Thursday 11 September 2008 | 11:00 hrsOrganizerAn exhibition of the Goethe-Institut and the Ethnological Museum – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin in cooperation with the Museum of Asian Art

Gropius Bau

Gropius Bau 2023

Die Tropen. Ansichten von der Mitte der Weltkugel

The Tropics. Views from the Middle of the Globe

Pressekonferenz „Die Tropen. Ansichten von der Mitte der Weltkugel“

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Berliner Festspiele 75

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Reflexe und Reflexionen

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Located in the centre of Berlin, the Gropius Bau is a lively place for encounters with art and each other. As an internationally renowned exhibition centre, it offers space for major exhibitions and performances by contemporary artists.

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There are currently no exhibitions on view at Gropius Bau.

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Gropius Bau 2026

Events

Exhibitions & Projects

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Our newsletters keep you updated on current and upcoming exhibitions and events. Learn more about our kids programme and plan your next visit.

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We’re Looking Forward to Welcoming You Again in March!

Gropius Bau is currently closed for exhibition preparations. Our restaurant Beba and our bookstore will reopen on 4 March, before we kick off our spring programme, featuring a performance by <a href="${link:{uuid:{16d14ae2-9463-45b4-91de-95a846c0f377},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/gropius-bau/programm/2026/veranstaltungen/leila-hekmat}}}">Leila Hekmat</a>, the <a href="${link:{uuid:{fd3f9e70-97e8-46fb-b639-fc701f8d4039},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/gropius-bau/programm/baubau/veranstaltungen/baubau-play-day-pop-up-26}}}">big pop-up</a> of our play space BAUBAU and the opening of our <a href="${link:{uuid:{baa82be9-6411-41e5-806b-4889004c8459},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/gropius-bau/programm/2026/ausstellungen/peter-hujar-liz-deschenes}}}">Peter Hujar / Liz Deschenes</a> exhibition. Find more details in our <a href="${link:{uuid:{62c3018b-bb40-46ce-8019-646ec5cd2e4a},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/gropius-bau/besuch/informationen}}}">Information &amp; Tickets</a> section.

See You Soon

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Balkan Erotic Epic. The Exhibition

Marina Abramović

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With Andrew Durbin, Biliana Voutchkova, Gary Schneider, Queer Analog Darkroom and Selin Davasse – free admission

Sp&auml;tschicht x C/O Berlin

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Tickets for ten selected concert highlights of the Musikfest Berlin, which in 2026 will also mark the 75th anniversary of the Berliner Festspiele, are available. The programme includes Gy&ouml;rgy Ligeti’s grotesquely humorous anti-opera Le Grand Macabre and George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess.

Musikfest Berlin

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In 2026 the Berliner Festspiele celebrate their 75th anniversary. A selection of events programmed throughout the entire year engage take the anniversary as their theme or mark the occasion with works at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, the Gropius Bau, the Philharmonie Berlin, on Berlin’s Ringbahn and at other locations in the city.&nbsp;

75 Years of the Berliner Festspiele

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The programme has been published. Advance ticket sales will start on 18&nbsp;April at 10:00.

Theatertreffen

More Berliner Festspiele

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The programme has been published. Tickets are available now. Selected from more than 700&nbsp;productions, Theatertreffen once again presents the 10&nbsp;most remarkable productions of the year in May. The festival is complemented by the new format Mehr Drama! as well as a series of conversations curated by Matthias Dell on aesthetic, social and culture-political issues.

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The Practice – What Moves Artists

The Practice – What Moves Artists&nbsp;is a book series by Gropius Bau that invites artists to showcase a practice that they pursue, that has influenced them or that has been with them for a long time. In the third volume of the series On the Erotic, performance artist Marina Abramović talks about female sexuality after menopause, the eroticism of the masses and her love for the planet.

Marina Abramović: On the Erotic

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A Vibrant Place for Enganging with Art and Each Other

Located in the centre of Berlin, Gropius Bau is a lively place to encounter art and each other. The internationally renowned institution is part of the Berliner Festspiele and stages large-scale exhibitions and performances by contemporary artists, offering new perspectives on our present.

About Gropius Bau

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The Practice – What Moves Artists&nbsp;is a book series by Gropius Bau that invites artists to showcase a practice that they pursue, that has influenced them or that has been with them for a long time. In the second volume of the series, artist, performer and author Vaginal Davis looks back on the saucy underground scenes of Los Angeles and Berlin together with former bandmates.&nbsp;On Dangerous Ground recounts past gigs, spectacular live performances and well-kept secrets.

Vaginal Davis: On Dangerous Ground

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Widely regarded as one of the most original and influential artists of the 20th century, Diane Arbus’ bold black-and-white photographs demolish aesthetic conventions and upend all certainties. With&nbsp;Diane Arbus: Konstellationen, Gropius Bau presents the most comprehensive exhibition of her work to date.

