Fujiko Nakaya: Fog Sculpture in the Sculpture Garden of the Neue Nationalgalerie

Due to the great public interest, the Neue Nationalgalerie is once again presenting Japanese artist Fujiko Nakaya's site-specific fog sculpture in its sculpture garden in 2026. Nakaya's fog sculpture plays monumentally and ephemerally with Mies van der Rohe's iconic architecture and opens up an intense dialogue between visitors and their immediate surroundings. Nakaya’s fog sculptures transcend traditional boundaries of sculpture by creating fleeting, borderless transformations that involve the audience and give atmospheric conditions a sculptural form. Her works invite visitors to engage with natural elements in real time—through site-specific, ephemeral experiences that blur the lines between nature and artistic expression. For the Neue Nationalgalerie, Nakaya has developed a new installation in 2025 that fills the entire sculpture garden. At regular intervals, different fog formations emerge from selected sides of the garden, blending with the trees and the permanent sculptures by Henri Laurens, Wolfgang Mattheuer, and Alicja Kwade, before slowly dissolving into the sky from the center of the garden. The moving fog appears in varying densities—at times as a nearly tangible volume, at others as a translucent veil. The Neue Nationalgalerie’s iconic architecture, designed by Mies van der Rohe and completed in 1968—just two years before Nakaya’s first fog sculpture—offers multiple vantage points from which to experience her work. The 90-meter-long glass façade on the museum’s collection level provides an impressive view of the ever-changing fog formations from inside. Visitors can also step directly into the garden from the collection area and immerse themselves in the fog.