If you’ve never managed to get past Berghain’s infamously selective bouncer, now’s your chance to finally gain entry to the most famous nightclub in Berlin - although art, rather than techno music, is what’s on offer.

Berghain teams up with Berlin-based artists

Like other nightclubs in cities across Germany, Berghain has been forced to keep its doors closed since the height of the coronavirus pandemic in mid-March. The hallowed halls of the 3.500-square-metre club, based in a former power station, have been silent for nearly six months. 

But that’s all about to change. Determined not to let the space sit empty and unused, Berghain has teamed up with private art collector Sammlung Boros to launch a new project - one that not only allows the club’s doors to open again, but provides a welcome platform for Berlin-based artists, who have also been particularly affected by the coronavirus crisis. 

Studio Berlin exhibition showcases lockdown works

From Wednesday, September 9, the works of 115 Berlin-based artists will be exhibited in the club under the title “Studio Berlin”. The socially-distanced exhibition includes photography, sculptures, paintings, drawings, video and sound installations, and performance pieces. 

The artists were not given any strict guidelines, only that their work should revolve around what they had been doing over the past few months. Berghain owner Norbert Thormann had just one strict condition: “It is clear that we are not only showing art by white, heterosexual men.” But since we’re talking about an art exhibition at Berghain, that shouldn’t come as a surprise. 

The exhibition will be spread across the dance floor, the Halle, the famous Panorama bar, and will even creep into the bathrooms. It is designed to be a “celebration of Berlin as a studio,” said Christian Boros, one of the exhibition’s organisers. The exhibition will continue indefinitely, with ticket sales financing the club’s future, until regular operations are allowed to resume.

Image credit: STUDIO BERLIN/Berghain, © Rirkrit Tiravanija, courtesy of neugerriemschneider