News

Ute Mahler is represented in the collection exhibition “Two Germanies circa 1980” at the Museum Ludwig with portrait photographs. The exhibition presents a selection of photographs from East and West Germany created around 1980. Works by a total of seven photographers offer insights into the social and everyday realities of both German states, which were shaped by different political and economic systems.

Other photographers represented in the exhibition include Derek Bennett, Christiane Eisler, Karl Kugel, Henry Maitek, Evelyn Richter, and Erasmus Schröter.

Duration: April 18 to October 11, 2026

Location: Photography Collection, Museum Ludwig, Cologne

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The Galerie Peter Sillem in Frankfurt, in cooperation with Galerie Springer Berlin, presents Ute Mahler and Werner Mahler’s first work created under joint authorship, “Mona Lisas of the suburbs” (2008–2010), in a solo exhibition.

Starting from Leonardo da Vinci’s portrait, the Mahlers encountered young women in the suburbs of Reykjavik, Liverpool, Minsk, Berlin, and Florence who were searching for identity, belonging, and their place in the world. In a deliberately reduced, classical visual language, the black-and-white portraits capture a moment in between—a state in which everything still seems possible.

Opening: April 24, 2026, 6 pm, with Ute Mahler & Werner Mahler

Duration: April 25 to June 6, 2026

Location: Galerie Peter Sillem, Frankfurt

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The Goethe-Institut Lissabon presents “Lisbon ’87/88 – City Photographs by Ute Mahler and Werner Mahler” as an open-air exhibition at Praça dos Restauradores in the center of the Portuguese capital.

In 1987 and 1988, Ute Mahler and Werner Mahler, together with the author Wolfgang Kil, made two trips to Lisbon to photograph and describe the city and its people for a travel book project by the Leipzig-based Brockhaus publishing house. For the photographers, who were already well known in the GDR at the time, it was a rare opportunity to glimpse life beyond the Iron Curtain. Two years later, the Berlin Wall fell, the GDR was dissolved, and the book project faded into obscurity. The photographs and contact sheets were only rediscovered in 2021 and published a year later by Hartmann Books.

The portrait of Lisbon captured by the Mahlers almost 40 years ago reveals a society in transition—a perspective that resonates anew today.

Opening: May 4, 2026, 6 pm, with Ute Mahler & Werner Mahler

Duration: May 4 to May 29, 2026

Location: Praça dos Restauradores, Lisbon

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The special exhibition “in between. You, life and mortality” at the Museum für Sepulkralkultur in Kassel is continuously evolving and provides space for a range of artistic positions.

From early May, within this context, Sibylle Fendt’s work “Before the Time Comes” will be presented in a solo exhibition dedicated to people who will die at home in the foreseeable future, or who are considered beyond medical treatment. Over a period of eighteen months, Sibylle Fendt met seventeen individuals and accompanied the final phase of their lives with her camera—people who have chosen to die at home, in familiar surroundings and in the presence of familiar faces.

Dying is a (taboo) subject that everyone must confront at some point. With this work, Sibylle Fendt reveals a stage of life that many people prefer to avoid for as long as possible. Her socially engaged photography touches a sensitive nerve—but does there have to be a wound at all?

The book of the same title was published in 2025 by Kehrer Verlag.

Opening: May 6, 2026, 7 pm

Duration: May 7 to November 1, 2026

Location: Museum für Sepulkralkultur, Kassel

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Together with the Ukrainian Decolonial Glossary, the Pochen Biennale, and Solomiya Magazin, Sebastian Wells co-organized the program for the panel “From Firewalls to Trench Warfare / Breaking the Deadlock.” The panel is part of this year’s Pochen Symposium “Community of Heirs?”

The symposium consists of an alternative city tour through Chemnitz, a workshop, and a panel discussion featuring Roman Horbyk (Zurich), Dariia Kuzmych (Kyiv), and Piotr Kocyba (Leipzig). It addresses the growing political deadlock across Europe. By bringing together perspectives from contexts such as the Russian-Ukrainian war and German politics, the discussion considers deadlock as a space for critical reflection.

