The 21. VIDEONALE – the festival for video and time-based art forms – is themed around the poetic yet political motto C’est tout une maison (Everything is a house). The opening programme will begin as early as October 2026 in the Bad Godesberg district of Bonn.

Following this, from the end of April 2027, the festival will move to the Kunstmuseum Bonn for six weeks, featuring an exhibition of around 20 international artistic projects and an extensive programme spanning the fields of video, installation, performance and sound.

Günter Grass, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, is regarded as one of the most influential authors and intellectuals of the 20th century. His works have inspired generations of writers and artists. Next year would have marked his 100th birthday. A curated programme, organised under the auspices of the Günter Grass House in Lübeck in collaboration with an international network of renowned institutions, demonstrates just how relevant his commitment to the protection of democracy, the environment and social cohesion remains to this day. His birthplace, Gdańsk, and Lübeck, where Grass was active for many years, form the focal points of a multifaceted year of celebrations.

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From the end of August, the DKB STIFTUNG für gesellschaftliches Engagement invites guests to enjoy a varied programme of readings, history, art and theatre at the historic complex of Schloss & Gut Liebenberg.

The programme starts with readings by Petra Werner and Kat Menschik, on 13 September Open Monument Day invites visitors to take part in historical guided tours of the castle complex; the exhibition ‘Der Maler Hans Lietzmann in Liebenberg’ opens in the Feldsteinkirche; and in the evening, the Traumschüff Theatre from Oranienburg stages a play. This will be followed in the autumn by readings by Richard Brandes, Stephan Hähnel and Malibu Gordes, Hans Meyer zu Düttingdorf and Juan Carlos Risso, as well as Peter Jungblut.

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There has not been a solo exhibition of Franz Erhard Walther’s drawings in Europe since 1999. Drawing on the unique collection of the Franz Erhard Walther Foundation, the VILLA will present the complex body of drawings in the exhibition DEM MOND GEWIDMET (Dedicated to the Moon), opening on 27 September 2026.

With hundreds of drawings, including works from the artist’s studio that have never before been exhibited, visitors will have the opportunity to discover this extraordinary body of work.

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What happens when art meets political expectations? What images emerge at the intersection of government commissions, personal experience, and artistic autonomy?  For the first time, the Military History Museum of the Bundeswehr will take a closer look at the complex art collection of the National People’s Army of the GDR. The exhibition brings together over 200 paintings, prints, and sculptures by approximately 100 artists and examines the tension between art, the state, and the military in the GDR.

With works by Norbert Bisky (on private loan), Manfred Butzmann, Hubertus Giebe, Bernhard Heisig, Gerda Lepke, Otto Nagel, Evelyn Richter, Arno Rink, Horst Sakulowski, Willi Sitte, Hans Ticha, Werner Tübke, and Walter Womacka, among others.

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The Rijksmuseum is celebrating Willem de Kooning with the largest exhibition in Europe since more than 40 years. The exhibition includes 120 of de Kooning's works and marks the 100th anniversary of his departure from the Netherlands to the USA. It offers a comprehensive overview of the artist’s drawings, accompanied by some of his most renowned paintings and sculptures. Two of de Kooning’s paintings are displayed in the Rijksmuseum’s Gallery of Honour, where they are exhibited alongside works by Rembrandt and other Dutch masters.

Under the title “Present Perfect”, the Kunsthalle Tübingen, in close collaboration with the artist Lars Eidinger, is not only presenting his photographs and videos, but is also placing selected groups of works from his visual anthropology in dialogue with works by other artists. In this thematically structured exhibition, Lars Eidinger’s photographs are brought together for the first time with iconic exhibits from the Kunsthalle Tübingen’s collection.

Lars Eidinger’s photographs and videos are created intuitively, in harmony with their surroundings. They depict the world as it is, whilst at the same time revealing the overlooked, the unsightly and the rough edges of lived experience – in short: the invisible.

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200 used arrows become needles — and an instrument of social change

Artist Hannah Hallermann has collected 200 arrows donated by archery clubs and private archers. Arrows already used — arrows that have flown, have hit their target or missed it. In the studio they were unpacked, repaired and repurposed. Each one was transformed into an oversized needle. Something that was once aimed at someone or something is given a different task: to bring things together. Through the large needle eyes run ribbons from Hallermann's Jewish family estate.