Diane Arbus: Konstellationen

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Ligia Lewis is a central figure in redefining performance within the context of the visual arts. Her solo exhibition&nbsp;I’M NOT HERE FORRRRR… at Gropius Bau&nbsp;brings&nbsp;together new and existing works that explore themes of race, gender, violence and resistance.

Ligia Lewis:I’M NOT HERE FORRRRR...

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With BAUBAU, the artist Kerstin Br&auml;tsch designed an&nbsp;admission-free play space for kids, where more is allowed than forbidden. On Gropius Bau’s ground floor, colourful wallpapers, structures, objects and open-ended material called “loose parts” configure flexible spaces that are shaped by children’s activities.

BAUBAU:A&nbsp;Play Space for Kids

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What is and has been the role of play in public space? Gabriela Burkhalter’s&nbsp;Playing in the City&nbsp;presentation traces the history of playgrounds since their emergence in 1900 to today. The free presentation is open to all and can be seen in two rooms next to BAUBAU’s entrance.

Playing in the City:A Short History from 1900 to the Present

Currently at Gropius Bau

Widely regarded as one of the most original and influential artists of the 20th century, Diane Arbus’ bold black-and-white photographs demolish aesthetic conventions and upend all certainties. With Diane Arbus: Konstellationen, Gropius Bau presents the most comprehensive exhibition of her work to date. Featuring 454 prints, many of them shown here for the first time, Konstellationen offers new perspectives on Arbus’ iconic images and the wide range of her portraiture.

Ligia Lewis is a central figure in redefining performance within the context of the visual arts. In her multifaceted practice, she combines performance, live installation and film. From autumn 2025, Gropius Bau presents I’M NOT HERE FORRRRR…, the artist and choreographer’s most comprehensive solo exhibition to date. It brings together new and existing works that explore themes of race, gender, violence and resistance.

Ligia Lewis: I’M NOT HERE FORRRRR…

Current Exhibitions

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Peter Hujar / Liz Deschenes: Persistence of Vision

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Playing, laughing, making noise, letting off steam, doing nothing – all in an exhibition venue! With BAUBAU, the artist Kerstin Br&auml;tsch designed an&nbsp;admission-free play space for kids, where more is allowed than forbidden. On Gropius Bau’s ground floor, colourful wallpapers, structures, objects and open-ended material called “loose parts” configure flexible spaces that are shaped by children’s activities. They set the tone and decide what happens in this place.

BAUBAU

Spielen in der Stadt

A Short History from 1900 to the Present

What has been the role of play in public space, both historically and in the present? Complementing BAUBAU, our free play space for kids, Gabriela Burkhalter’s Playing in the City presentation traces the history of playgrounds since their emergence in 1900 to today. The free presentation is open to all and can be seen in two rooms next to the play space’s entrance.

Playing in the City

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Marina Abramović, one of the most influential contemporary artists, presents Balkan Erotic Epic. The Exhibition at Gropius Bau, marking her first major solo show in Berlin since the 1990s. The exhibition brings together historical and new works by the performance artist, tracing her ongoing engagement with ritual, eroticism, death and the body as a site of political resistance.

Marina Abramović: Balkan Erotic Epic. The Exhibition

Currently and Upcoming

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With Andrew Durbin, Biliana Voutchkova, Gary Schneider, Queer Analog Darkroom and Selin Davasse

On the occasion of <a href="${link:{uuid:{baa82be9-6411-41e5-806b-4889004c8459},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/gropius-bau/programm/2026/ausstellungen/peter-hujar-liz-deschenes}}}">Peter Hujar / Liz Deschenes: Persistence of Vision</a>, Sp&auml;tschicht x C/O Berlin turns its focus on 26 March to photography within the shifting terrains of urban space, visibility, and resistance. Look forward to performances, a workshop, a screening and a reading. Admission is free.

We are looking forward to welcoming you back in mid-March with the reopening of our play space, <a href="${link:{uuid:{df42e57d-a14a-4b44-a5e4-9d3e7dcab5a6},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/gropius-bau/programm/baubau}}}">BAUBAU</a> (on 22 March), and two exhibitions, <a href="${link:{uuid:{55d64239-53fe-4b12-8567-a63191c6cae4},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/gropius-bau/programm/2025/ausstellungen/vaginal-davis}}}">Vaginal Davis: Fabelhaftes Produkt</a> (from 21 March) and <a href="${link:{uuid:{9618c701-bd05-432e-b688-5943e1f7fc57},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/gropius-bau/programm/2025/ausstellungen/yoko-ono}}}">YOKO ONO: MUSIC OF THE MIND</a> (from 11 April). For details on opening hours and tickets, please visit our <a href="${link:{uuid:{62c3018b-bb40-46ce-8019-646ec5cd2e4a},repository:{website},path:{/bfs-de/gropius-bau/besuch/informationen}}}">Information &amp; Tickets</a> page. We look forward to seeing you soon!

