18 July 2018

Highlights from 10. Berlin Biennale ‘We don’t need another hero’

Adam Przywara
Firelei Báez, for Marie-Louise Coidavid, exiled, keeper of order, Anacaona, 2018, oil on canvas, installation view, 10. Berlin Biennale, Akademie der Künste (Hanseatenweg), Berlin, courtesy Firelei Báez; Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago, photo: Timo Ohler
Highlights from 10. Berlin Biennale ‘We don’t need another hero’
Firelei Báez, for Marie-Louise Coidavid, exiled, keeper of order, Anacaona, 2018, oil on canvas, installation view, 10. Berlin Biennale, Akademie der Künste (Hanseatenweg), Berlin, courtesy Firelei Báez; Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago, photo: Timo Ohler
Last month the Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art opened its 10th edition to the public. For Blok Magazine Adam Przywara chooses highlights of this year’s edition.

This year’s biennale is curated by South African Gabi Ngcobo — an artist, educator and activist. Ngcobo is a founding member of Johannesburg collective platforms NGO – Nothing Gets Organised and Center for Historical Reenactments (CHR, 2010 – 2014). As an invited artist and in the framework of metioned projects, Ngcobo participated in the 5th and 8th edition of the biennale. While directing this edition she worked with a group of curators — Nomaduma Rosa Masilela (USA), Serubiri Moses (Uganda), Thiago de Paula Souza (Brazil), and Yvette Mutumba (Germany)  — presenting 46 artists in five venues around the city.

Curatorial statements, together with this led to a  visibly scaled down format can be read as a significant and deliberate response to the 2016 edition of the biennale, as well as a response to  controversies around last year’s documenta 14. This year’s exhibition exercises a possibility to invert tendencies strongly present in the global art world — to accelerate, inflate and exhaust. Refusing to produce the “heroic” narratives and frame artists in a homogeneous political message, the biennale  presents an array of works that differ from one another in form and quality. What follows, is a shortlist of works, which, while being complex and engaging by themselves, give an important insight into the whole of the exhibition.

Belkis Ayón

http://www.berlinbiennale.de/artists/b/belkis-ayon

Belkis Ayón, La consagración, 1991, © Estate de Belkis Ayón, Havana, photo: Jose A. Figueroa

Firelei Báez

http://www.berlinbiennale.de/artists/f/firelei-baez

Firelei Báez, Untitled (memory like fire is radiant and immutable), 2016, sketch for A motor with medical function 2, 2018, courtesy Firelei Báez; Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago

Tony Cokes

http://www.berlinbiennale.de/artists/T/tony-cokes

Tony Cokes, Black Celebration, 1988, courtesy Tony Cokes; Greene Naftali Gallery, New York; EAI, New York
Tony Cokes, installation view, 10. Berlin Biennale, ZK/U Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik, Berlin, courtesy Tony Cokes; Greene Naftali, New York; Electronic Arts Intermix, New York, photo: Timo Ohler

Sara Haq

http://www.berlinbiennale.de/artists/s/sara-haq

Sara Haq, Things I did that nobody noticed (but that changed everything), 2018, 35 drawings on Fabriano-paper, ink and/or pastel, installation view, 10. Berlin Biennale, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, courtesy Sara Haq, photo: Timo Ohler
Sara Haq, Trans:plant, 2018, reed, installation view (detail), 10. Berlin Biennale, Akademie der Künste (Hanseatenweg), Berlin, courtesy Sara Haq, photo: Timo Ohler

Lubaina Himid

http://www.berlinbiennale.de/artists/l/lubaina-himid

Lubaina Himid, from the series On the Night of the Full Moon, 2018, There could be an endless ocean, 2018, acrylic and pencil on paper, courtesy Lubaina Himid; Hollybush Gardens, London, photo: Timo Ohler
Lubaina Himid, installation view, 10. Berlin Biennale, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, from the series On the Night of the Full Moon, 2018, from let to right: Why are you looking?, 2018, So many dreams, 2018, all works acrylic and pencil on paper, courtesy Lubaina Himid; Hollybush Gardens, London, photo: Timo Ohler

*Publication

South As A State Of Mind #10: Maintenance

http://www.berlinbiennale.de/calendar/i-m-not-who-you-think-i-m-not-6-south-as-a-state-of-mind

 

Imprint

Exhibition10th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art
Place / venueAkademie der Künste; KW Institute for Contemporary Art; HAU Hebbel am Ufer; Volksbühne Pavilion; ZK/U – Center for Art and Urbanistics, Berlin
DatesJune 6 - September 6, 2018
Curated byGabi Ngcobo
Websitewww.berlinbiennale.de
Index

See also