The 200 editions are offered at 500 euros each. Buyers decide where their contribution goes: to the Berlin women's shelters run by Caritas, or to Wegweiser, a perpetrator-prevention project. The aim is to raise 100,000 euros, all of which will be donated.

In October 2026, the DKB STIFTUNG will open a space dedicated to art, cultural education, social interaction and public dialogue in Berlin’s newly developing Europacity district. With the Kulturwerkstatt on the DKB Campus, the foundation is establishing a free and diverse programme of activities. This is intended to bring cultural vitality to the growing neighbourhood. Where historically established educational venues are lacking, an open space for exchange is now emerging, linking art, social participation and questions about the future of the city. The Kulturwerkstatt’s programme brings together people of all ages with diverse experiences and perspectives, and invites the city’s community to play an active and creative role in shaping local life.

The work of German painter Tatjana Doll (b. 1970) is characterized by a precise yet uncompromising examination of the visual worlds and symbols of our present day. In large-format paintings, she translates objects, signs, and commodities of everyday life into an immediate, physical style of painting.

With WHY?, the upcoming exhibition at Droste Galladé features a work that exemplifies this approach: From Marlboro to Dresdner Bank (1998). This monumental painting of an airplane (approx. 300 x 1100 cm) connects various social and historical levels—consumption and capital, mobility and freedom, new beginnings and the ecological consequences of a globalized world.

To mark the 125th anniversary of Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family, the Buddenbrookhaus in Lübeck builds a bridge to the present day and explores the enduring relevance of this landmark novel: what holds families together, and what causes them to break apart?

The major special exhibition “Family Affairs. 125 Years of Buddenbrooks” at the St. Annen Museum interprets Thomas Mann’s novel as a surprisingly topical narrative about heritage, the pressure of expectations, social roles and the desire for individual freedom.

The anniversary exhibition is accompanied by a year long cultural programme.

To mark the 200th anniversary of photography, Düsseldorf will be represented at Paris Photo from12 to 15 November, with a prominent position in the Digital Sector of the world’s most important international photography fair at the Grand Palais. This year’s presentation focuses on the ongoing transformation of photography into a cross-media art form. Historically, photography in Düsseldorf has played a decisive role in becoming established as part of the visual arts.

The presentation Düsseldorf and Photography is accompanied by a monumental installation by Thomas Ruff and institutional collaborations. With this presence, the “Fotostadt” reinforces its self-image as a place for networking, synergies and discourse.

From 11 November 2026 to 5 September 2027, the Bonnefanten will present the major exhibition Cooking from the Fridge to mark the forthcoming departure of director Stijn Huijts. The project celebrates his three decades of leadership across three collections in the Zuid Limburg Regional Culture Partnership. For this unique collaboration, 28 guest curators selected more than 200 artworks by approx. 130 artists from the combined repositories of Bonnefanten Maastricht, SCHUNCK Heerlen, and Het Domein Sittard. This layered presentation covers an entire floor of the museum and showcases the strengths of these collections as an essential part of the Dutch national collection.

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Oliver Ullrich: Twisted Landscape – 9 January to 2 May 2027

Thomas Pöhler: Giorgio Spezia – 8 May to 5 September

Michael Schnabel – Stilles Land [working title] – 11 September to 23 December 2027

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Stiftung Kommunikationsaufbau awards the 2026 VOICE Albert O. Hirschman Prize. The prize is worth a total of 15,000 euros. The award honors initiatives and individuals, projects and contributions that strengthen democratic participation and promote social dialogue. The prize is endowed with a total of 15,000 euros.

The award ceremony will take place in November 2026 at the tak Theater Aufbau Kreuzberg in Berlin.

Norwegian artist Hariton Pushwagner (1940 to 2018) created an exceptional artistic universe in which modern life and dystopianvisions of the future unfold through drawings, paintings, prints, and friezes. Continuously revisiting and reworking his own motifsacross different media, he developed a highly distinctive visual language that continues to invite close examination. Bringing together approximately 340 paintings, drawings, friezes, and prints, the exhibition returns to the origins of Pushwagner‘s artisticpractice, focusing on key series from his formative decades, spanning the 1970s to the 1990s.

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The Albertina Klosterneuburg presents Interieur No. 691 by Anton Henning in the collection display Donated with Love. For the artist, born in Berlin in 1964, this is the third institutional spatial installation within a year, following the Kunsthalle Bremen and the Kunstmuseum Bonn. Also on permanent view are Interieur No. 253, the bistro designed by Henning at the Arp Museum Rolandseck, and the café Interieur No. 553 at the De Pont Museum in Tilburg, the Netherlands.

