Special exhibitions in 2024 in the Museum für Fotogragie cover Helmut Newton’s polaroids, his views of Berlin, Max Ernst, and photography by Michael Wesely.
The Museum für Fotografie (Museum of Photography) in Berlin is home to a vast collection of photos but only a small fraction is displayed annually in special temporary exhibitions. Photos by Helmut Newton always feature and in 2024, his works are shown in special exhibitions of Polaroids and influences of Berlin on his life and career. Further exhibitions include Michael Wesely’s attempt to capture time and life using photography and a rare look at links between the Dadaist and Surrealist works of Max Ernst and photography.
Museum für Fotograpfie (Photography) in Berlin
The Museum of Photography (Museum für Fotografie) is one of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin institutions that is often missed by visitors. It is not in the traditional museum areas of Museums Island or the Culture Forum but rather on the “wrong side” of the Zoologischer Garten Bahnhof station in the western parts of central Berlin.
The museum is home to the vast collection of photography of the Kunstbibliothek and the works of the Helmut Newton Foundation. Photos from these collections and others are used for frequently changing temporary exhibitions.
The Museum of Photography is open Tuesday to Sunday from 11:00 to 19:00 (20:00 on Thursdays). Buy tickets online and go directly to the entrance — time-slot reservations are not currently possible (or needed).
Top Special Exhibitions in the Photography Museum Berlin in 2024
Special temporary exhibitions in the Museum für Fotografie in Berlin in 2024 include:
Michael Wesely in the Museum of Photography Berlin in 2024
Michael Wesely. Berlin 1860–2023: 12 April – 1 September 2024
This exhibition presents works by the internationally renowned photographer Michael Wesely (born 1964) in dialogue with works from the Photography Collection of the Kunstbibliothek that focus on the phenomenon of how the medium of photography captures time. This includes snapshots and time-lapse exposures, multiple exposures, and serial photographs.
How can photography capture time and life? In two new multi-part works, the internationally renowned photographer Michael Wesely (born 1964) attempts to coax out the fragments of reality that are housed in historical architectural photographs of Berlin.
In his series Human Conditions, he takes large-format images made by the Prussian Institute of Aerial Photography, scouring them for inscribed traces of the lives of the inhabitants of Berlin at the turn of the 20th century. For Double Days, he precisely superimposes his own photographs over old pictures of Berlin architecture from the 19th and 20th centuries, in order to visualize leaps in time within the fabric of the city.
These series were produced in response to research work he carried out in the Kunstbiobliothek and in the architectural photography collections of other archives and museums in Berlin and Brandenburg.
Helmut Newton’s Polaroids
Polaroid: 28 November 2024 – May 2025
The technology of the Polaroid camera revolutionized photography. Anybody who has ever used one of these cameras will never forget the smell of the developing emulsion and the fascination inspired by its instant photographs. Helmut Newton also loved taking photographs with a Polaroid. From the 1970s onwards, he used these devices extensively, particularly during his fashion shoots. As he once said in an interview, he was motivated by the impatient desire to immediately know how the scene looked as a picture. In this sense, a Polaroid is a little like a conceptual sketch and also helps to check the lighting and image composition. At the same time, Polaroid snapshots possessed significant allure for many artistic photographers, particularly because of their objecthood and the possibility of experimentally reusing the image.
So this exhibition does not just feature the Polaroids of Helmut Newton but also works by numerous colleagues, such as Robert Mapplethorpe, Mary Ellen Mark, David Hockney, Ulay, Carlo Mollino, Luigi Ghirri, Maurizio Galimberti, Hannah Villiger and Cathleen Naundorf. This group exhibition brings together the various techniques of working with the Polaroid camera in the most diverse formats, with each photographer represented by a group of works.
The Foundation archives are home to thousands of Polaroids made by Newton between the 1970s and his death in 2004. This exhibition features an entirely new selection, creating a fascinating complement to the first Polaroid presentation in 2012.
A special exhibition of the Helmut Newton Foundation.
The Berlin Show in the Museum für Fotografie in 2024
The Berlin Show: 7 June – 10 November 2024
It was from that station that Newton – facing the constant threat of deportation due to his Jewish background – hurriedly left Berlin in 1938, before returning 65 years later as a world-famous photographer. Since then, the Helmut Newton Foundation has run this historic building together with the Kunstbibliothek, under the name of the Museum für Fotografie.
Since 2021, the entire oeuvres of Helmut Newtown and Alice Springs have been housed there, along with all the items in the Foundation’s archive. Between 1936 and 1938, Newton completed his training as a photographer in Berlin-Charlottenburg under the legendary photographer Yva, whose practice would influence Newton in his later focus on the genres of fashion, portraiture, and nudes. In The Berlin Show, alongside Newton’s iconic pictures and many unknown pictures from Berlin, shots of his earlier sources of inspiration will also be on show.
