Nov. 4, 2025
Every month, Berlin Art Link shines a spotlight on international exhibitions and events with our list of Top Exhibitions. We want to highlight artists, galleries, museums and new projects touching on a variety of topics, employing multiple media and featuring diverse subjects. Below are some of the stand-outs that we’ve selected for the month of November.
Lagos Photo Biennial 2025
Group Show: ‘Incarceration’
Exhibition: Oct. 25-Nov. 29, 2025
lagosphotofestival.com
Various Venues in Lagos and Ibadan
This year, LagosPhoto Festival transitions from an annual to a biennial format, creating space for deeper reflection and broader impact. Under the artistic direction of Azu Nwagbogu, the inaugural LagosPhoto Biennial explores the theme ‘Incarceration,’ examining visible and invisible forms of captivity across personal, political and collective life. It reflects on how the carceral system relies on surveillance, policing and classification—processes rooted in visibility—and how photography’s supposed objectivity has historically served these ends. The biennial probes the forces that threaten subjugated people and considers how images can confront and reimagine carceral systems. Its expanded programming spans four venues in Lagos and Ibadan, featuring solo presentations, artist collaborations, institutional exhibitions, screenings and talks. Participating artists include Ayobami Ogungbe, Geremew Tigabu, César Dezfuli, Stefan Ruiz, Yagazie Emezi, Nuotama Bodomo, Shirin Neshat and Sharbendu De, among others, whose diverse practices test photography as a tool for both freedom and control within and beyond colonial visual frameworks.
César Dezfuli: ‘Amadou S.’ from the series ‘Passengers’ // Courtesy of the artist and AAF
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
‘in situ: Mark Leckey. And the City Stood in its Brightness’
Exhibition: Nov. 14, 2025-Apr. 12, 2026
guggenheim-bilbao.eus
Abandoibarra Etorb., 2, 48009 Bilbao, Spain, click here for map
Mark Leckey has built an influential practice around the way technology and pop culture shape our lives, and his upcoming exhibition in Bilbao promises an immersive dive into that eclectic world. As the second chapter of the Museum’s ‘in situ’ series—a program that invites artists to create site-specific works in dialogue with the gallery’s architecture—the show is set to fill the exhibition spaces with Leckey’s signature mix of sound, sculpture and moving images. Leckey, a Turner Prize winner known for cult works like ‘Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore’ (1999), has long explored themes of youth, class and nostalgia through found-object art and video assemblage. Here, he draws on a multiplicity of sources from underground music to internet ephemera, channeling them into a new site-specific installation. Expect an environment that blurs club culture with gallery space, as the artist’s multimedia alchemy probes the magic and mundanity of modern life. Both playful and critical, ‘in situ: Mark Leckey’ looks to capture the fleeting “now” in all its haunted, hyper-mediated glory.
Mark Leckey: ‘GreenScreenRefrigerator,’ 2010, Samsung RFG293HABP Bottom Freezer Refrigerator, LED panel, inflatable nylon fluorescent light, DuPont Freon canister, and video (color, sound), installation view at MoMA, New York, The Jill and Peter Kraus Media and Performance Acquisition Fund // Photo by Pablo Enriquez, courtesy of the artist, Cabinet Gallery London, and MoMA PS1, © Mark Leckey, Bilbao 2025
Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogota
Su Hui-Yu: ‘La Saga Total (A Total Story)’
Exhibition: Oct. 23, 2025-Feb. 15, 2026
mambogota.com
Cl. 24 #6-00, Bogotá, Colombia, click here for map
‘La Saga Total’ marks the first solo exhibition in the Americas by Taiwanese artist Su Hui-Yu at MAMBO. The exhibition features ‘The Trio Hall,’ an immersive installation that transforms the museum into a live film set, blending performance, technology and real-time media. Su’s practice reimagines Taiwanese cult cinema and historical archives using tools like deepfake and digital manipulation to critique patriarchal and colonial structures through a queer lens. The show also includes video works, photographs and archival materials, creating a multilayered narrative that dissolves linear time and power hierarchies, offering a vivid, critical reimagining of memory, identity and resistance.
Su Hui-Yu: ‘La Saga Total (A Total Story),’ exhibition view, Bogotá Museum of Modern Art – MAMBO, 2025 // Photo by Juan Yaruro, courtesy of the Bogotá Museum of Modern Art – MAMBO
MOCA Toronto
Jeff Wall: ‘Photographs 1984–2023’
Exhibition: Oct. 19, 2025-Mar. 22, 2026
moca.ca
158 Sterling Rd #100, Toronto, ON M6R 2B7, Canada, click here for map
MOCA Toronto presents Jeff Wall’s first major Canadian display in over 25 years and his first in Toronto in 35 years. The exhibition, spanning all three floors of the museum, traces four decades of Wall’s pioneering work in photography, from large-scale light boxes to color and black-and-white prints. Visitors will encounter a dynamic exploration of Canadian life, social narratives and the tension between fiction and reality, framed with Wall’s meticulous attention to scale, texture and composition. From his early portraits of children to trademark images that confront social marginalization and dignity, his work stages scenes of beauty and unease. This comprehensive presentation affirms Wall’s enduring influence on contemporary photography and invites audiences to engage deeply with Canada’s visual and cultural landscape.
