Since 2014, the International Congress Center (ICC) in Berlin has been operating in preservation mode. To bring new life into the listed landmark and Berlin‘s icon and to create an internationally unique destination for arts, culture and the creative industries with a sustainable long-term perspective, the State of Berlin launched a Europe-wide ICC Concept Proposal Process on 25 November 2024. A decisive milestone has now been reached: an official recommendation has been issued in favour of the Project Partnership Quartier ICC which brings together leading companies and renowned experts from project development, urban planning, architecture, heritage conservation, arts and cultural management, engineering, construction and project management. Stay tuned!
Bas Smets adds a Water Garden to the Vitra Campus
Basel Social Club clocks in with its fifth edition — the Office
Once a symbol of efficiency and growth, the office today reflects shifting realities shaped by digitalization, remote work, and artificial intelligence. Basel Social Club engages this condition through exhibitions, performances, music, gastronomy, and informal encounters that explore questions of labor, time, productivity, and rest. The building remains continuously activated throughout the week, with artists responding directly to its architecture and atmosphere.
Verner Panton: Form, Colour, Space at the Vitra Schaudepot
He hung chairs from the ceiling and transformed interiors into colourful playgrounds; few designers have shaped design in the second half of the twentieth century as decisively as Verner Panton. To mark the 100th anniversary of the Danish designer’s birth, the Vitra Design Museum is presenting a comprehensive exhibition of his work at the Vitra Schaudepot.
Pierre Huyghe at the Fondation Beyeler
Unfolding like a living environment in constant transformation, artificial breathing organs, neural networks coming alive, echoing sounds and murky aquariums, the Fondation Beyeler has just opened a major new exhibition of Pierre Huyghe. The artist is renowned for his boundary-crossing works, where fiction and reality seamlessly merge. The exhibition invites visitors to explore Pierre Huyghe’s fascinating and uncertain world.
COBE — IN TRANSFORMATION
Architecture is always a reflection of its time. It is embedded in economic systems, political priorities, cultural movements, and technological developments, and is shaped by available resources and the prevailing values of the moment while it is never limited to the present alone. Against this backdrop, Cobe presents In Transformation: 16 projects on the theme of transformation in the exhibition. The examples from two decades encompass a broad spectrum of scales and typologies.
THE GERMAN PAVILION AT THE 61ST INTERNATIONAL ART EXHIBITION – LA BIENNALE DI VENEZIA PRESENTS RUIN
In Ruin, curated by Kathleen Reinhardt, Henrike Naumann and Sung Tieu explore both the ideological ruptures and material traces of post-reunification Germany. With formal vocabularies ranging from maximalist opulence to minimalist clarity, they examine the enduring legacy of a once divided Germany and the socio-political upheavals of the 1990s transformation period and beyond.
GALLERY WEEKEND BERLIN 2026 — A CITY IN BLOOM
Already in its 22nd edition, Gallery Weekend Berlin continues to reflect a city as multifaceted as ever. At the beginning of May, 50 galleries across 66 locations will open their doors, showcasing over 80 established and emerging artists from more than 30 countries. This year also sees the launch of Perspectives, a new sector featuring a rotating annual selection of galleries.
What’s going on? at the Mies van der Rohe Haus
What’s going on? is the opening exhibition of the program by Dennis Brzek as new director of the Mies van der Rohe Haus in Berlin. The group exhibition is showing both existing works and new pieces created in dialogue with the site. The works on display raise questions about time, absence, and personal histories, using both private and shared memories as their material.
MGGU: MULTISPECIES MEMBERS CLUB
Multispecies Members Club develops a forward-looking model of coexistence: an inclusive alliance in which humans, animals, plants and machines act as equal members. The exhibition at MGGU sees itself as a living experiment: it shows how technology can enable communication between different species and how democratic participation can be rethought – beyond a purely human-centered view of the world.
Hella Jongerius at Vitra Design Museum
Hella Jongerius: Whispering Things is the first retrospective to present the full scope of the Dutch designer’s oeuvre and offers insights into Jongerius’ working methods, multi-layered thinking, passion for craft processes and deep engagement with materiality and the symbolism of objects. Her interest in craftsmanship and colour is always accompanied by critical reflection on her own practice and on the role of design in today’s society.
Basel Social Club 2026: The Office
Basel Social Club returns in June 2026 for its 5th edition, continuing its nomadic tradition of transforming unexpected sites into temporary social spaces for art during the week of Art Basel. This year, the office becomes both subject and stage and brings together exhibitions, performances, music, gastronomy and informal encounters and will take place in a vacant office building designed by the architecture office Diener & Diener, just a few steps from Basel SBB train station.
Cezanne at Fondation Beyeler
For the first time in its history, the Fondation Beyeler is dedicating a solo exhibition to Paul Cezanne; pioneer of modern art and one of the most important artists in its own collection. The exhibition focuses on the last and most significant phase of the Frenchman’s work, highlighting key themes from his later years, including still lifes, portraits, landscapes and bathing scenes.
THE CHINA MOMENT BY DOCUMENTA INSTITUT
Spanning the 1980s to the present, The China Moment. Contextualizing Individualism in Chinese Contemporary Art by the documenta institut at the Kasseler Kunstverein functions as both a research project and an exhibition, blending historical and narrative approaches. Drawing on archival materials, paintings, photographs, videos, installations, sound and performance, it presents artworks alongside the social contexts that shaped them — from spontaneous apartment shows and underground gatherings to experimental club and performance scenes.
35 JAHRE TEXTE ZUR KUNST
Under the motto There Is No Art Without Criticism, TEXTE ZUR KUNST celebrates its 35th anniversary in 2025–26. Since its founding in 1990, the magazine has established itself as a critical, theoretically grounded medium within the international art world. Alongside special editions, the anniversary issue System Change: Art Market and Criticism examines the current upheavals in the global art market.