Date: May 10, 2026, 5:30–7 pm

Location: Momentum, Am Rathaus 8, Chemnitz

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Sibylle Bergemann and Ute Mahler are part of the exhibition “Wohnkomplex – Neubrandenburg”, conceived in collaboration with Kito Nedo for the Neubrandenburg Art Collection. The exhibition is dedicated to an architectural and social model that has shaped the city of Neubrandenburg—known as the “City of Four Gates”—like hardly any other in Germany: the prefabricated housing block.

The exhibition explores, through positions from recent art history and contemporary art, how this type of housing and construction continues to shape the urban landscape and society to this day. Against the backdrop of the rapidly escalating housing shortage in Germany, the exhibition also establishes connections to one of the major socio-political challenges of the present.

Opening: May 13, 2026, 5 pm

Duration: May 14 to August 2, 2026

Location: Kunstsammlung Neubrandenburg

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Sibylle Bergemann’s well-known series “The Monument” is part of the exhibition “Productive Unrest.An exhibition on art and the public at art exhibitions in the GDR in the 1980s” at the robotron-Kantine Dresden. The exhibition examines the 9th and 10th Art Exhibitions as the largest and most widely attended survey exhibitions of the GDR, as well as the alternative culture of the 1980s, as a space reflecting broader social transformations.

An exhibition by the Kunsthaus Dresden in collaboration with the ifa – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen and the Wüstenrot Stiftung.

Opening: May 20, 2026, 7 pm

Duration: May 21 to July 26, 2026

Location: robotron-Kantine, Dresden

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Jörg Brüggemann will present his work “Tres Viajes,” recently published as a book by Hartmann Books, at the photobook bookstore Bildband Berlin. The exhibition of the same name was on view until recently at Galerie Robert Morat. During the talk, which is free to attend, there will be a live broadcast on Instagram.

Date: May 28, 2026, 6–10 pm; talk begins at 7 pm

Location: Bildband,  Berlin

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Marking the 35th anniversary of the German-Polish Neighbourhood Treaty, the special exhibition “Eastern Territories / Ziemie Zachodnie” at the Dokumentationszentrum Flucht, Vertreibung, Versöhnung brings together renowned photographers from Germany and Poland in a visual dialogue on memory, identity, and transformation. Current photographic positions—some created specifically for the exhibition—by the OSTKREUZ photographers Annette Hauschild, Thomas Meyer, Linn Schröder, Ina Schoenenburg, and Heinrich Völkel will be shown alongside works by Karolina Gembara, Katarzyna Mirczak, Filip Piotrowicz, Natalia Poniatowska, and Wojtek Sienkiewicz.

At the heart of the exhibition are German-Polish perspectives on a shared space of memory in Poland. For many Germans, the former “eastern territories” of the German Reich are associated with flight and expulsion, with memories of the loss of homeland and the continuation of these profound experiences in countless family histories. They form part of a collective memory that continues to shape identities in Germany today. From a Polish perspective, the “Ziemie Zachodnie”—the western territories after 1945—carry a different meaning: many of those who settled there had themselves been displaced from the East and bore the experience of German occupation. It was about arriving in an unfamiliar place, making a difficult new beginning, and inhabiting a region shaped by Germans that only gradually became home. These perspectives are fundamentally different, and yet inextricably intertwined.

The artistic works of these photographers from both countries reveal how traces of a process—still visible and tangible today, shaped by appropriation and letting go—have become inscribed in landscapes, architecture, and family narratives on both sides of the Oder River.

Opening: May 28, 2026, 6:30 pm

Duration: May 29, 2026 to January 17, 2027

Location: Dokumentationszentrum Flucht, Vertreibung, Versöhnung, Berlin

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As part of the Sarajevo Photography Festival, Sebastian Wells will present his work “Arena” in a performative lecture. The project explores the Olympic Games over the past ten years and was recently published as a book by Spector Books. The exact date of the lecture will be announced on the festival’s website.