A special exhibition of the Helmut Newton Foundation at the Museum für Fotografie
Max Ernst in the Berlin Photography Museum in 2024
Max Ernst and Photography. A Visit from the Würth Collection / Max Ernst und die Fotografie. Die Sammlung Würth zu Gast
18 October 2024 – 27 April 2025
Max Ernst and photography? Ernst (1891–1976) is one of the most important artists of Dadaism and Surrealism, who in his genre-bending works made the everyday strange and connected the realms of dream and reality. In the process, he constantly broke with artistic conventions and experimented with new techniques.
However, Max Ernst was not a photographer. For the first time, this exhibition looks for points of connection between his oeuvre and photography. Some of these are direct, as in photo-collages, however, they are often indirect and serve to confuse.
A representative selection of works by Max Ernst from the Würth Collection, including both prominent pieces and less well-known ones, form the core of this exhibition. Contextualizing connections are drawn between these works and contemporary and historical references, with the selection complemented by works from the Kunstbibliothek, the Kupferstichkabinett, and the Nationalgalerie, as well as by pieces from other collections.
A special exhibition of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and the Würth Collection.
More on the Berlin State Museums (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin):
Note new opening times for many Berlin museums from mid-April 2024. Timeslot reservations are essential only for the Caspar David Friedrich exhibition (until 4 August 2024) but sensible (and sometimes needed in busy periods!) for the Alte Nationalgalerie, Gemäldegalerie, Neue Nationalgalerie, Neues Museum, and Pergamon – Das Panorama. (The Pergamon Museum itself is closed until 2027!). Timeslots are released only a few weeks in advance. Online 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 sold (Kulturforum / Museums Island). Individual museum ticket prices range from €8 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:
- Top National Museums and Galleries in Berlin (brief overview)
- Berlin State Museums: What Is Seen Where? (a short description of the collections in the different museums)
- Opening Hours of Berlin State Museums (2024) — major changes from mid-April 2024!
- Ticket Prices for Berlin State Museums (prices for museums, temporary exhibitions, combination tickets, online time-slot reservations). Buying online from GetYourGuide is easy. A ticket with a QR or bar code is scanned directly at the entrance — no need to pass by the ticket desk (but pick up the free audio guide before entering).
- Save with the Berlin Museum Pass – 30 museums (including all the SMB museums) in three days for €32 – a fantastic savings deal.
- Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (official website in German & English).
News & Temporary Exhibitions:
- 2024: Overview of Top Berlin Exhibitions in 2024, Caspar David Friedrich in the Alte Nationalgalerie (tickets are selling out fast!), Frans Hals in the Gemäldegalerie, Neue Nationalgalerie (20th-century art) Hamburger Bahnhof Contemporary Art, Kupferstichkabinett (Prints and Drawings), and Photography Museum.
- Museums closed in 2024: The Pergamon Museum is closed until 2027 (some sculptures are on display in Das Panorama), the Museum Berggruen is closed until 2025 (much of its collection is traveling the world), the permanent collection of the German History Museum (Zeughaus) is closed but temporary exhibitions continue in the Pei Building.
More Museum Reviews and Museum-Specific Information:
- Alte Nationalgalerie with Caspar David Friedrich paintings (2024 special exhibition).
- Altes Museum with Greek, Etruscan, and Roman art.
- Ethnological and Asian Art Museums in the Humboldtforum.
- Friedrichswerdersche Kirche (free admission) with a collection of 19th-century German sculptures.
- Gemäldegalerie with its collection of German and Dutch Old Masters and Italian paintings.
- Kunstgewerbemuseum (Decorative Arts).
- Musical Instruments Museum near the Berliner Philharmonie.
- Neue Nationalgalerie — 20th-century art.
- Neues Museum with bust of Nefertiti.
- Pergamon Museum with Ishtar Gate — the whole Pergamonmuseum is closed from October 2023 until 2027. Some Greek sculptures are shown in the
- Pergamon Museum Panorama Exhibition with Asisi panoramic painting and Greek statues.
- Photography — Helmut Newton collection and historic photos.
Previous Temporary Exhibitions:
- 2023: Top Special Temporary Exhibitions in 2023 — overview, in the Kulturforum, in the Neue Nationalgalerie, on Museum Island, and the Museum of Photography.
- 2022: Top Special Temporary Exhibitions in 2022 — overview, in the Kulturforum (David Hockney), in the Neue Nationalgalerie, on Museumsinsel, Hamburger Bahnhof contemporary art, and the Museum of Photography.
- 2021: Top Special Temporary Exhibitions in 2021 — including the reopening of the Neue Nationalgalerie, as well as the Ethnological and Asian Art Museums in the Humboldt Forum.
- 2020: Highlights, in Kulturforum, on Museum Island, in the Hamburger Bahnhof, smaller museums, and the opening of the Humboldt Forum.
