Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart in Berlin has announced a significant three-year partnership with the Chanel Culture Fund to establish the Chanel Commission, an annual initiative designed to facilitate large-scale, innovative art installations.
The collaboration, set within the museum’s iconic 2,500-square-meter historic hall, aims to redefine the scope of public art commissions by offering a platform for ambitious projects that engage with “the complexities of contemporary life.” The inaugural commission, led by Berlin-based artist Klára Hosnedlová, will debut on May 1, 2025, during Berlin Gallery Weekend.
Hosnedlová’s installation, titled em-brace, represents her largest institutional solo exhibition to date. The work incorporates a diverse range of materials, including flax fibers, embroidery, cast glass, sandstone, and concrete, to create a utopian landscape that interacts with the monumental architecture of the museum. Featuring nine-meter-high tapestries and site-specific objects inspired by her performative interventions, the installation explores themes of belonging, utopia, and the human condition under changing political systems. The exhibition will run until October 26, 2025, and will be accompanied by a catalogue published by Silvana Editoriale Milano.
Originally a 19th-century train station, Hamburger Bahnhof has evolved into a premier contemporary art institution. Founded in 1996 the Bahnhof holds the Nationalgalerie’s art collection with works dated from 1960s and onwards with a special focus on new media and time-based works. Yana Peel, Chanel’s global head of arts and culture, said the collaboration is “one of the most ambitious Chanel Culture Fund projects to date, the commission gives artists at the vanguard an opportunity to push the boundaries of installation art and sculpture in the heart of Berlin.”
Last year, Chanel signed on to a partnership with Shanghai’s Power Station of Art “to restore the museum and enrich its collection and research capacity” and helped the Centre Pompidou add the work of 15 contemporary Chinese artists born from the late 1970s to the early ’90s into the museum’s permanent collection, expanding the museum’s collection of Chinese contemporary art by more than 20 percent.