Opening Week: June 1 to June 30, 2026

Location: Sarajevo

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Tamara Eckhardt is represented with her work “La vie en rose” at the festival “Mesnographies,” which takes place in the rural town of Les Mesnuls, west of Paris.

For “La vie en rose,” Tamara Eckhardt has been accompanying a community of women for several years in the rural rose-growing region of Kalaat M’Gouna. The work tells of the lives of women in a male-dominated society, placing particular emphasis on female solidarity as well as on the symbolic power of the Damask rose cultivated there.

Duration: June 6 to July 19, 2026

Location: Parc municipal de Les Mesnuls

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The Kunsthalle Göppingen is currently presenting a solo exhibition by Sibylle Bergemann, organized in cooperation with the Estate Sibylle Bergemann, titled “Sibylle Bergemann. Photography 1966–2010.”

Sibylle Bergemann (1941–2010) developed a multifaceted body of work over more than four decades, encompassing cityscapes as well as fashion and portrait photography, alongside essayistic reportages. Her images move between dream and social reality and are characterized by a precise, often poetic visual composition. Recurring themes such as the city and portraits of women, as well as her photographic travels to Dakar, Moscow, New York, and Paris, structure her work.

As part of the exhibition, a talk will take place with Frieda von Wild and Lily von Wild, the photographer’s daughter and granddaughter, who manage the Estate Sibylle Bergemann.

Talk with the Estate: June 11, 2026, 7 pm

Duration: until June 28, 2026

Location: Kunsthalle Göppingen

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The Museum of Modern Art, Hayama will present the exhibition “Unprecedented: Women Photographers from the GDR” from mid-June, featuring Ute Mahler.

Women who built careers as photographers in the GDR before its dissolution in 1990 and created outstanding artistic works embody a perspective that has often been overlooked in the study of the history of German photography.

The exhibition presents fifteen East German women photographers whose work continues to have an impact today. It invites not only Japanese audiences to reflect on the role their works played in shaping visual culture in the former GDR.

Opening: June 13, 2026

Duration: June 13 to August 30, 2026

Location: Museum of Modern Art, Hayama

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The exhibition “Human Topographies. Art Collection Deutsche Börse” brings together around 60 works from the 1950s to the present by more than 25 international artists, including Sibylle Bergemann as well as Ute Mahler and Werner Mahler.

In the exhibition curated by Cornelia Siebert, selected works are presented that make visible the diverse facets of human-shaped living environments. These range from densely built Asian megacities to North American metropolises and small towns on the German and French periphery, to the vast expanses of sparsely populated landscapes in the American Midwest—as well as the many variations in between. The works on display illustrate the wide range of ways in which landscape, architecture, and human presence can interact.

Duration: until August 16, 2026

Location: Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation, Eschborn

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Jörg Brüggemann's three-part series ‘Tres Viajes’ is on display at the Robert Morat Gallery in Berlin until the end of May. It is an exploration of Chile, its nature and its people, as well as an examination of the complex relationships that develop between individuals. 

The exhibition consists of the series ‘Mi madre tiene novio’ (2018), ‘El derecho de vivir en paz’ (2019) and ‘Aguas que no has de beber’ (2022). As part of the exhibition, Ingo Taubhorn will hold an artist talk with Jörg Brüggemann about his work. 

The book Tres Viajes is published by Hartmann Books.

Artist talk: 7 March 2026, 4 p.m.

Exhibition: until 21 March 2026

Further information

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In 2024, Espen Eichhöfer was selected by the jury of the Norwegian Journal of Photography as one of eight photographers to receive a grant from the Fritt Ord Foundation to realise his series Deep Black Well. Excerpts from this work are now being published for the first time in the new issue of the Norwegian Journal of Photography. 

For this project, Eichhöfer has been photographing in Norway for two and a half years, based on his examination of the changes in Norwegian society after the country was able to build up immense oil wealth. He asks himself what happens to the people and identity of a country that actually exudes simplicity and sobriety.

Book presentation: 6 March 2026, 6 p.m.

