Image: Kunsthaus Dahlem, Berlin ; Gulnur Mukazhanova
Kunsthaus Dahlem will present ‘Jetztzeit – Layers of the Present’, the first institutional solo exhibition by Gulnur Mukazhanova in Berlin, from 4 July to 4 October 2026. The Berlin museum says the artist has developed a site-specific installation for the show, which is framed by Walter Benjamin’s notion of ‘Jetztzeit’ and asks how the past shapes the present and contemporary thought.
The exhibition brings together Mukazhanova’s textile work, photography and installation-based practice in a historical setting that the institution describes as itself marked by political and social upheaval. Kunsthaus Dahlem presents the project as an intervention in that space, with Mukazhanova’s textile approach meeting an architecture associated with shifting histories rather than a neutral display environment. The museum notes that the artist has lived and worked in Berlin for twenty years.
According to the exhibition text, Mukazhanova’s work develops from the tension between globalized realities and inherited ways of life, while also reflecting personal experience alongside social and political processes. Her practice centers on the connection between Central Asian traditions and approaches associated with conceptual art and abstraction. Recurring themes in her work include identity, migration and cultural change.
Material process is central to the installation. Kunsthaus Dahlem says Mukazhanova works particularly with felt, a material deeply rooted in nomadic craft traditions in Central Asia. In this exhibition, however, felt is presented less as a fixed cultural sign than as evidence of a bodily, intuitive method of making. Layer by layer, she builds up wool fibers to conceal and reveal, densify surfaces and create flowing transitions between one state and another.
The installation is described as expansive but fragile, spreading across floors and walls and remaining open to change. Its repeated almond-like form is linked in the exhibition text to snake eyes or scales and to the figure of the White Snake, which in Kazakhstan symbolically stands for ancestors and the persistence of the past. By drawing on orally transmitted mythological narratives, the installation sets up a space in which the present appears as an overlap of memory and collective experience.
The exhibition also includes a selection of earlier works by Mukazhanova, among them photographs, masks taken directly from the artist’s body and a video work. Kunsthaus Dahlem says these works provide insight into her personal history and artistic development, extending the exhibition’s focus on layering and transformation into questions of identity and selfhood.
The show is curated by Petra Gördüren of Kunsthaus Dahlem. The museum is located at Käuzchensteig 8–12 in Berlin and is open Wednesday to Monday from 11 am to 5 pm, with Tuesday closed.
