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until 04.09 | #5100ARTatBerlin | ARTES Berlin shows from Saturday, 18. July 2026, the exhibition BERLIN BERLIN by the artist Moritz Götze.
With the exhibition BERLIN BERLIN, Moritz Götze – one of the most significant figures in German Pop Art – returns to the capital to mark the 40th anniversary of his artistic career. The exhibition at ARTES Berlin is dedicated to a city that has accompanied and inspired the artist for decades, as a historic site, a cultural centre and a canvas for German identity.
Moritz Götze’s connection to Berlin lies not only in German history, but also in a series of significant projects in public spaces. Among other things, he created a large-scale enamelled wall installation for what was then the Federal Ministry of Economics. Furthermore, the city has repeatedly served as the venue for his exhibitions and remains, to this day, a central point of reference within his artistic universe.
“The eternally young city and pearl on the Spree” – Hildegard Knef once sang of Berlin as a place of longing. For Moritz Götze, too, Berlin is a place of memories, stories and cultural interconnections. Having grown up in an artistic household, shaped by punk, political opposition and the social upheavals of his generation, he developed his own distinctive path to painting through music and screen-printing. His works combine art-historical references with elements of popular culture, creating multi-layered visual worlds that bridge the past and the present.
He takes a particular interest in the visual media of everyday culture. These include postage stamps, which Götze regards as condensed repositories of history, memory and collective identity. In numerous works, he draws on the aesthetics of philatelic motifs, enlarging them or integrating characteristic elements such as perforations, denominations, portraits and historical symbols into his compositions. In this context, the postage stamp appears not merely as a graphic object, but as a cultural document that preserves political upheavals, national self-images and personal memories.
This motif takes on particular significance in the context of Berlin. For decades, the independent stamp issues produced by the Berlin branch of the German Federal Post Office reflected the unique political situation of the divided city and developed a distinctive visual language. Götze’s exploration of historical symbols, German narratives and visual carriers of memory builds on this tradition and translates it into the language of contemporary art.
In his works, stamps become visual archives of history – windows onto bygone eras, vessels of stories and symbols of a cultural identity that bridges East and West, past and present. By enlarging and artistically reinterpreting these seemingly mundane objects, Moritz Götze draws attention to their hidden meanings and reveals just how closely art, memory and history are intertwined.
The exhibition BERLIN BERLIN brings together key works and recent pieces by the artist, whilst also offering a multi-layered perspective on Berlin as a place of longing, a space of memory and a cultural symbol. A comprehensive catalogue accompanies the exhibition.
Vernissage: Saturday, 18. July 2026 5:00 – 8:00 pm
Exhibition dates: Saturday, 18. July 2026 to Friday, 4. September 2026
Title image caption: Courtesy of ARTES Berlin
Exhibition Moritz Götze – ARTES Berlin | Zeitgenössische Kunst Berlin – Contemporary Art | Exhibitions Berlin Galleries | ART at Berlin
