Sophie Calle will explore the fragile line between personal memory and collective history at Hamburger Bahnhof

French conceptual artist Sophie Calle will open Is It Better?, her first solo exhibition in Berlin in over 20 years, at Hamburger Bahnhof – National Gallery of Contemporary Art, running from November 13th, 2026 to April 4th, 2027. Spanning six bodies of work across three decades, the exhibition examines memory, loss and the passage of time through photography, text, installation and video. Coinciding with the museum’s 30th anniversary, it also features a new work created for the occasion and donated to its collection.

The traces of what remains

The exhibition centres on The Detachment, a series Calle created in Berlin in 1996 and now part of the museum’s collection. Its twelve photographs capture public spaces stripped of symbols of the former German Democratic Republic after reunification. Accompanying testimonies from passers-by preserve fragments of personal memory, revealing how a city’s history lingers in the recollections of those who witnessed its change.

Another highlight, Les fantômes d’Orsay (2022), returns to Berlin after its debut at Paris’s Musée d’Orsay. Between 1978 and 1981, Calle spent almost every day in Room 501 of an abandoned hotel housed in the former Gare d’Orsay. The building later became an art museum, echoing the history of Hamburger Bahnhof. Through found objects, photographs and texts, the installation evokes the former occupants and the stories concealed within the deserted rooms.

Calle’s practice draws on autobiography and documentary observation, approaching intimate subjects with melancholy, dark humour and an instinct for the unexpected. Born in Paris in 1953, she works across photography, text, performance and video, probing voyeurism, surveillance, love, intimacy, violence and death. Her work has been exhibited at the Centre Pompidou, Tate Britain and the Musée Picasso. In 2007, she represented France at the Venice Biennale.

Curated by Hamburger Bahnhof director Sam Bardaouil and museum curator Lisa Hörstmann, Is It Better? is part of the institution’s anniversary programme. An accompanying catalogue will be published by Silvana Editoriale. The anniversary weekend, from November 13th to 15th, will feature performances, concerts and an international conference on the future of contemporary collection museums. The exhibition is supported by Hamburger Bahnhof International Companions e. V. and the Alexander Tutsek Foundation.