Further information

 

Anne Schönhartings fotografisches Langzeitprojekt „Habitat“ ist Teil der von Pia Goebel kuratierten Ausstellung „Zuhause / at home“ im Osthaus Museum Hagen. Diese widmet sich aktuellen künstlerischen Perspektiven auf

Anne Schönharting's long-term photographic project ‘Habitat’ is part of the exhibition ‘Zuhause / at home’ curated by Pia Goebel at the Osthaus Museum Hagen. The exhibition is dedicated to current artistic perspectives on living, shelter and accommodation. Paintings, photographs, drawings, sculptures, video works and installations by 20 contemporary artists revolve around the home as a place, but also around being at home as a feeling. 

In 2012, Anne Schönharting began photographing the residents of Berlin-Charlottenburg in their natural habitat. Over a period of 10 years, she portrayed and staged people and their homes in this traditional Berlin neighbourhood. In her carefully composed images, we see people and their homes in wondrous situations.

The book of the same name, ‘Habitat / Berlin-Charlottenburg’, published by Hartmann Books, can be purchased at the OSTKREUZ Shop.

Opening: 27 February 2026, 6 p.m.

Duration: 28 February to 21 June 2026

Further information

 

Coinciding with the Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina, Galerie Springer Berlin is presenting a solo exhibition of Sebastian Wells' works on the Olympic Games since 2016. In ‘ARENA,’ Sebastian Wells examines the Olympic Games as a global mass spectacle and questions the media, spatial and social mechanisms that shape this event. His work deliberately opposes heroic, nationally charged visual traditions of sport and draws attention to the structures that give rise to perception, attention and meaning in the first place.

At the same time,  Spector Verlag is publishing the first volume of the two-part publication ‘ARENA, Take 1: Facing the Spectacle,’ designed by the Scrollan collective. A performative lecture with Sebastian Wells will take place as part of the exhibition.

Opening: 20 February 2026, 6 to 9 p.m.

Performative lecture: 27 February 2026, 7 p.m.

Duration: 21 February to 4 April 2026

Further information

 

Excerpts from Ute Mahler and Werner Mahler's long-term project ‘Ein Dorf 1950-2022’ (A Village 1950-2022) are part of the exhibition ‘Community. Photography and Community’ curated by Linda Conze at the Museum Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, which highlights the multifaceted relationship between photography and community in history and the present. 

Early works by Ludwig Schirmer, Ute Mahler's father, are also part of and the starting point for the extraordinary project ‘Ein Dorf’ (A Village), which spans 70 years and paints a multi-layered portrait of a village in Thuringia: Berka. Three perspectives, three generations – and a family history that tells of change and continuity, of leaving and returning, of the familiar and the new.

Duration: until 25 May 2026

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On January 2, 2026, the new edition of Ost-Berlin was delivered as one of the first books released in the new year. It is the 15th printing of the 7th edition of the volume jointly curated by Harald Hauswald and the writer Lutz Rathenow. For more than 20 years, the book has been a perennial bestseller of Jaron Verlag, repeatedly succeeding in generating new resonances in the present day.

In the autumn, Harald Hauswald presented two successful exhibitions in Chile and the United States. His solo exhibition featuring 87 photographs from the book—taken in East Berlin in the late 1980s and smuggled from East Berlin to Texas, USA—is still on view until the end of January at the Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus in the German Bundestag.

On Monday, January 26 at 6:00 pm, Brotfabrik Berlin will screen the documentary film “Zärtlich kreist die Faust”, followed by an introduction and a discussion. The film is a diary-style documentary from February 1990 about the writer Lutz Rathenow, first broadcast by ARD at the time, and includes a striking scene showing a conversation between Harald Hauswald and Lutz Rathenow. After the screening, Lutz Rathenow will give a reading.

Date: January 26, 2026, 6:00 pm

Venue: Brotfabrik Berlin

Further information: brotfabrik-berlin.de/veranstaltung/und-zaertlich-kreist-die-faust-filmtagebuch-von-lutz-rathenow-schriftsteller-ostberlin/