As a painter, Henning is known above all for his surprising revisions of Classical Modernism. Since the beginning of his career in the 1980s, he has also been occupied with the rooms in which paintings come into their own. He has therefore repeatedly created spaces of his own for his paintings: environments with coloured walls, carpets, lamps and furniture.

Jana Johanna Haeckel is to take on the role of artistic director of the 4th edition of Düsseldorf’s Photography Biennale, düsseldorf photo+, for 2027. She will thus also serve as curator of the Biennale’s main exhibition, which will be held for the first time at Kunstpalast am Ehrenhof, Düsseldorf. For over 14 years, Jana Johanna Haeckel, who holds a PhD in art history, has curated international art exhibitions, focusing on the medium of photography, for institutions in Prague, Turin, Brussels, Berlin, Munich and Valencia amongst other places. Her curatorial work incisively reflects with conceptual clarity and visual power on the social relevance of photography.

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From autumn 2026, the DAS MINSK Kunsthaus in Potsdam will present a comprehensive retrospective dedicated to the artistic work of Annemirl Bauer (born 1939 in Jena, died 1989 in East Berlin). Annemirl Bauer represents a critical and independent voice from the GDR and an artist who was long denied recognition in art history and whose work received little public attention during her lifetime.

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This autumn the Kröller-Müller Museum presents a special first: all 88 paintings by Vincent van Gogh from the collection will be on display at the same time. The museum’s founder, Helene Kröller-Müller, assembled the world’s largest private collection of works by this extraordinary artist. The exhibition Van Gogh, All Our Paintings takes visitors on a journey through the three themes that run like a common thread through Van Gogh’s work: faith, hope and love.

With "Indemini", the Emil Schumacher Museum has made an exceptional new acquisition. Measuring almost three metres in height, this monumental painting from 1974 is one of the four largest canvases by Emil Schumacher (1912–1999) and ranks among the most significant examples of his experimental approach to materials. For decades, the work was on permanent loan to the Saarlandmuseum in Saarbrücken. Last winter, the Emil Schumacher Foundation was able to acquire "Indemini" from a private collection, thereby securing it for the public on a permanent basis. The exhibition "Emil Schumacher – Indemini. Der Erde näher als den Sternen" places the new acquisition at the centre of a comprehensive presentation on materiality in Schumacher’s work.

With "Benedikt Hipp – Songs from the Orbs", the Emil Schumacher Museum is dedicating a solo exhibition to one of the most prominent artists of his generation. Benedikt Hipp (b. 1977) works across the fields of painting, sculpture and installation. At the heart of his work lie fundamental questions about physicality and perception, about matter and change, and about the relationship between people, space and the environment. The title “Songs from the Orbs” derives from a multimedia sculpture created between 2021 and 2025, in which Hipp combines ceramics and video. To make the unimaginable comprehensible and to establish a connection between Earth and the universe, the artist has incorporated a single micrometeorite – invisible to the naked eye – into the ceramic piece.

The Alfred Ehrhardt Stiftung presents for the first time the historical industrial photographs of Alfred Ehrhardt (1901–84) in an entirely new, contemporary light. From 1954 to 1963, Ehrhardt produced numerous films and photographic works on commission for the tobacco company Reemtsma & Co. The documents, which have rarely been exhibited, form the foundation for Leipzig -based artist Ramona Schacht’s (b. 1989) latest work: equality between property and photography , Images on Commission for Reemtsma. Schacht engages intensively with the working environments depicted in the images, examining which political, economic, and physical orders they reveal — and which remain concealed.

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To mark the 300th anniversary of the birth of the renowned book illustrator and graphic artist Daniel Chodowiecki, the Neuhardenberg Castle Foundation is presenting a comprehensive special exhibition. The exhibition traces the remarkable life story of the artist, who rose from being an immigrant from Danzig to become director of the Prussian Academy of Arts. Drawing on numerous loans, the exhibition sheds light on his multifaceted body of work and situates it within the context of the Enlightenment and the emerging modern media society.

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To celebrate its tenth anniversary in Düsseldorf Flingern, the Philara Collection is delighted to present an extensive survey of the collection, opening in June 2026. The exhibition, featuring well over 100 works by more than 80 artists, will extend from the spacious main hall across all the exhibition areas of the Philara Collection.

