10 September 2026 — 7 March 2027

Maurizio Cattelan: NIGHT

Preis der Nationalgalerie 2026

The Neue Nationalgalerie presents NIGHT, the first major solo exhibition in Germany by the Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan. Selected by an international jury, Cattelan is the recipient of the 2026 Preis der Nationalgalerie, and the exhibition brings together key historical works and new commissions within Mies van der Rohe's iconic building. Among the seminal pieces on view are Him (2001), Novecento (1997), La Rivoluzione Siamo Noi (2000) and Untitled (2003), the last inspired by Günter Grass's novel The Tin Drum, shown alongside newly commissioned works. Together they trace concerns that run throughout Cattelan's practice: the tension between innocence and violence, the construction of identity, and the uneasy persistence of historical memory. At the heart of the exhibition is a new site-specific work conceived for the Neue Nationalgalerie. This commission sets in motion a far-reaching intervention into the museum's spatial framework. Through a careful transformation, the exhibition reshapes the way the building is used and experienced: familiar modes of display give way to an environment defined by gathering, reflection and attention, and the relationship between viewer, artwork and architecture shifts accordingly. Mies van der Rohe's architecture offers a setting in which these questions come into particularly sharp focus. The building itself becomes part of the exhibition, shaping how the works are seen and encountered. Presented in Berlin, NIGHT unfolds within a German context marked by layered histories and ongoing processes of remembrance. As these narratives continue to be revisited from one generation to the next, Cattelan's work enters a field in which images, symbols and forms of representation remain subject to active negotiation. Since the early 1990s, Maurizio Cattelan, born in Padua in 1960, has been one of the defining voices of international art. His work starts from images that seem familiar, even fixed, and shifts them just enough to unsettle their meaning. In doing so, it addresses subjects often considered difficult or off-limits – religion, childhood, authority and collective trauma passed down through generations. Moving between irony, exaggeration and restraint, his gestures engage established figures and forms and open them to fresh consideration, so that questions of memory, authorship and belief emerge through the encounter with the work. With NIGHT, Cattelan returns to Berlin, where twenty years ago he co-curated the 4th Berlin Biennale. The exhibition is curated by Lisa Botti, curator at the Neue Nationalgalerie, together with Klaus Biesenbach, director of the Neue Nationalgalerie, in close collaboration with the artist. Founded in 2000 by the FREUNDE der Nationalgalerie, the Preis der Nationalgalerie has over the past twenty-five years become one of Germany's most important awards for contemporary art, honouring artists who have gone on to leave a lasting mark on the national and international art scene. In 2026 the prize enters a new phase with its move into the iconic glass hall of the Neue Nationalgalerie, offering the awarded artist a unique opportunity to realise a focused and ambitious presentation. The new format reflects the Nationalgalerie's commitment to bringing significant art to Berlin.

Neue Nationalgalerie