Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier opens Bellevue Palace for a special art exhibition before its renovation.
From June 13 to 28, 2026, the Academy of Arts, under the patronage of Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, will present a two-week pop-up gallery at Bellevue Palace. It will transform the official residence of the Federal President into a temporary venue for the arts.
As the seat of the head of state, Bellevue Palace is a symbol of our liberal democracy – and therefore not a neutral exhibition space. The artworks will be deliberately placed in a dynamic relationship with this location, which stands for liberal, democratic representation and political symbolism.
This unique exhibition is made possible because Bellevue Palace must be vacated before its renovation, and the Federal President is making the temporarily vacant spaces available to the arts. The building itself will become the actual exhibit. In its empty state, it will appear as a historical and political space. The artistic contributions will respond to this context. They can engage with it, shift its meaning, and open up new interpretations.
The following members of the Academy of Arts are among those participating in the exhibition: Rosa Barba, Monica Bonvicini, Jürgen Böttcher, Ayşe Erkmen, Jochen Gerz, Katharina Grosse, Bjørn Melhus, Boris Mikhailov, Karin Sander, Hanns Schimansky, Gregor Schneider, and Wolfgang Tillmans.
The project's initiators, Christian Awe, El Bocho, and Christopher Lehmpfuhl, are also involved.
The overall curatorship is by Anh-Linh Ngo, Vice President of the Academy of Arts, and Cécile Wajsbrot, Deputy Director of the Literature Section. The "Office of the Public Cause," curated by Academy President Manos Tsangaris, is an artistic and discursive format that sees itself as an open space in which artistic perspectives challenge societal polarization.
Further information about the program and the participating artists will be announced at a later date.
Bellevue Palace has been the official residence of the President of the Federal Republic of Germany since 1994. The neoclassical building, erected in 1786 in Berlin's Tiergarten, is one of the oldest surviving palaces in the city. It will be completely closed during the extensive renovation, which begins in the summer of 2026.
