BERLIN.- “On the occasion of its 80th anniversary, Haus am Waldsee reflects on the constellation of conditions that has informed its history: it is a place, a social construct, and a spatial structure, which has shaped an artistic programme on the shores of the Waldsee for eight decades.

In the anniversary year of 2026, Haus am Waldsee will explore these historical interrelations of place, life, and art through a wide-ranging programme of exhibitions and events. At the same time, it looks ahead, understanding itself as an active agent of its own history – from which it continues to generate new artistic impulses for the present and for what is yet to come.” —Anna Gritz, Director

Gianna Surangkanjanajai: Open
February 20–May 25, 2026

Gianna Surangkanjanajai (b. in Cologne, lives in New York) works primarily in sculpture. She attends to situations in which form develops in relation to its surroundings. Her works draw on geometric structures, yet these figures appear less as fixed shapes than as points of departure. Often transparent, they hold substances sensitive to light, temperature, and gravity; the volumes gradually soften, shift, or become porous through material changes. Sculpture here withdraws from the certainty of objecthood and instead unfolds as a process, an arrangement that continually adjusts and remains open to external conditions.

This processual quality also informs the exhibition’s title, which changes over time: Upcoming in advance, Open during its run, and Closed after the exhibition has ended. For her exhibition at Haus am Waldsee, Surangkanjanajai has developed a new body of work that extends throughout the rooms of the house, along its architectural angles, passageways, and axes of light.

Curated by Beatrice Hilke

Rey Akdogan: Carousels
February 20–May 25, 2026

Rey Akdogan (b. Heilbronn, lives and works in New York) draws attention to the materials and processes that implicitly design our visual present. Her works move between projection, sculpture, and installation, frequently taking spatially oriented forms. She examines how affective spaces are produced and how colour, light, and material properties inform sensory experience. The materials she employs originate from commercial and scenographic contexts, such as lighting gels and Mylar. In these professional settings, they serve to direct vision and regulate attention. Akdogan releases the materials from these customary functions and integrates them into her works as formative, visible elements.

A central focus of the exhibition at Haus am Waldsee is Akdogan’s Carousel series, which she has been developing since 2010. Thin layers of printed plastics and packaging fragments are mounted in 35 mm slides and projected. With each rotation of the slide projector, colours shift, lines and structures find new alignments, textures dissolve. The projections are not based on photographic images but emerge from material superimpositions and excerpts that modulate over time. What was once familiar becomes enigmatic, and yet the work remains tied to its material origin.

For this exhibition, a large group of the Carousel works is presented for the first time. Together, their varying tempos and subtle rhythmic shifts fill the gallery spaces, forming a polyphonic installation.

Curated by Beatrice Hilke

Since…
Luciano Pecoits: Leidenschaftslose Mechaniken
February 20–May 25, 2026

The exhibition Leidenschaftslose Mechaniken by Luciano Pecoits (lives and works in Munich and Vienna) is the first chapter in the exhibition series Since…, developed to mark the anniversary of Haus am Waldsee.

In his practice, Pecoits uses archival materials and photographic processes to draw conclusions about the conditions of the material’s original context, and how these conditions continue to have an impact on our present. In doing so, he places particular emphasis on provenance research as a method of examining art and the origins and self-images of its institutions.

Pecoits’s newly commissioned works are the result of more than two years of research into the history of the Haus am Waldsee building. Based on administrative documents from the post-war years, such as files from restitution and denazification proceedings, the works trace a fine web of key figures and change of ownership. Accompanied by reproductions of the few preserved photographs of the building as a private residence, the artist reveals the extent to which the house was involved in political power structures and National Socialist networks, and how these connections remained influential throughout the post-war period and beyond.

The exhibition is presented in the café, the villa’s former garage, on a display architecture designed by Georgian curator and archivist Nina Akhvlediani (lives and works in Tbilisi), which allows for flexible forms of presentation. Leidenschaftslose Mechaniken is the first of three exhibition chapters that will be showcased on the display structure throughout the year. Developed by different artists, the exhibitions in the series highlight new perspectives on the history of the institution.

Curated by Anna Gritz, Pia-Marie Remmers