Thursday 26 June 2008 | 11:00 hrsOrganizerBerliner Festspiele in cooperation with the Bucerius Kunst Forum, HamburgFacilitated by the Capital City Cultural FundPatronage The exhibition is under the Alto Patronato of the Italian president Giorgio Napolitano and under the patronage of President of the Bundestag Dr. Norbert Lammert

Gropius Bau

Gropius Bau 2023

Malerei für die Ewigkeit. Die Gräber von Paestum

Painting for Eternity. The Tombs of Paestum

Pressekonferenz „Malerei für die Ewigkeit. Die Gräber von Paestum“

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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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The full programme and tickets for all events of Musikfest Berlin are now available. In 2026, the festival also marks the 75th anniversary of the Berliner Festspiele and brings together leading international orchestras, renowned conductors and outstanding soloists in a diverse concert programme – ranging from opera productions to contemporary works, from Gy&ouml;rgy Ligeti’s grotesque humorous anti-opera Le Grand Macabre to 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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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.

Theatertreffen

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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.

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

With its three large Doric temples, Paestum became a well-known site early on thanks to engravings by Piranesi (1777/78) and Goethe’s impressive descriptions in his Italienische Reise (1787). However, many people are unaware that Paestum contains one of the greatest treasure troves of ancient fresco paintings: During excavations in the 1960s, around 200 richly painted tombs from the Lucanian period (4th century B.C.) were discovered. The Martin-Gropius-Bau dedicates an exhibition to these rare examples of ancient tomb art. Around 45 painted tomb slabs of the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Paestum will be shown at the exhibition in Berlin, including seven complete tombs.
The extremely heavy slabs will be reassembled for the exhibition into three-dimensional tombs for the first time since their discovery, allowing the paintings to be seen in their original context. Visitors have the unique opportunity to look into the tombs and receive a sense of their composition and size. Simultaneously, the life of a long-vanished culture unfolds, depicting battle scenes, sports events and competitions as well as the burial rites of the Lucani, an Italian tribe which lived in the former Greek colony of Paestum around 400 B.C.. Exhibiting the tombs in their entirety gives insight into the way the paintings were developed: Following the death, the slabs, plastered in limestone, were lowered into the earth and painted by the artists in the narrow tomb cavity within just a few hours. The burial probably took place on the same day and the tombs were then sealed. Thus the pictures in the tombs were removed from the sight of the living, destined to accompany the deceased in the afterlife.
The urgency with which the burial chambers were painted also explains the quick, confident brush strokes and the sketch-like qualities of the paintings, catching viewers by surprise both in their animation and their narrative variety. One can see mounted men returning home to be greeted by women with a welcoming drink, as well as the laying out of the body surrounded by mourners, musicians and scenes of sacrifice. Observed by judges, the funeral games depicted can be violent and even bloody, portraying javelin competitions, chariot races around a victory column or boxing matches held to the sound of flutes. Genre-like scenes such as stag and panther hunts are also pictured. In addition to mythical beasts such as sphinxes and griffins, mythical figures of water nymphs riding seahorses appear – a reference to the isle of the blessed. The rooster as a symbol of fertility and pomegranates as symbols of eternal life give insight into the Lucani’s world of imagery.
From a scientific point of view, these tomb frescos are highly unusual: The Greek paintings of the 4th century B.C., which served as models for the artists of Paestum no longer exist, so that here we are given a rare insight into the development of the visual arts of that time. As a result, Paestum is not solely a site of famous Greek temples but also the location of the most comprehensive collection of ancient painting to be found to date.
In addition to the decorative paintings in the burial chambers, the dead were also given numerous burial objects to see them on their way. Valuable vases, armaments and other objects which have been found in the respective tombs complement the exhibition and complete our insight into the civilization, life and death of a long vanished age. Visitors to the exhibition enter a necropolis that gives impressive evidence for how the Lucani honored their dead.
The second part of the exhibition is dedicated to depictions of the ancient temples of Paestum in the visual arts between 1750 and 1850. A concentrated selection of around 55 paintings, etchings, drawings, watercolors and architectural treatises depict the many-faceted views of Paestum, which has become a part of Europe’s cultural heritage since the mid 18th century. The spectrum stretches from the classical vedute of Antonio Joli to the fascinating etchings of Giovanni Battista Piranesi, including his important preparatory drawings, a selection that will be seen for the first time in Germany. It incorporates impressions recorded by the German-Roman Jakob Philipp Hackert; Goethe’s artistic mentor, Christoph Heinrich Kniep and the French Romantic Hubert Robert in their paintings, followed by the precise architectural surveys published by Friedrich von Gärtner, Leo von Klenze, Thomas Major and Saint-Non in their travel journals, published etchings and architectural treatises.
The exhibition concept was developed by guest curator Prof. Dr. Bernard Andreae, former Director of the German Archeological Institute in Rome, who also curated the Cleopatra and the Ceasars exhibition in 2006 and the successful 2004 Etruscan exhibition at the Bucerius Kunst Forum. Dr. des. Nina Simone Schepkowski, research assistant at the Bucerius Kunst Forum, designed the second half of the exhibition dealing with the historical reception during the 18th and 19th centuries of the ancient temples of Paestum in the visual arts.

Malerei für die Ewigkeit

Painting for Eternity

Veranstaltungen Malerei für die Ewigkeit

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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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

Key Visual Theatertreffen 2026

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Drama and Discourse, Mehr Drama!, Discussions, Awards

The 10 Most Remarkable Productions

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103 ensembles from all 16&nbsp;federal states have submitted their productions for the 47th&nbsp;Theatertreffen der Jugend 2026. The programme will be published on 30&nbsp;April, advance ticket sales will start on 6&nbsp;May.

Theatertreffen der Jugend

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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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In August 2026, the festival Tanz im August will return to the Haus der Berliner Festspiele with several productions. Tickets for Sounding Light are already available. The other productions will be published in June.

Tanz im August