See you in March!

Persistence of Vision

Working in New York City between the Stonewall uprising of 1969 and the onset of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, Peter Hujar captured a pivotal cultural moment in piercing black-and-white photographs. In the exhibition Persistence of Vision, Hujar’s photographs are interspersed with contemporary works by New York City-based artist Liz Deschenes, opening up an intergenerational dialogue on photography.&nbsp;

Peter Hujar / Liz Deschenes

A&nbsp;Play Space for Kids

A Short History from 1900 to the Present

From sandpits to adventure playgrounds, urban play spaces have – throughout their evolution – taken many different forms. What has been the role of play in public space, both historically and in the present? Complementing BAUBAU, our free play space for kids, Gabriela Burkhalter’s Playing in the City presentation traces the history of playgrounds since their emergence in 1900 to today. The free presentation is open to all and can be seen in two rooms next to the play space’s entrance.

Playing in the City &nbsp;

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Located in the centre of Berlin, the Gropius Bau is a lively place to encounter art and each other. The internationally renowned institution stages large-scale exhibitions and performances by contemporary artists.

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Festivals & Programme Series

Twenty years after the trailblazing show Les Magiciens de la Terre in Paris the “Tropics” exhibition in the Martin-Gropius-Bau is once again attempting to explore in troubled times the currents of energy and subtle discords between the hemispheres, to show which cultural forces are working in harmony and which in opposition to one another. The exhibition aims to create an incorruptible, crisis-resistant stock of images that permits a non-hierarchical view of the world.
The general idea is to re-aestheticize the subject of the tropics, not to look at them from a political and economic viewpoint for once, but to concentrate on culture as a counterweight. Instead of one-dimensional debates on poverty (or hunger, or violence, or political crises) or crass generalizations we are offered a glimpse of the artistic complexity and aesthetic richness of the tropics in a way that promises to change the terms of the North-South dialogue. This will free the South from the trap of always being seen in a bad light, while the North’s insistence on explaining the world in economic terms can be put into proportion, thus paving the way for a genuinely cosmopolitan and multi-perspective view of the world in the Humboldtian sense. So the exhibition is a way station on the road to the Humboldt Forum, which in future will invite the non-European cultures to a dialogue with the European masterpieces on the Museumsinsel here in the heart of Berlin.
The concept of the tropics was always a cultural construct, and not just for those who lived outside them. Notions taken from literature and the plastic arts always came between the nature of the tropics and its perception by human beings. Interpretations and ways of seeing the tropics are like a library of images or a museum of make-believe, a repository of our dreams and secret desires. Even today it is still the artists who shape our view of the tropics.
The exhibition begins with the European projection of the tropics, while at the same time attempting to reflect this construct. This ambivalence shows itself in the different approaches of the three curators. Alfons Hug shows not only works by contemporary artists from the tropics, but also works by artists who, though not themselves from the tropics, take them as a theme. Viola König groups objects under the heading of “Colours and Sounds of the Tropics” so that common features of certain aspects of art from the tropics can be explored. Peter Junge presents examples of art from the tropics concerning three basic themes of human societies, whose only common feature is that they are assigned to cultures belonging to the geographically defined region of the tropics. Aspects of the European notion of the tropics are not reflected in these works. Whether they constitute parts of a body of tropical art having points in common that fundamentally distinguish them from artworks external to the region is a question that the exhibition can only raise, but not ultimately answer. As far as the discourse on the tropics is concerned, the openness of this situation is a good thing. It helps to deconstruct the image of the tropics constructed by Europe, which is necessary if we are to have a new vision that does more justice to this theme.
Around two hundred exhibits from Africa, Asia, Oceania, Australia and tropical America from the collections of the Ethnological Museum in Berlin, which are among the world’s largest, are confronted with works by forty contemporary artists from Brazil, South America, Europe, Africa and Asia. Old and new art rub shoulders with each other. In the contemporary art section the subjects extend from Indonesia to Cuba, from West Africa to Brazil.
This exhibition is the first attempt to build a bridge between works that arose in pre-modern times and contemporary works. Modernism has deliberately been left out since, for example, Picasso’s references to African art or the German Expressionists’ to Melanesian sculpture have been sufficiently illuminated elsewhere.
The pre-modern art shows us the tropics as they were before they lost their innocence and morphed into the so-called Third World. It responds to the stigma of its present exclusion with serenity and composure. Its charm consists in its irresistible formal language, the wealth of shapes, the spiritual content, and the ability to involve the viewer in a dialogue. The strength of the contemporary art, on the other hand, lies in its high degree of reflectiveness and critical potential. At the same time, however, today’s artists also reveal a revival of individual mythologies. Points of contact are provided by the fact that not a few contemporary artists systematically appropriate elements of old cultures and incorporate anthropological or ethnological themes in their works.
In addition to about 200 old artworks by mainly anonymous artists from Ghana, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, India, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Hawaii, Samoa, Brazil, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Peru, and Bolivia, it is planned to show works by the following contemporary artists: 
 Franz Ackermann (Germany), Pilar Albarracín (Spain) Alexander Apostol (Venezuela), Fernando Bryce (Peru/Berlin), Edward Burtynsky (Canada), Roberto Cabot (France/Brazil), Marcos Chaves (Brazil), Walmor Corrêa (Brazil), Daspu (Brazil), Maurício Dias/Walter Riedweg (Brazil/Switzerland) Dinh Q. Lê (Vietnam), Mark Dion (USA), Adriano Domingues (Brazil), Theo Eshetu (Ethiopia), Sandra Gamarra Heshiki (Peru), Andreas Gursky (Germany), Candida Höfer (Germany), Pieter Hugo (South Africa), Jitish Kallat (India), Mariana Manhães (Brazil), Milton Marques (Brazil), Beatriz Milhazes (Brazil), Marcone Moreira (Brazil), Marcel Odenbach (Germany), Paulo Nenflídio (Brazil), Denis Nona (Australia), Sherman Ong (Singapore), Vong Phaophanit (Laos), Navin Rawanchaikul (Thailand), REA (Australia), Caio Reisewitz (Brazil), Mauro Restiffe (Brazil), Julian Rosefeldt (Germany), Hans-Christian Schink (Germany), Gerda Steiner/Jörg Lenzlinger (Switzerland), Thomas Struth (Germany), Fiona Tan (Indonesia/Great Britain), Guy Tillim (South Africa), David Zink Yi (Peru/Berlin)

