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Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art
The Berlin Biennial is regarded as the most significant showcase of contemporary art and is the only biennial of its kind in Germany. Every two years leading curators venture out to discover less-established positions of recent contemporary art and offer them a presentation venue. The German capital is an ideal location for artistic exchange between East and West.
7th Berlin Biennial 2012
Internationally highly acclaimed artist Artur Żmijewski has been invited to develop and implement the concept of the 7th Berlin Biennale. Born in Warsaw in 1966, Żmijewski mainly works with social and political issues transformed into actions and films. Artur Żmijewski appointed the Voina group from Russia and Joanna Warsza from Warsaw as Associate Curators.
One of the first artists invited to participate in the 7th Berlin Biennale is Israeli-Dutch artist Yael Bartana, who will further develop her project of the “Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland” (JRMiP). Initiated by Bartana, the movement calls for the return of 3.300.000 Jews to Poland. Since its foundation in 2007 the JRMiP has spread internationally and has found many followers.
Governmental documents serve the explicit correlation of identity and affiliation. Palestinian artist Khaled Jarrar uses these attributes as samples for alternative models of identity. He created a stamp with which he stamps passports of travelers and pedestrians in Ramallah, Berlin, Paris and other cities since 2011. About 240 participants carry a stamp of the State of Palestine in their passport until this day. Jarrar is participating in the 7th Berlin Biennale with further aspect of the project that uses another official sign: postage stamps. In utilizing the Deutsche Post AG service called “individual stamp”, the artist produced stamps for the State of Palestine to be used in the regular mail. More than 20,000 stamps have been sold so far. Central element of the design is the Palestine Sunbird.
The 7th Berlin Biennale will be shown at various exhibition venues and in public places in Berlin. Temporary projects and events will also take place at the festival, accompanied by actions of solidarity in Germany and abroad. For more information about all the projects, artists and events, visit berlinbiennale.de.
A look into Artur Żmijewski’s general approach is provided by his interview book “Trembling Bodies”, which is available in English and German (Artur Żmijewski, Trembling Bodies / Körper in Aufruhr, 2011, published by the Berliner Künstlerprogramm/DAAD and CSW Kronika, Bytom, mail order: bkp.berlin@daad.de). The book is an anthology of his conversations with Polish artists related to the “critical art” movement in post-communist Poland.
The Berlin Biennale is organized by KW Institute for Contemporary Art.
Curator: Artur Żmijewski
Associate Curators: Voina and Joanna Warsza
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| 27.04.2012 - 01.07.2012 | KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Auguststraße 69, Berlin | Exhibition |
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Contact:
KW Institute for Contemporary Art
Auguststraße 69
D-10117 Berlin
Tel +49 (0)30 - 24 34 59 - 0
Fax +49 (0)30 - 24 34 59 - 99
office@berlinbiennale.de
www.kw-berlin.de
www.berlinbiennale.de
Pressekontakt:
Denhart v. Harling
T +49. 30. 243459. 42
presse@berlinbiennale.de
Further Informations
ArtWiki
In November 2010 curator Artur Żmijewski announced an Open Call to artists from all over the world, asking them to send in artistic material as part of the research of the 7th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art. Following the aim to include all of the more than 5,000 submissions in the exhibition we developed in collaboration with Berlin-based media activist Pit Schultz an open, non-commercial platform: ArtWiki, an open data initiative for the arts. ArtWiki is a digital art library based on the model of Wikipedia, a sustainable project that will continue into the future to support an alternative to market-oriented digital art representations. ArtWiki went online at the start of the 7th Berlin Biennale. It allows web users to access information and view profiles of the artists who have agreed to participate.
