Fifth presentation

With works by: Tomma Abts, Lorenzo Amos, Ed Atkins, Oliver Bak, Adriano Costa, Grant Falardeau, Louis Fratino, Cyprien Gaillard, Salim Green, Lukas Heerich, Samuel Hindolo, Klára Hosnedlová, Brook Hsu, Kitty Kraus, Mire Lee, Benjamin Lallier, Klara Lidén, Conny Maier, Kresiah Mukwazhi, Jill Mulleady, Jonathan Okoronkwo, Silke Otto-Knapp, Rim Park, Jeremy Shaw, Pol Taburet, Sung Tieu, Paloma Varga Weisz

In a present where external order is increasingly felt to be unstable, our emphasis is shifting toward inner states. Withdrawal, interiority and psychological intensification are becoming defining tendencies in contemporary art. The fifth presentation of the Boros Collection begins precisely where external realities start to fracture.
 
Opening on May 3, 2026, as part of Gallery Weekend Berlin a new selection from the collection of Karen and Christian Boros will be presented. The exhibition showcases 27 contemporary positions across painting, sculpture, installation, and sound, the majority of which were recently acquired.
 
The fifth presentation spans across all five floors of the monumental bunker, covering approximately 3,000 square meters. It primarily features recent acquisitions from the past four years, which Karen and Christian Boros place in relation to works from the collection that have not previously been presented in a collection display.  Developed in close dialogue with the artists, the exhibition unfolds as a sequence of interconnected thematic settings that gradually coalesce into a coherent dramaturgy.
 
This narrative unfolds through positions that, despite their differences, share a common sensitivity: to transitional states, to transformation, and to conditions that remain unresolved—often articulated through introspective visual languages that reflect the shift from external realities toward inner states.
 
In the large-scale paintings of Pol Taburet and Conny Maier, these tendencies intensify into theatrically charged scenes, where distorted figures and eccentric colours create a feverish, almost epic atmosphere. The paintings of Oliver Bak and Samuel Hindolo temper this intensity through calmer, nebulous palettes. Their pictorial spaces are defined by an introspective, almost withdrawn atmosphere. Figures often appear merely as traces—recollected scenes that linger like after-images, refusing to settle. Similarly, in the work of Brook Hsu, images become carriers for fleeting residues: partially visible, partially withdrawn. Green ink seeps into and bleeds across her canvases, forming shapes that function like an atmospheric filter. Visibility here emerges as a fragile trace within the material—caught in transition.
 
These painterly positions are complemented by sculptural and installative works characterized by a precise and reduced formal language. Jill Mulleady spatially extends her practice through a large-scale glass octagon, whose reflections and lines of sight evoke questions of voyeurism, control, and violence. Sung Tieu works with austere, minimalist installations that draw on the functional-authoritarian aesthetics of bureaucratic systems. Here, materials, structures, and displays become repositories for history, power, control, and traces of violence.
 
Despite their differing approaches, all 27 positions share a striking intimacy. Many works exist in a state of transition: figures, spaces, and situations do not appear as fixed representations but as processes. What becomes visible is less an external world and more its echo within the body and the psyche.
 
These subtle shifts, repetitions, and transitions are further articulated through the collection’s conceptual logic. Since its inception, the collection has followed a principle of presenting bodies of work, not shown in isolation but as part of broader artistic contexts. This reveals the processes, decisions, and developments within artistic practices, offering deeper insights into individual positions across multiple spaces of the bunker.
 
The latest acquisitions are supplemented by focused expansions of existing artist positions, adding depth to individual bodies of work. Works by Klara Lidén, Cyprien Gaillard, and Klára Hosnedlová exemplify how materials function as repositories of time, wear, and historical inscription. In addition, a small selection of works from the collection are being shown for the first time, including pieces by Kitty Kraus, Tomma Abts, and Adriano Costa, creating cross-generational correspondences throughout the collection.
 
Many of the participating artists and their galleries are closely connected to Berlin. The city is therefore not just a backdrop but a central resonance site for the showcase.
 
The presentation is accessible to the public through 90-minute guided tours, led by the Boros Foundation’s mediation team. Tickets can be booked online and are released monthly on the Boros Collection website.

Boros Collection
The Boros Collection is a private collection of contemporary art owned by Karen and Christian Boros in Berlin. Since 2008, it has been housed in a former WWII bunker in Berlin-Mitte. The collection is presented in regularly changing presentations featuring international artists, often at pivotal moments in their artistic development. Central to the collection is the close collaboration with artists and galleries, as well as the presentation of groups of works that provide insight into artistic processes and developments. The collection is accessible to the public through guided tours.

Bunker Berlin
Since 2008, a listed former WWII bunker has served as the exhibition space of the Boros Collection. During its conversion, substantial quantities of steel-reinforced concrete were removed from numerous rooms with massive walls and ceilings. The bunker’s original sense of enclosure was disrupted by merging several floors. As a result, high spaces now interrupt the originally symmetrical layout, opening up new sightlines. For the current presentation, additional wall surfaces have been stripped of paint to further reveal traces of the building’s history.

Boros Foundation
The Boros Foundation is a non-profit organization based in Berlin. It oversees the exhibition program of the Boros Collection and makes it publicly accessible through guided tours. In addition to presenting and mediating contemporary art, the foundation supports the realization of new works and artist publications, thereby supporting both emerging and established international artists. Since 2022, the Boros Foundation is under the direction of Raoul Zoellner.