Die Tropen

The Tropics

Veranstaltungen Die Tropen

Ausstellungen 2008

Exhibitions 2008

2008

Programm

Programme

Upcoming

The Berliner Festspiele organise a range of festivals and art exhibitions, concerts, dance and theatre performances, readings, lectures, debates and much more throughout the year. These events are presented at a range of locations across Berlin but are concentrated primarily at their own two venues: the Gropius Bau and the Haus der Berliner Festspiele.

Berliner Festspiele

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furtherInformation

Theatertreffen-Blog Header

In 2026 the Berliner Festspiele celebrate their 75th anniversary. A selection of events programmed throughout the entire year engage take the anniversary as their theme or mark the occasion with works at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, the Gropius Bau, the Philharmonie, on Berlin’s Ringbahn and at other locations in the city. Outstanding international that liberal societies and their cultural institutions face in a new, multipolar world order. artists such as Marina Abramović, Gabriele St&ouml;tzer and Akira Takayama will set the agenda both thematically and aesthetically. Entitled “Die gro&szlig;e Unordnung” (The Great Disorder), the four-day focus Reflexes &amp; Reflections will also enquire about the challenges.

75 Years of the Berliner Festspiele

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The massacre, hostage-taking and rocket attacks by Hamas have shaken us deeply. The grue-some attack on Israel on 7&nbsp;October left us stunned and initially lost for words.

The Berliner Festspiele on Current Events in Israel, Gaza and Germany

With this letter of intent, we, the signing cultural organizations, express our intention to welcome, host and stage Ukrainian theatre artists in our venues, to make Ukrainian dramatic work visible to the European community.

Support of the Ukrainian Cultural Scene

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In June 2026, Sasha Waltz &amp; Guests will be performing the productions Beethoven&nbsp;7 and In&nbsp;C at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele. Sasha Waltz &amp; Guests will also be staging a special evening to celebrate the 75th&nbsp;anniversary of the Goethe-Institut.

Sasha Waltz &amp; Guests

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Tickets for ten selected concert highlights of the Musikfest Berlin, which in 2026 will also mark the 75th&nbsp;anniversary of the Berliner Festspiele, are already available. The programme includes Gy&ouml;rgy Ligeti’s grotesquely humorous anti-opera Le Grand Macabre and George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess.

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The exploration of myths and rituals shapes the fourth edition of the Performing Arts Season with works by Marina Abramović, Mario Banushi, Marie Chouinard, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker / Rosas, Ictus, Bl!ndman, Dumb Type, Damien Jalet / Kohei Nawa and Gisèle Vienne. The programme will be published on 18 June, and advance ticket sales will start.

Performing Arts Season

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The Theatertreffen’s jury of critics announced their selection of the 10 most remarkable productions for the 2026 Theatertreffen. The programme will be published on 2&nbsp;April, advance ticket sale will begin on 18 April, 10:00.