It's Just a Matter of Time

All buildings hold the echoes of overlapping timelines within their walls. Every room, every crack in the façade, and every surrounding street bears traces of the lives they have sheltered and the moments they have witnessed. Strip away a layer of paint, and countless stories begin to surface. Similarly, art collections serve as guardians of time, holding within them the memories of generations and socio-political events. Through both the artworks they preserve and those they lack, collections document a present in flux.

Drawing on the layered history of the PalaisPopulaire, the exhibition It's Just a Matter of Time explores the confluence of temporalities. Once the palace of Prussian princesses, the building has undergone many transformations, evolving from a museum to a war ruin, and later becoming a GDR-era opera café that also served as a haven for the queer community. After years of standing vacant, it found new life in 2018 as an exhibition space for contemporary art.

Conceived as a contemplative journey, the show presents artistic positions from 1946 to the present day by placing historical and contemporary works from the Deutsche Bank Collection in dialogue with selected loans. Conveying a profound sense of absence, It's Just a Matter of Time fosters a reflection of how past narratives persist and intertwine with emerging realities.

Artists: Max Beckmann, Marianne Berenhaut, Ayşe Erkmen, Félix González-Torres, Shilpa Gupta, Cildo Meireles, Rachel Whiteread, and more.

Curated by Liberty Adrien & Carina Bukuts

Ayşe Erkmen, Balkanik, 2003 © Ayşe Erkmen