BERLIN.- The Neue Nationalgalerie is presenting a new site-specific fog sculpture by Japanese artist Fujiko Nakaya in its sculpture garden – a work that is both monumental and ephemeral, engaging with the iconic architecture of Mies van der Rohe.


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“In 1970, Fujiko Nakaya made a lasting impact on art history with her famous fog sculptures”, says Klaus Biesenbach, Director of the Neue Nationalgalerie. ‘We are particularly grateful that 55 years after this important innovation and ground breaking new form of sculpture, Nakaya is engaging with the equally influential architecture of Mies van der Rohe and giving us a new perspective on how to look at the sculpture garden of the Neue Nationalgalerie.”

Fujiko Nakaya was born in 1933 in Sapporo, Japan. In the 1960s, she gained recognition as a member of the New York-based collective Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.), and later achieved international acclaim for her immersive fog sculptures. Her first fog sculpture was created for the Expo World’s Fair in Osaka in 1970, using a system that generates pure water fog.

Nakaya’s fog sculptures transcend traditional boundaries of sculpture by creating fleeting, borderless transformations that involve the audience and give atmospheric conditions a sculptural form. Her works invite visitors to engage with natural elements in real time—through site-specific, ephemeral experiences that blur the lines between nature and artistic expression.

For the Neue Nationalgalerie, Nakaya has developed a new installation that fills the entire sculpture garden. At regular intervals, different fog formations emerge from selected sides of the garden, blending with the trees and the permanent sculptures by Henri Laurens, Wolfgang Mattheuer, and Alicja Kwade, before slowly dissolving into the sky from the center of the garden. The moving fog appears in varying densities at times as a nearly tangible volume, at others as a translucent veil.

The Neue Nationalgalerie’s iconic architecture, designed by Mies van der Rohe and completed in 1968—just two years before Nakaya’s first fog sculpture - offers multiple vantage points from which to experience her work, The 90-meter-long glass facade on the museum's collection level provides an impressive view of the ever-changing fog formations from inside. Visitors can also step directly into the garden from the collection area and immerse themselves in the fog. The fog sculpture is activated for approx. 10 minutes every hour between 11 am and 5 pm. On Thursdays, it is activated hourly between 11 am and 7 pm.

“Fujiko Nakaya’s fog sculptures not only create an intense dialogue with their immediate surroundings, but also with the visitors themselves,” says curator Lisa Botti. “Shaped by the atmosphere and sculpted by the wind, they change their form from moment to moment – a physical experience that, quite literally, envelops you in fog and can reduce visibility to just a few centimeters. Since the sculpture garden of the Neue Nationalgalerie resembles a kind of hortus conclusus, there is no escaping the sculpture, nor can it be viewed from a distance – on the contrary: you become part of it.”

Fujiko Nakaya, daughter of physicist Ukichiro Nakaya—renowned for his pioneering research on snow crystals—has collaborated throughout her career with artists from a wide range of disciplines, including architecture, music, dance, lighting design, and video art. She studied at Northwestern University in the United States and later at the Sorbonne Institute in Paris.

Nakaya has received numerous prestigious awards, including the Praemium Imperiale (2018), the Australian Cultural Award (1976), the Special Prize of the Isoya Yoshida Award (1993), the Merit Award at the Japan Media Arts Festival (2008), the French Order Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres (2017), the Commissioner for Cultural Affairs Award (2020), the Person of Cultural Merit honor (2022), and the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon (2024). She has been a member of the Japan Art Academy since 2023.

Important exhibitions of her work have been held at Pong Ta Long, Thailand (2025), the Fondation Beyeler and the LUMA Foundation (2024–25), Haus der Kunst, Munich (2022), and the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (2019), among others.

The exhibition is curated by Klaus Biesenbach, Director of the Neue Nationalgalerie, and Lisa Botti, Curator at the Neue Nationalgalerie. Assistant curator: Nikola Richolt.


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