The exhibition presents a condensed but representative selection from Gil and Anat Bronner’s collection, which today comprises over 2,000 works. The presentation is complemented by works chosen from the collection of Bronner’s parents, who were a formative influence on their son’s passion for collecting. Pieces from the collections of his children, Philip and Lara, after whom the exhibition space is named, are also represented.

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30 years ago, UNESCO declared those Bauhaus sites in Weimar to be World Heritage Sites, whose ideas had previously been suppressed and politically marginalised for decades. Since 1996, the Haus Am Horn and the main and workshop buildings of the Bauhaus University Weimar have been listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. This recognition honoured not only significant architecture, but also an intellectual legacy that has shaped modernism worldwide.

To mark the 30th anniversary of the World Heritage designation, Weimar is turning its attention to the eventful history of the Bauhaus in the city. Between new beginnings and rejection, between oblivion and rediscovery, it becomes clear just how closely the history of the Bauhaus is linked to the political and social upheavals of the 20th century.

The exhibition ‘Abstract’ focuses on three key approaches within abstract art. With significant new acquisitions by Carmen Herrera, Wassily Kandinsky and Mark Rothko, the Hilti Art Foundation illustrates the development and diversity of abstraction through its own high-calibre collection.

Featuring over 50 works spanning 120 years, the exhibition at the Hilti Art Foundation illustrates three paths of abstraction: geometric construction, the detachment from the object, and the dissolution of form into spaces of colour. At the heart of the exhibition are three significant, recently acquired paintings by Herrera, Kandinsky and Rothko.

The St Annen-Museum in Lübeck is currently offering a rare glimpse behind the scenes: until 23 August 2026, visitors can witness the restoration of the 1519 altarpiece first-hand. The public conservation work is paving the way for a cultural and historical milestone:

In the anniversary year of 2027, from 27 February onwards, all the surviving parts of the altarpiece featuring panel paintings by Erhard Altdorfer will be on display together in Lübeck for the first time in over 200 years. This has been made possible by the successful repurchase in 2025 of the long-lost panels (left-hand outer wing), as well as by loans from the Memorial Art Museum in Ohio (right-hand altar wing).

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With LIGHT DIALOGUES, the Center for International Light Art is presenting an exhibition in 2026—its 25th anniversary year—that is entirely dedicated to the institution’s central medium: light itself. The focus is on the creative and technical means by which artists use light to create effect, atmosphere, and meaning. In cooperation with SCHAUWERK Sindelfingen, the exhibition brings together works by John M. Armleder (CH), Martin Creed (UK), Tracey Emin (UK), Dan Flavin (US), Jeppe Hein (DK), Lori Hersberger (CH), Astrid Klein (DE), Brigitte Kowanz (AT), François Morellet (FR), Maurizio Nannucci (IT), and Keith Sonnier (US), bringing them into a multifaceted dialogue.

With the exhibition “Helme Heine: Es war einmal …”, the Günter Grass House pays tribute to one of the most significant picture book artists of our time. His books have sold over 25 million copies and been translated into more than 30 languages. His characters—such as the little dragon “Tabaluga” or the “Friends” Johnny Mauser, Franz von Hahn and Fat Waldemar—are known throughout the world. Last year, the great creator of small visual worlds passed away at his seaside home in New Zealand.

As central figures of the Danish avant-garde and the international CoBrA movement, the artist couple Carl-Henning Pedersen and Else Alfelt shaped a visual language of extraordinary freedom and independence. More than 150 exhibits from four decades trace the development of their work in the exhibition at the Kunsthalle St. Annen. Scandinavian landscape and mythology, playful expression and collective creativity form central points of reference in a body of work that moves between figuration and abstraction, innovation and tradition.

Astrup Fearnley Museet presents a retrospective of Beatriz González (1932–2026). Known as la maestra of Colombian art, González was one of the most important and influential Latin American artists of the 20th century. Bringing together over 150 artworks, this major exhibition, planned in close collaboration with the artist, explores González’s practice from the 1960s until her passing in January 2026.

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The exhibition “Emilio Vedova – More than Movement for its Own Sake” is dedicated to the work of the Venetian Informalist artist Emilio Vedova (1919–2006) and focuses in particular on his works from the 1960s, which were created during his stay in postwar Germany.

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