From 12 April 2025 to 15 March 2026, the staircase hall of the Neues Museum will be dominated by an extraordinary artistic presentation: with “Dioscuri — The Gift of a Day”, the German-British artist Michael Müller has created a space-filling painting that takes up and reinterprets the ancient myth of the twins Castor and Polydeuces. The Dioscuri, conceived in one night by different fathers, live between mortality and immortality and alternate daily between Olympus and Hades. Müller has created each section of his artwork in the actual respective hour of the day or night, thus capturing the two brothers’ eventful 24-hour experience in a visually stunning way.
The exhibition’s special dialogue format creates a link between past and present: the story of the Dioscuri not only inspired ancient artists, but also influenced 19th century classicism and the original design of the staircase hall. Eighty years after the monumental figures were destroyed in the Second World War, the Neues Museum, supported by the Egyptian Museum and the Alien Athena Foundation for Art, is reviving part of its history with a modern adaptation of this work. The presentation is complemented by exhibits from the Papyrus Collection, the Coin Cabinet and the Collection of Classical Antiquities as well as a varied accompanying programme with guided tours, readings, concerts and performances as part of the 200th anniversary of the Museum Island Berlin.