‘Jeff Wall Photographs 1984–2023,’ installation view, MOCA Toronto, 2025 // Photo by LF Documentation, © Jeff Wall
Wiels
Nairy Baghramian: ‘nameless’
Exhibition: Oct. 25, 2025-Mar. 1, 2026
wiels.org
Av. Van Volxem 354, 1190 Forest, Belgium, click here for map
Nairy Baghramian’s exhibition ‘nameless’ brings together several previously unseen bodies of work in dialogue with Wiels’ post-industrial architecture. Through sculpture, installation, photography and drawing, the artist has developed a practice defined by the interplay of diverse visual languages—from biomorphic structures to design and industrial forms. Her widely recognized sculptural work investigates form, function and production within sociopolitical contexts, drawing from dance, fashion, theater and interior architecture. Inspired by avant-garde artists such as Katarzyna Kobro, Jean Arp, Isamu Noguchi and Wols, who fled Europe in the 1930s and created under exile, ‘nameless’ examines the forces that shape the displacement and statelessness of sculptures and objects. Baghramian reflects on the precarious condition of such works, conjuring the need for a condition of existence for them “outside” the rigidity of language, codes and names—a concern that resonates beyond the geopolitical crises of the present.
Nairy Bagrahmian: ‘nameless,’ 2025, installation view at Wiels // Photo by Eline Willaert
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza
John Akomfrah: ‘Listening All Night To The Rain’
Exhibition: Nov. 4, 2025-Feb. 8, 2026
tba21.org
P.º del Prado, 8, Centro, 28014 Madrid, Spain, click here for map
John Akomfrah’s art films and multi-screen video installations explore themes of racial injustice, colonial legacies, diasporic identities, migration and climate change. Conceived for the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, ‘Listening All Night To The Rain’ reimagines his most ambitious and experimental work to date, originally commissioned for the British Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale. The exhibition takes its title from an 11th-century poem by Chinese writer Su Dongpo, written during his political exile and reflecting on life’s transience. Through a series of multi-channel film and sound installations, Akomfrah continues his exploration of postcolonialism, ecology and aesthetics, with a particular focus on the sonic. Water recurs as a unifying element linking the vast geopolitical and emotional landscapes he examines. Through layered archival footage and theatrical staging, the artist transforms the act of listening into a poetic and political gesture.
John Akomfrah: ‘Canto VII: Listening All Night To The Rain,’ 2024, British Pavilion // Photo by Jack Hems
Irish Museum of Modern Art
Cecilia Vicuña: ‘Reverse Migration: A Poetic Journey’
Exhibition: Nov. 7, 2025-July 5, 2026
imma.ie
Military Rd, Kilmainham, Dublin 8, D08 FW31, Ireland, click here for map
‘Reverse Migration: a Poetic Journey’ is Chilean-born artist, poet and activist Cecilia Vicuña’s first solo exhibition in Ireland at IMMA. Drawing on the discovery of her ancestral ties to the country, the exhibition interweaves Andean and Irish cultural traditions to explore ancestry, ecological responsibility and interconnectedness. At its center is a monumental site-specific quipu—an ancient Andean system of knotted cords—created with local collaborators, evoking patterns reminiscent of the textured, cable-knit designs traditionally found in Aran sweaters from Ireland’s west coast. Spanning visual art, poetry, sound and performance, Vicuña’s multidisciplinary practice transforms the galleries into immersive spaces that invite reflections on survival, transformation and collective action in the face of environmental and social challenges.
Cecilia Vicuña: ‘Pala abra (Word: Shovel to Open Reality),’ 1976/2022, appliquéd nylon, 114.3 x 152.4 cm, edition of 4, 1 AP // © 2025 Cecilia Vicuña
The Photographers’ Gallery
Boris Mikhailov: ‘Ukrainian Diary’
Exhibition: Oct. 10, 2025-Feb. 22, 2026
thephotographersgallery.org.uk
16-18 Ramillies St, London W1F 7LW, UK, click here for map
Boris Mikhailov’s ‘Ukrainian Diary’ presents a major retrospective of the artist’s decades-long engagement with Ukraine’s social and political landscape. Mikhailov’s photography blends stark realism with moments of humor and provocation, capturing the complexities of life in the Soviet Union and the aftermath of its collapse. The exhibition explores themes of identity, power and resistance, revealing both vulnerability and resilience in everyday life. Viewed in the current context of the ongoing war in Ukraine, the work resonates with renewed urgency, inviting international audiences to reflect on memory, survival and the enduring human spirit amid social and political upheaval.
Boris Mikhailov: from the series ‘National Hero,’ 1991 // © Boris Mikhailov, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, courtesy Boris and Vita Mikhailov
Lenbachhaus
Group Show: ‘Shifting the Silence’
Exhibition: Oct. 14, 2025-Dec. 6, 2026
lenbachhaus.de
Luisenstraße 33, 80333 Munich, click here for map
‘Shifting the Silence’ at Lenbachhaus draws its title from Etel Adnan’s final book, published in 2021, in which she reflects on aging, grief and the universal experience of facing death. The exhibition centers on the difficulty of fully verbalizing works of visual art and making them tangible. It features an entire room of the artist’s own paintings, alongside works by artists such as Saâdane Afif, Leilah Babirye and Candida Höfer. Linguization, defined as the translation of artworks and aesthetic experiences into words and language, poses a challenge. While an essential means of communication, it can often be a hindrance in attempting to convey nuanced impressions and complex perceptions. Adnan’s concept of “shifting” silence—expanding the boundaries of what can be articulated—serves as a guiding principle for the exhibition, inviting visitors to contemplate the ineffable dimensions of artistic expression.
Candida Höfer: ‘Haus der Wirtschaft Köln,’ 1999 // Courtesy of Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau München / Lenbachhaus Munich, Schenkung Jörg Johnen / Donation Jörg Johnen, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025
