Berlinische Galerie

The Berlinische Galerie in Kreuzberg

The Berlinische Galerie is a museum of modern art, photography and architecture in Berlin. It is located in Kreuzberg, on Alte Jakobstraße, not far from the Jewish Museum.

History

Central exhibition hall

The Berlinische Galerie was founded in 1975^[1] as a society devoted to exhibiting art from Berlin. For the first few years it was based in an office in Charlottenburg, and its exhibitions were displayed at the Akademie der Künste and the New National Gallery among others. In 1978 the Galerie moved into a former landwehr officers' mess (now the Museum of Photography) on Jebensstraße, near Zoo Station. In 1986 it moved again, into the Martin-Gropius-Bau. In 1994 the collection became a public-law foundation. In 1998 the Galerie had to leave the Martin-Gropius-Bau due to reconstruction. After six years without a permanent home, it opened in its new location, in former industrial premises in Kreuzberg, in 2004. Built in 1965, the current building was originally a glass warehouse,^[1] and took the Galerie a year to renovate.

Exhibitions

The permanent and temporary exhibitions are displayed across two floors of the building; there is also an auditorium, an archive, a library, a study room, and an art school for children and adults. The oldest works in the Galerie's ownership date from 1870. The museum's visual art collection includes works by the Berlin Secession (Max Liebermann and Lovis Corinth), New Objectivity and Expressionism (Otto Dix, George Grosz and Hannah Höch), as well as Georg Baselitz, Wolf Vostell, and the Junge Wilde. The museum also owns a large graphic art collection (around 15,000 works) as well as photographs and architectural models, and sometimes hosts contemporary installations.