by Carolina Sculti // May 5, 2026
We made a well-sequenced Gallery Weekend route through Schöneberg, dressed only slightly differently than usual to feel like tourists and well-prepared to experience the once-per-year saturation of openings along with the buzz that surrounds them.
Each neighborhood takes on the feel of a festival, with galleries scattered within a 10-minute walking distance of one another. Fellow Gallery Weekend-goers move like traffic on a two-lane road, heading either toward or away from each cluster of shows, their faces marked by either anticipation or satisfaction. The communality and warmth of a day-long Sunday tour mark the return of spring, and the life, creativity and art it carries forward into Berlin’s high-energy wave of summer.
Die Tankstelle // Photo by Roman März, © the artist, courtesy Galerie Judin, Berlin
Our first stop was Die Tankstelle, where Galerie Judin opened Adam Lupton’s ‘Too Sure of the Sun.’ The space—a restored 1950s petrol station—has been reworked into a two-part venue: outside, a café under a red canopy with a small garden; inside, a two-story, light-filled gallery.
Lupton’s paintings center on himself and fragments of his domestic life, creating an atmosphere that feels distinctly intimate. He often appears lying prone or staring blankly, surrounded by markers of his personal environment—to-do lists, kitchen table remnants, bathroom tiles or beauty products—that, despite their mundanity, map a very specific inner world. His work is defined by two visually intense elements: a restricted blue-and-red palette and a precise use of contrasting textures—blotchy skin, geometric carpet, filtered light, wood grain—that create a visual coherence while anchoring us in raw, personal detail. A moving first stop, and easily one of the most memorable of the day.
Adam Lupton: ‘Too Sure of the Sun,’ 2026, installation view at Galerie Judin (Die Tankstelle) // Photo by Roman März, © the artist, courtesy Galerie Judin, Berlin
From there, we turned the corner to Galerie Molitor, which is presenting a solo exhibition by Ketuta Alexi-Meskhishvili. The space was filled with large-scale chromatic prints that read as analog at first glance, but were in fact entirely process-driven and cameraless, using a combination of aluminum dye sublimation and C-prints, beginning from the artist’s Instagram screenshots. The show was a sharp contrast to Lupton’s hyper-personal, stylistically graphic presentation at Die Tankstelle. Here, Alexi-Meskhishvili hones in on the ambiguity of the female form, with a practice that obscures the self and reality rather than revealing it. On our way out of the exhibition, it struck me that the beauty in the accessibility of Gallery Weekend lies in how meaning carries from one show to another.
Ketuta Alexi-Meskhishvili: ‘Georgia, 2026,’ installation view at Galerie Molitor, Berlin // Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Molitor, Berlin, photo by Marjorie Brunet Plaza
We continued on to Schiefe Zähne, where Lukas Quietzsch’s third solo exhibition, ‘The Appeal of Individualism,’ was installed in a residential apartment building. There was no signage outside, just a name on the bell, and we climbed three floors of a beautiful old staircase before entering directly into the space.
At the entrance, the artist stood sipping a cappuccino, with exhibition texts and publications laid out on a kitchen counter beside the coffee pot. The exhibition text was especially visually intense, written as an experimental narrative around the tension of being one among many, while also being singular. This idea carries into his large-scale abstract paintings, where figure and background never fully separate. And the process adds to this looseness: Quietzsch paints using teddy bears instead of brushes, adding a sense of play that runs through the work. It was a refreshing change of pace; intimate, playful and sincere, shaped as much by the exhibition setting as by the work itself.
Lukas Quietzsch: ‘The Appeal of Individualism’ // Courtesy of the artist and Schiefe Zähne
After our first three stops, we moved into the center of the action in Schöneberg: Mercator Höfe, a dense courtyard complex on Potsdamer Straße housing several major galleries. Within a single building, you can move between multiple floors of exhibitions in one visit: an abstract, minimalist Giorgio Griffa retrospective, a hyper-real contemporary painting show and mixed installations spanning video, sculpture and painting. Across the courtyard, coffee stands, music and scattered queues filled the space, with people circulating between openings. You could take the elevator up to Esther Schipper, join the line forming at Max Goelitz’s gallery or head into Galerie Judin’s large-scale, color-blocked exhibition space.
José Montealegre: ‘Drastic Measures,’ 2026, installation view at Galerie Thomas Schulte // Photo by GRAYSC.DE, courtesy of the artist and Galerie Thomas Schulte, Berlin
A standout was the show at Galerie Thomas Schulte, José Montealegre’s ‘Drastic Measures,’ also installed on a second-floor space that, similar to Schiefe Zähne, felt closer to a living space interior than a traditional gallery. The show brought together sculptures and works on paper, each toeing the line between fragility and force. In the center of the exhibition lay an empty suit of armor made of hammered steel shells (measured to the artist’s own body), alongside neatly arranged bouquet-like metal forms and a series of wall drawings reminiscent of medieval fresco preparation techniques. What felt unique about this exhibition was the way it addressed contemporary concerns through a distinctly medieval visual language—an aesthetic you don’t often encounter in contemporary art.
Jorinde Voigt: ‘Non Fiction,’ 2026, installation view at Galerie Judin // © Jorinde Voigt / VG Bild-Kunst, photo by Trevor Good, courtesy Galerie Judin, Berlin
Our final exhibition of the day at Galerie Judin brought us back to where we started, ending with a show at the gallery’s main space. This time it was Jorinde Voigt’s solo exhibition, ‘Non Fiction.’ The space itself is impressive: each room painted in deep, saturated tones of blue, purple, teal or pink, shifting the atmosphere as you move through it. Voigt’s large-scale works on paper, made with ink and pastel, are at once expansive and intricately detailed; you can’t tell whether you’re looking at something cellular, bodily or vast and atmospheric. The works hold a strange oscillation between immensity and closeness, evoking a familiarity and, with it, a lingering mysteriousness.
Though it is impossible to fully take in the sprawl of Gallery Weekend in one route, ours delivered, offering a renewed sense of how meaning can be created and carried through sequence, proximity and community.
Exhibition Info
Galerie Judin – Die Tankstelle
Adam Lupton: ‘Too Sure of the Sun’
Exhibition: May 1-June 14, 2026
galeriejudin.com
Bülowstraße 18, 10783 Berlin, click here for map
Galerie Molitor
Ketuta Alexi-Meskhishvili: ‘Georgia’
Exhibition: May 2-June 19, 2026
galeriemolitor.com
Kurfürstenstraße 143, 10785 Berlin, click here for map
Schiefe Zähne
Lukas Quietzsch: ‘The Appeal of Individualism’
Exhibition: May 1-June 26, 2026
schiefe-zaehne.com
Potsdamer Str. 103/2. Floor, 10785 Berlin, click here for map
Galerie Thomas Schulte
José Montealegre: ‘Drastic Measures’
Exhibition: May 1-June 6, 2026
galeriethomasschulte.com
Potsdamer Str. 81B, 10785 Berlin, click here for map
Galerie Judin
Jorinde Voigt: ‘Non Fiction’
Exhibition: May 1-June 6, 2026
galeriejudin.com
Potsdamer Str. 83, 10785 Berlin, click here for map
