The PalaisPopulaire presents the Slovak artist’s first institutional solo exhibition in Germany. 

As part of the Deutsche Bank “Artist of the Year” program, the PalaisPopulaire will present Lucia Tallová’s exhibition Moving Clouds starting September 10, 2026. The exhibition will be on view through the end of the year and will also mark the culmination of the PalaisPopulaire’s program. For the artist, who was born in Bratislava in 1985, it is her first institutional solo exhibition in Germany.

Tallová works across painting, collage, sculpture, and installation. In her often-expansive compositions, she combines photographs, books, found objects, and sculptural elements to create multilayered visual worlds. Her practice explores memory, social change, the legacies of the twentieth century, and questions surrounding nature, power, and cultural heritage.

The title Moving Clouds evokes clouds as a symbol of change and transience. At the same time, it describes an inner movement: the experience of being touched by the world, by its beauty as well as its fractures and contradictions. Building on this idea, Tallová examines how social orders emerge, endure, and eventually disappear. 

Many of her collages and assemblages feature fragments of female bodies that merge with architecture, monuments, and relics of past cultures. In this way, the artist addresses the relationship between memory and power and asks what traces historical social orders have left behind to this day. 

“In a present shaped by digital images and the constant acceleration of information, Lucia Tallová places materiality, memory, and close observation at the heart of her practice,” says Britta Färber, Head of Art and Culture at Deutsche Bank and curator of the exhibition. “From ostensibly inconspicuous found objects, she develops new narratives about history, identity, and social change. It is precisely this deliberate counterpoint that gives her work such relevance today.”

Tallová’s practice draws on experiences shaped by Eastern Europe’s socialist past and the upheavals that followed the collapse of the Eastern Bloc. She sources her materials from flea markets, antiquarian bookstores, and archives: illustrated books, magazines, photographs, and art-historical publications. Through cutting, layering, folding, and recombining, she creates collages and objects that bring personal and collective memories together, expanding into  three-dimensional space and, ultimately, installations that can be entered.

Lucia Tallová was nominated by Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath, directors of Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart in Berlin and founders of the curatorial platform Art Reoriented. “Lucia Tallová combines personal memory, history, and material culture to create a distinctive artistic language. Her works open up new perspectives on the past and its significance for our present,” the two curators say in explaining their nomination.

Like a detective following clues, Lucia Tallová reassembles fragments from different times and contexts. The resulting works treat the past not as a closed chapter of history, but as something that continues to shape our present.

A publication accompanying the exhibition will be published at the end of October 2026. The program includes artist talks, guided tours, concerts, and readings. For more information, visit: palaispopulaire.db.com/program

Program during Berlin Art Week: The exhibition opens on September 9, 2026, at 7 pm. On September 10, 2026, at 5 pm, Lucia Tallová will discuss her work with Britta Färber. @berlinartweek

Farewell to the PalaisPopulaire: Moving Clouds will also be the final exhibition at the PalaisPopulaire. After eight years as a venue for art, culture, and exchange on Unter den Linden, the PalaisPopulaire will bid farewell to its visitors at the end of the year. Under the title “MerciPalais,” PalaisPopulaire invites you to a special weekend of art, talks, and events from November 21 to 22, 2026. The celebration will give Berliners and visitors to the city an opportunity to look back together on eight years of PalaisPopulaire and to say farewell to this unique cultural venue.