2021 Berlin State Museums: Special Temporary Exhibitions and Cultural Highlights

In 2021, the Berlin State Museums will host special temporary art exhibitions in addition to the reopening of the Neue Nationalgalerie and the Humboldt Forum.

Detail from Dürer's Christ to be exhibited in the Late Gothic: The Birth of Modernity in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin in 2021 -- one of the top exhibitions planned in 2021 in Berlin.
© Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe / Annette Fischer / Heike Kohler

The cultural highlights in Berlin in 2021 are the reopening of the Neue Nationalgalerie with its vast collection of twentieth-century art and the opening of the Ethnological and Asian Art museums in the Humboldt Forum (rebuilt Berliner Schloss). However, the Berlin State Museum (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin) will also host a variety of special and temporary exhibitions in 2021 that will combine its vast collections with loan items from other museums. Some exhibitions are delayed from 2020 or had opening periods extended.

Currently, all the Berlin museums require free time-slot reservations, something previously only required for the Pergamon and Neues Museum.

→ â†’ See also: 2022 — Top Special Exhibitions in Berlin Museums

Update 2024: Most Berlin state museums are open and currently, time-slot reservations are essential only for the Neues Museum and for major exhibitions. However, it is sensible to book timeslots for the Alte Nationalgalerie, Gemäldegalerie, Neue Nationalgalerie, Neues Museum, and Das Panorama. (The Pergamon Museum itself is closed until 2027!) Timeslots are currently released only around four weeks in advance but earlier for blockbuster shows. Buy tickets and make reservations online at GetYourGuide or at SMB. Online tickets for museums without timeslot reservations are skip-the-line — go directly to the entrance to scan the ticket. Many multiple-museum tickets and passes are again accepted, including Kulturforum, Museumsinsel, and the excellent value 3-day Berlin Museum Pass.

Special Temporary Exhibitions in the Berlin State Museums in 2021

Below, in chronological order from the opening date, are the main temporary exhibitions planned by the Berlin State Museums for 2021. The larger exhibitions include the Late Gothic in the Gemäldegalerie, as well as the Egyptian and Iranian exhibitions in the James Simon Gallery on Museum Island.

Claudia Skoda in the Kulturforum

Ohne Titel silver gelatine print (Claudia Skoda, Tabea Blumenschein & Jenny Capitain)
© Ulrike Ottinger

Claudia Skoda. Dressed to Thrill

18 December 2020 to 11 April 2021 in the Kulturforum, Ausstellungshalle

This special exhibition by the Kunstbibliothek (Art Library) is on Claudia Skoda, a key figure in fashion design and an icon in the West Berlin Underground Scene of the 1970s and 1980s. This first solo exhibition shows around 200 works by Claudia Skoda and the influences of others such as Martin Kippenberger, Luciano Castelli, Ulrike Ottinger, Tabea Blumenschein, Kraftwerk, and Jim Rakete. 


Late Gothic: The Birth of Modernity Exhibition in the Gemäldegalerie

Dürer's Christ to be exhibited in the Late Gothic: The Birth of Modernity in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin in 2021
© Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe / Annette Fischer / Heike Kohler

Spätgotik. Aufbruch in die Neuzeit

19 February to 27 June 2021 in the Kulturforum, Gemäldegalerie

This is the first comprehensive exhibition in the German-speaking world on the art of the late Gothic period. It focuses on the changes in art that started in the Netherlands around 1430 with new more natural presentations of light and shades, bodies, and space. Although art remains predominantly of religious significance, increasingly paintings are also seen as artworks separated from the religious purpose.

The exhibition includes around 130 paintings from the 15th century showing the innovation and new art of the late-Gothic period.


Modern Dante in the Museum of Prints and Drawings

„Die Exklusive – Zur Politik des ausgeschlossenen Vierten“
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2020

Dante modern. Bilder zur Göttlichen Komödie zwischen Erzählung und Zeitkritik

19 March to 1 August 2021 in the Kulturforum, Kupferstichkabinett

To commemorate the 700-years anniversary of the death of the Italian poet and philosopher  Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), the Museum of Prints and Drawings is showing a selection of two woodcut printing series from the 1920s. Both series by Danish artist Ebba Holm and German artists Klaus Wrage are inspired by the Divine Comedy — Dante’s literary masterpiece that involves a journey through hell, purgatory, and to finally arrive in paradise.

