Due to popular demand, the Neue Nationalgalerie is once again presenting the site-specific fog sculpture by Japanese artist Fujiko Nakaya in its sculpture garden this year. From April 30 to October 25, 2026, Nakaya’s fog sculpture will not only interact with the iconic architecture of Mies van der Rohe in a monumental yet ephemeral way, but will also open up an intense dialogue between visitors and their immediate surroundings, as well as with themselves.
Image avobe: Fujiko Nakaya, installation view, Neue Nationalgalerie, 2025, © Neue Nationalgalerie – Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz / David von Becker
Nakaya’s mist sculptures transcend the traditional boundaries of sculpture by creating temporary and boundless transformations that engage the audience and give malleable form to the atmosphere. Her works invite visitors to encounter the natural elements in real time—in fleeting, site-specific situations that dissolve the boundaries between nature and artistic creation.
For the Neue Nationalgalerie, Nakaya developed a new installation in 2025 that encompasses the entire sculpture garden. Various fog formations regularly emerge from selected areas of the garden, mingling with the trees and the stationary sculptures by Henri Laurens, Wolfgang Mattheuer, and Alicja Kwade, before finally drifting from the center of the sculpture garden into the sky. The moving fog appears in varying densities—sometimes as an almost tangible volume, sometimes as a translucent veil.
The iconic architecture of the Neue Nationalgalerie, designed by Mies van der Rohe and completed in 1968, just two years before Nakaya’s first fog sculpture, offers new perspectives on Nakaya’s work through its diverse sightlines. The 90-meter-long glass facade on the collection level provides an impressive view of the constantly changing fog formations from inside the building. Visitors can also immerse themselves directly in the fog from within the collection area. The fog sculpture is activated hourly between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. during regular opening hours. On Thursdays, it is activated hourly between 11 am and 7 pm.
Fujiko Nakaya was born in Sapporo, Japan, in 1933. In the 1960s, she gained recognition as a member of the New York-based collective Experiments in Arts and Technology (E.A.T.) and eventually achieved international fame for her immersive mist sculptures. She developed her first secondary sculpture for the 1970 World Expo in Osaka, using a system that generated pure water mist.
Nakaya has received numerous awards, including the Praemium Imperiale (2018), the Australian Cultural Award (1976), the Special Prize of the Isoya Yoshida Award (1993), the Merit Award of the Japan Media Arts Festival (2008), the French Order Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres (2017), the Prize of the Minister of Culture of Japan (2020), the title of Person of Cultural Merit (2022), and the Order of the Rising Sun (2024). She has been a member of the Academy of Fine Arts of Japan since 2023.
Important exhibitions have included those in Pong Ta Long, Thailand (2025), the Fondation Beyeler and LUMA Foundation (2025-24), the Haus der Kunst, Munich (2022) and the Guggenheim Bilbao (2019).
The exhibition is curated by Klaus Biesenbach, Director of the Neue Nationalgalerie, and Lisa Botti, Curator at the Neue Nationalgalerie. Assistant Curator: Nikola Richolt.
The exhibition is made possible by Birgit and Thomas Rabe.
WHEN?
Exhibition: Thursday, 30. April – Sunday, 25. October 2026
WHERE?
NEUE NATIONALGALERIE
Potsdamer Straße 50
10785 Berlin
