HAMBURG.- The recent survey presented by Carsten Brosda, State Minister (Senator) and head of the Hamburg Authority for Culture and Media, revealed that the Hamburger Kunsthalle is successfully fulfilling its claim to be a museum for everyone: With 26% of visitors aged between 20 and 30, the largest age group among its guests, the Kunsthalle has a very young audience. The average age of the museum’s visitors is 46 years, which is significantly younger than the average audience of Hamburg’s cultural institutions. Our visitors are more likely to have a migrant biography and generally have a middle rather than a high income. So much on stereotypes about museums.

The 2025 programme will be centered around three major special exhibitions:

The first exhibition, ILLUSION, already opened on 5 December 2024, and is our major special exhibition of the winter. With the subtitle Dream – Identity – Reality, the exhibition critically questions the reliability of perception and the concept of reality itself, using 150 works from 500 years of art history up to the present. Against the backdrop of fake news and artificial intelligence, the question of the clarity of images takes on new urgency and relevance (6 December 2024 to 6 April 2025).

The second major special exhibition, RENDEZVOUS OF DREAMS. Surrealism and German Romanticism, is an exciting homage to Surrealism, spanning from the Hubertus-Wald-Forum to the Kuppelsaal (the domed rotunda). It is presented in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Surrealist Manifesto. Over 180 Surrealist icons by Max Ernst, Meret Oppenheim, René Magritte, Salvador Dalí, Valentine Hugo, Toyen, André Masson, Victor Brauner, Paul Klee and many others will meet up with around 60 Romantic masterpieces by artists including Caspar David Friedrich and Philipp Otto Runge. The exhibition features around 250 paintings, drawings, photographs, sculptures and objects, including exceptional loans. These range from world-famous pieces to some never-before-shown works from over 70 private and public collections (13 June to 12 October 2025).

The third outstanding exhibition of the year will be an extensive retrospective of the work of artist ANDERS ZORN (1860–1920). Circa 1900 the Swedish superstar was one the world’s most famous artist – two US Presidents and various members of high society commissioned him to paint their portrait. Zorn visited Hamburg in 1891 at the invitation of Kunsthalle director Alfred Lichtwark and created several atmospheric views of the harbour, which are – next to some 150 paintings, watercolours, etchings and photographs – included in the exhibition (26 September 2025 to 25 January 2026).

In the Galerie der Gegenwart, the programme will be represented by three outstanding projects:

Exactly 50 years after the ominous disappearance of the artist at sea, the Hamburger Kunsthalle is mounting the large-scale exhibition BAS JAN ADER. I’m searching… Legendary among creatives, his 16mm films, slide installations, photographs and videos can now be discovered by a wider audience in an exceptional solo exhibition, along with extensive documentary material (11 April to 24 August 2025).

With EDI HILA | THEA DJORDJADZE a trans-generational dual exhibition presents the works of two major artists from Albania and Georgia – both countries with a communist past linked to Soviet Union and to Eastern Europe and Western Asia history (25 April to 5 October 2025).

Time & the Tiger showcases the diverse work of one of the most innovative international artists HO TZU NYEN (*1976). On display are seven large installations respectively immersive multimedia installations by the Singaporean artist that are rooted in Southeast Asian culture, drawing on historical events, documentary footage, art history, music videos and mythical tales (21 November 2025 to 12 April 2026).

ART AROUND 1800. An Exhibition about Exhibitions revisits the legendary exhibition cycle of that name at the Hamburger Kunsthalle. Presented in nine parts from 1974 to 1981, the series examined the impact of art in the »Age of Revolutions«, launching seminal debates on the social relevance of art that continue to resonate today (5 December 2025 to 29 March 2026).

The youngest artist to be featured throughout the year 2025 will be the current award winner of the Horst Janssen Graphic Art Prize of the Claus Hüppe Foundation, FEDELE MAURA FRIEDE (*1997). In her exhibition the hem comes undone works on paper, texts, and large-scale paintings will be presented (28 March to 7 September 2025).

To mark the 100th anniversary of the Griffelkunst-Vereinigung Hamburg e.V., the Hamburger Kunsthalle will show under the title And so on to infinity a broad selection of lithographs, screenprints, etchings, woodcuts, and also photographs and C-prints from the 100 years of the programme of this extraordinary graphics association that today counts 4,500 members throughout Germany (7 November 2025 to 8 February 2026).