Further works are by Odilon Redon, Wilhelm Lehmbruck, and Willy Jaeckel, as well as colorful computer images by the Berlin artist Andreas Siekmann (born 1961) on travels through modern hell.

GetYourGuide

Pablo Picasso in the Museum Berggruen

Pablo Picasso, Les Femmes d’Alger, Version N,
© Succession Picasso / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2020

Pablo Picasso & Les Femmes d’Alger

26 March to 27 June 2021 in the Museum Berggruen

In winter 1954-55, Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) painted a long planned response to the by then 73-year-old paintings of Eugène Delacroix on the Woman of Algiers („Die Frauen von Algier“). Over a period of three months, Picasso created a series of 15 oil pantings accompanied by hundred drawings and lithographs.

The series was soon divided and sold throughout the world with the Museum Berggruen in Berlin the only public museum in Europe where a painting from this series is on display in the permanent collection. The exhibition will show paintings and drawings related to the “Femmes d’Alger” series, as well as works by other artists that inspired Picasso, or were inspired by him.

Canopic Chest from Akhmim in the exhibition Akhmim — Egypt’s Forgotten City in the James Simon Gallery
© SMB / Sandra Steiß

Achmîm. Ägyptens vergessene Stadt

21 May to 12 September 2021 in the James-Simon-Galerie on Museumsinsel Berlin

For the first time, the upper Egyptian city Akhmim is the central theme of a special exhibition by the Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection, the Sculpture Collection, and the Museum of Byzantine Art in cooperation with the University of Göttingen.

Akhmim, with a history of over 6000 years, is one of the oldest cities from ancient Egypt. Although only archaeological rests remained of the city, the art, statues, reliefs, cultural objects, and funerary treasures are spread through many museums in the world. The State Museums in Berlin has a vast collection that will be enhanced by objects from seven further collections. The exhibition will not only show the art from the city but also its important political, cultural, and religious role in ancient Egypt.

Helmut Newton Exhibition in the Photography Museum

Detail from Helmut Newton, Self Portrait with wife and model
© Helmut Newton Estate

Helmut Newton. One Hundred

4 June 2021 to 23 January 2022 in the Museum fĂĽr Fotografie

Due to the coronavirus the „Helmut Newton. One Hundred“ missed Newton’s centennial anniversary on 31 October 2021 but will now be presented in the second half of 2021. The Museum for Photography’s Helmut Newton Stiftung will exhibit a selection of his photos and work notes with special emphasis on fashion.

The exhibition of over 300 photos will travel to further European cities starting with the Palazzo Reale in Milan from February 2022.

Re-Opening of Exhibitions in the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin 2021

Neue Nationalgalerie mit „Têtes et Queue“ von Alexander CalderThe exhibitions in this important Berlin museum will reopen in 2021
© Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Zentralarchiv / Reinhard Friedrich

Alexander Calder. Minimal / Maximal

22 August 2021 to 13 February 2022 in the Neue Nationalgalerie

In celebration of the reopening of the Neue Nationalgalerie after a five-year renovation project, a special exhibition in the glass atrium will feature works by the American artist Alexander Calder. This will include small as well as huge sculptures and moving mobiles. 

The Art of the Society, 1900-1945(„Die Kunst der Gesellschaft“) (until July 2022) will be the main exhibition of the Nationalgalerie’s vast collection. 

Expect a full cultural program to accompany the re-opening of Berlin’s most important museum of 20th-century art.

Opening of the Ethnological and Asian Art Museums in Berlin

Ethnological Museum in the Humboldt Forum in the Berliner Schloss
© Stiftung Berliner Schloss – Humboldt Forum, Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz

Sammlungspräsentation des Ethnologischen Museums und Museums für Asiatische Kunst im Humboldt Forum

From late summer 2020, Humboldt Forum, Ethnologisches Museum + Museum fĂĽr Asiatische Kunst 

The permanent collections of the Ethnological Museum and Museum for Asian Art with around 20,000 items will finally open in late summer 2021 in the 14,000 square meter exhibition halls on the upper floors of the Humboldt Forum in the rebuilt Berliner Schloss. The collection includes amongst others the famous boats and houses from Oceania, the reconstructed Buddhist caves from the Silk Road, Japanese items with a tea house, and parts of the African collection.

From late 2021, the rest of the collection should be open including items from the Andes and Amazon regions, art from the Khmer, and Islamic art.

Other museums and exhibitions in the Humboldt Forum will open in phases from mid-December 2020.

