Pace Gallery to launch group exhibition 'Goodbye Sadness, Hello Sadness' in Berlin

Elmgreen & Dragset, "But I'm on The Guest List", 2007-15 © Elmgreen & Dragset / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

BERLIN.— Pace will present Goodbye Sadness, Hello Sadness, a group exhibition of paintings, sculptures, and photographs by an international group of twenty-seven artists, at its Berlin gallery from July 4 through August 23. As the centerpiece of the exhibition, a functioning replica of the artist Friedrich Kunath’s studio bar will be installed on gallery’s ground floor.

Artdaily Recommended · Paid Link

Elmgreen & Dragset: Spaces

By Yookyung Sohn

Explore Elmgreen & Dragset’s immersive installations, sculptural environments, architecture, and sharp reflections on contemporary life and public space.

See it on Amazon →

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

The bar will be open to the public from Thursday through Sunday, 5–10 p.m., each week during the show’s run. It is accompanied by a text from the writer and musician Timon Karl Kaleyta.

Goodbye Sadness, Hello Sadness takes its title from Bonjour Tristesse, the 1954 novel written by the then 18-year-old Françoise Sagan. The book’s hedonistic, carefree spirit—ultimately giving way to a disquieting loss of innocence—infuses the exhibition in Berlin, which coalesces around the nighttime as a setting for possibility and ambiguity.

The same phrase in two parts—Goodbye Sadness and Hello Sadness—can be found in neon red lights, bookending each end of Kunath’s bar. A private space within the artist’s Los Angeles studio, the architecture and contents of the bar have been reproduced in the shared space of the gallery. Around the installation, other works refer to symbols of evening entertainment. Elmgreen & Dragset’s sculpture, "But I'm on The Guest List" (2007-15), a door marked “VIP” that leads nowhere, and Flash (2025), a giant disco ball fly by Esben Weile Kjaer, both uncover charms of the nightclub as carriers of the subconscious.

Other works in the exhibition appear to formalize enigmatic inner states—fleeting emotions and impressions from across the threshold of day to night. In a painting by Lauren Quin, made for the exhibition, dense fields of gestural action appear to metabolize the canvas from the inside out. A new painting by Kylie Manning, who will present her first solo exhibition in the UK at Pace’s gallery in London this October, will also feature.

Goodbye Sadness, Hello Sadness includes work by:

Carolina Aguirre • Jürgen Baldiga • Norbert Bisky • Monica Bonvicini • Elmgreen & Dragset • Albrecht Dürer • Martin Eder • Leon Eisermann • Xie Fan • Gregor Hildebrandt • Okka-Esther Hungerbühler • Max Jahn • Esben Weile Kjaer • Friedrich Kunath • Alicja Kwade • Nadine Lohof • David Lynch • Kylie Manning • Andreas Mühe • Robert Nava • Trevor Paglen • Lauren Quin • Christian Rosa • Sally von Rosen • Jeremy Shaw • Pol Taburet • Tristan Unrau