Hamburger Bahnhof to Open Lina Lapelytė’s Participatory Chanel Commission in Berlin
Berlin’s Hamburger Bahnhof — Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart will open a major new commission by Lithuanian interdisciplinary artist Lina Lapelytė (b. 1984) on May 1, 2026, placing performance, sculpture, and collective participation at the center of one of the city’s most visible art weekends. Titled We Make Years Out of Hours (2026), the project is the second Chanel Commission at the museum and will remain active through January 10, 2027, with performances scheduled on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. A public preview is set for April 30.
Lapelytė’s installation transforms the museum’s former train hall into a field of construction and listening. The work is built from 400,000 small wooden cubes, arranged in orderly stacks and scattered piles that visitors are invited to rearrange into temporary structures. Rather than treating the hall as a neutral container, the project turns it into a shared environment shaped by touch, movement, and duration.
Sound is central to the commission. A libretto threaded through the space draws on poems by Lebanese artist Etel Adnan, Vietnamese American poet Ocean Vuong, and Palestinian writer Maḥmūd Darwīsh, with themes of community, love, loss, and hope. At scheduled moments, a dozen performances animate the installation, building and singing alongside visitors in what the museum describes as a meditation on collective force.
The commission arrives as Hamburger Bahnhof marks its 30th anniversary. In a statement, co-directors Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath said the work reflects the institution’s commitment to “community, participation, and inclusion,” and argued that Lapelytė’s project asks what a museum can be beyond display: a site of encounter, shared authorship, and collective imagination.
Chanel’s Yana Peel framed the commission in similarly expansive terms, describing it as part of the Chanel Culture Fund’s support for ambitious work that can engage audiences across generations and cultures. The first Chanel Commission at Hamburger Bahnhof was awarded to Czech artist Klára Hosnedlová for embrace.
For Berlin Gallery Weekend, the project offers a pointed reminder that some of the most resonant contemporary art now unfolds not as an object to be viewed from a distance, but as a structure of attention built in real time.