The Second Glance: Woman in the Bode Museum in 2021

Marble Bust in the Skulpturensammlung und Museum fĂĽr Byzantinische Kunst
© SMB / Antje Voigt

Der zweite Blick: Frauen

From September 2021 in the Bode Museum

The Second Glance (Der zweite Blick) is an integrated special exhibition series of the Sculpture Collection and the Museum of Byzantine Art in the Bode Museum where contemporary issues are looked at through a thematic route leading to a variety of items inside the regular exhibitions of the museum. 

The second theme in this series is Woman (Frauen). Whether goddesses, heroines, saints, princesses, mothers, academics, singles, or partners, the histories, personalities, and social importance of a range of historical women are explained in the context of their historical settings through the perspectives of the modern world. 

Johann Erdmann Hummel in the Alte Nationalgalerie

Johann Erdmann Hummel, Die Granitschale im Berliner Lustgarten
© SMB / Jörg P. Anders

Magische Spiegelungen. Johann Erdmann Hummel

October 2021 to Februar 2022 in the Alte Nationalgalerie

A special exhibition on the work of Johann Erdmann Hummel (1769–1852), who was the first professor of optics, perspective, and architecture at the Berliner Akademie der Künste from 1809. He thus influenced many 19th-century artists and architects directly but also produced compositions that already prepared the way for the modern and Neue Sachlichkeit.

André Thomkins in the Scharf-Gerstenberg Collection Berlin

André Thomkins: Der Dybbuk Lackskin auf Papier
© SMB / Volker-H. Schneider

André Thomkins

October 2021 to January 2022 in the Sammlung Scharf-Gerstenberg

The Swiss artist André Thomkins (1930-1985) loved palindromes („nie reime, da kann akademie rein“ – „Dogma I am God“) and that also influences his views of the world and his approach to art. His surrealist art often combined whit with refined technical experimentation. This special exhibition in cooperation with the Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein includes his so-called Scharnierbilder, Lackskins and Rollagen, Permanentszenen and Schwebsel pictures, paintings, drawings, and other objects by Thomkins.


Iran. Art and Culture from Five Millennia

Büste eines sasanidischen Königs oder Prinzen
© The Sarikhani Collection / H.-D. Beyer

Iran. Kunst und Kultur aus fĂĽnf Jahrtausenden

30 October 2021 to 20 February 2022 in the James-Simon-Galerie + Pergamonmuseum

This special exhibition of over 300 objects from the Sarikhani Collection in London and the Museum for Islamic Art Berlin focus on the importance of Iran as a center for cultural exchanges between the Mediterranean Sea, China, and India from the first high cultures three millennia BC to the decline of the Safavid dynasty in the early 18th century.

The exhibition explains the art of the courts and metropolitan elites in chronological order from the pre-Islamic periods of the Achaemenid and Sasanian empires, the creation of a Persian-Islamic culture, and the art of the 9th to 13th centuries, and the glorious period of the Safavid dynasty.

More on the Berlin State Museums (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin):

Note: Most Berlin museums and similar sights are open in 2024. Timeslot reservations are essential for only the Neues Museum but sensible (and possibly essential in busy periods!) for the Alte Nationalgalerie, Gemäldegalerie, Neue Nationalgalerie, and Pergamon – Das Panorama. (The Pergamon Museum itself is closed until 2027!). Timeslots are released only around four weeks in advance. Tickets are available from GetYourGuide, which seems to have timeslots available when SMB has already sold out. Many passes and multi-museum tickets are again available (Kulturforum / Museums Island). Individual museum ticket prices range from €6 to €14 (€20 for special exhibitions). Online tickets are skip-the-line — go directly to the gallery entrance to scan the code but pick up free audioguides first.

For more general information on the Berlin State Museums:

News & Temporary Exhibitions:

More Museum Reviews and Museum-Specific Information:

Previous Temporary Exhibitions:

Henk Bekker in armor

About the author:

Henk Bekker

Henk Bekker is a freelance travel writer with over 20 years of experience writing online. He is particularly interested in history, art, and culture. He has lived most of his adult life in Germany, Switzerland, and Denmark. In addition to European-Traveler.com, he also owns a travel website on the Lake Geneva region of Switzerland and maintains statistical websites on car sales and classic car auction prices. Henk holds an MBA from Edinburgh Business School and an MSc in Development Finance from the University of London.