martin Gropius and Heino Schmieden. The structure was initially home to the Museum and School of Decorative Arts. An impressive atrium in the heart of the building is freely accessible and often hosts performances or is used as a stage for site-specific installations. The gallery stages contemporary solo and thematic exhibitions; surveys and retrospectives of artists like Louise Bourgeois, Yayoi Kusama and even David Bowie, who had close ties with Berlin, were huge hits with audiences in the last few years. A recent touring exhibition, “Masculinities: Liberation through Photography” organized by the Barbican Center, stopped in Gropius Bau, and one highlight of this year’s program is a survey exhibition of Nancy Holt’s work.

Berlinische Galerie

Berlinische Galerie is the best place to explore artwork created in the city since the end of the 19th Century. The gallery’s interdisciplinary collection covers subjects such as photography, painting, graphic art, architecture and media art. Nearly 4,000 square meters of exhibition space located in a reconstructed glass warehouse, with ceiling heights of 6 meters and 11 meters, is separated into two functional areas. The ground floor invites visitors to engage with temporary themed exhibitions, while the upstairs area is dedicated to showing artworks from the permanent collection. Also on the ground floor is the IBB Video Space, a separate room set up to present time-based artworks, often by debuting emerging artists.

The Neue Nationalgalerie

The Neue Nationalgalerie focuses exclusively on the art of the 20th Century. Reopened in 2020 after a five-year-long modernization, the gallery building is one of the last completed works by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. The minimalist structure with glass walls and its distinctive steel roof is an eye-catcher. This Berlin gallery has an extensive collection of artworks from Europe and North America, including works by artists such as Rebecca Horn, Paul Klee and Lotte Laserstein. They form the bulk of permanent exhibitions that are presented as surveys around particular themes. The current one is called “Extreme Tension. Art between Politics and Society,” which runs until September of 2025. Temporary exhibitions include surveys and retrospectives of painters, sculptors and media artists.

C/O Berlin

Located in the carefully revitalized Amerika Haus, a building that was initially erected in the 1950s and, at a certain point, served as a center of cultural and information exchange for the United States in Berlin, is C /O Berlin. It’s one of the not-to-miss galleries for those interested in exploring the diverse facets of photography as a medium. Solo shows staged on the first floor are a cornerstone of the gallery’s programming, including exhibitions of the work of William Egglestone, Mary Ellen Mark and Lee Friedlander. The ground floor space hosts thematic exhibitions exploring broader relations between photography and visual culture. Topics that have been covered in the past include queerness, death and social communication using images. Currently on show is an exhibition of the works of Tyler Mitchell, “Wish This Was Real.”

The German Museum of Film and TV

Those interested in the media of film and television, shouldn’t skip the German Museum of Film and TV. Spread across multiple floors of an impressive building, the museum offers a permanent exhibition of German film history. Included on display are artifacts illuminating the conception of movies such as Metropolis and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. The role of film in eras such as the Weimar Republic and National Socialism are explored, too. The textile archive of the museum is the owner of the Marlene Dietrich Collection Berlin (MDCB), with some 3.200 items—many of which are on display as part of the permanent exhibition. The museum stages temporary exhibitions, often conceived as retrospectives.

DARK MATTER

Former factories that no longer serve their intended purpose have been reimagined in Berlin and many now serve as nightclubs or cultural venues. Such is the case with this installation space developed across 1,000 square meters known as DARK MATTER. This successful project by Christopher Bauder, renowned light and media artist, was opened in June of 2021 and welcomed around 35,000 visitors in just the first two months. The permanent part of the exhibition comprises seven rooms with pitch-black walls that form a backdrop to kinetic installations combining movement, light and sound while allowing visitors to fully explore the sensory experiences. DARK MATTER’s seasonal programming includes the outdoor installations SUMMERLIGHTS and WINTERLIGHTS.