Exhibition programme 2025

Dear friends of arts and culture,

Sustainability is a central theme of our time and at the same time one of the greatest challenges of our future. With and through art and culture, the currently most important questions can be asked, visualized and negotiated. Not only scientists, but also numerous artists and designers are increasingly focusing on the transformational potential of their work with regard to sustainable future strategies. In 2025, we are manifesting this theme through exhibition projects in the fields of arts & science, cultural history and architecture. For example, we are looking at land restoration, alternative ways of living, buildings of the future, and exploring the world’s oceans. These themes are accompanied by many varied artistic and interactive or immersive installations in and around the Bundeskunsthalle.

We are very pleased to be able to give you a preview of the Bundeskunsthalle’s varied program for the coming year. A wide range of inspiring exhibitions and events are awaiting you!

The 2025 exhibition programme:

Save Land. United for Land​
December 6, 2024–June 1, 2025

Save Land. United For Land addresses the ecological restoration of land in close cooperation with the UNCCD (United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification). The immersive exhibition uses the latest media technology and combines exhibits from art, cultural history and natural science to understand the ecological problems and potentials of human-influenced environments.

Susan Sontag. Seeing and Being Seen​
March 14–September 28, 2025

Detached from the annual theme and right at the beginning of the new exhibition year—after Hannah Arendt, Simone de Beauvoir and Josephine Baker—the series on influential female personalities will be continued. Susan Sontag. Seeing and Being Seen is dedicated to the author, critic and public intellectual. The exhibition traces her theories and thoughts on photography and shows Sontag in her role as a film enthusiast and director, not least in order to portray her as an independent woman who has given herself a voice and was a power of speech throughout her life.

Para-modernism. Life Reform Movements From 1900 Onwards 
April 11–August 10, 2025

Beyond consumerist lifestyles and realities, the early life reform movements placed a return to nature and living in peace—alongside health, physical culture and spirituality—at the center of their activities. The exhibition sheds light on alternative lifestyles and their everyday culture and follows them through the 20th century. Where did the new perspectives lead and which ideals and ideas do we recognize in the Zeitgeist today?

WEtransFORM. New European Bauhaus and Beyond​
June 6, 2025–January 25, 2026

In keeping with the annual focus on ecological transformation, the Bundeskunsthalle is presenting an exhibition based on the concept of the New European Bauhaus, an EU Commission project to promote ecological, social and cultural sustainability. With WEtransFORM, the Bundeskunsthalle is turning this into an international exhibition and networking project on sustainable architecture and urban development. Save the date: The exhibition will kick off with a two-day festival on the first weekend of June 2025.

Wim Wenders 
August 1, 2025–January 11, 2026

Wim Wenders is coming to Bonn! To mark his 80th birthday on 14 August 2025, the Bundeskunsthalle is presenting the filmmaker and artist Wim Wenders in a major immersive and visually powerful exhibition. Wenders sees himself as a “traveler and only then as a director or photographer”. His complete artistic oeuvre is on display: his innovative cinematic narrative art, photographic works, collages and drawings, as well as his personal film library, posters and “electronic paintings”.

Expedition to the World’s Oceans
October 2, 2025–April 6, 2026

The oceans and seas are the largest contiguous habitat on our planet. As they store large amounts of heat and CO2, they have a significant influence on the weather and climate. The cultural-historical exhibition Expedition to the World’s Oceans focuses on exploring and discovering different facets of the maritime worlds and their transformation processes.

Live arts: dance, theatre, music, performance
When the exhibition doors close, the spotlights go on at live arts. The Bundeskunsthalle invites you to enjoy international productions of dance, theatre, music and performance. Italian choreographer Alessandro Sciarroni returns to the Bundeskunsthalle right at the beginning of the year, not only performing a new version of a historic Italian courtship dance, the polka chinata, with “Save the last Dance for me”, but also presenting a concert performance with Italian choral songs. In March 2025, the German-Taiwanese choreographer Fang Yun Lo will present a dance theatre piece about the protracted search for identity among young people from immigrant families. French singer, harpist and choir director Sophye Soliveau mixes African-American music, R&B, soul and gospel on the harp in a concert in April 2025.

Studio Bonn—talks
In 2025, the discourse program Studio Bonn is dedicated to the Bundeskunsthalle’s focus on ecological sustainability. The discussions deal with questions of change, innovation and transformation.

Together with the team of the Bundeskunsthalle, I invite you with our program to reflect, to exchange ideas, and to participate!

We are looking forward to your visit!

Yours sincerely,
Eva Kraus and the whole team of the Bundeskunsthalle

Director: Eva Kraus / Managing Director: Oliver Hölken / Press officer: Sven Bergmann, kommunikation [at] bundeskunsthalle.de.

Current exhibitions:

Mark Dion: Delirious Toys
A Wunderkammer of Toys
until February 9, 2025

Dance Worlds
until February 16, 2025

For the most up to date schedule, please go visit here.

Contact
Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, Museumsmeile Bonn, Helmut-Kohl-Allee 4, 53113 Bonn. T +49 228 9171 200 / info [at] bundeskunsthalle.de. Website here.