10th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art

The Berlin Biennale 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 Berlin Biennale is known for finding novel, “non-artsy” spaces for displaying contemporary art and commissioning new works which offer artists the chance to achieve a breakthrough on the international stage.

Exhibition Venues

The 10th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art titled "We don’t need another hero" took place from June 9 to September 9, 2018 at four exhibition venues: Akademie der Künste at Hanseatenweg, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Volksbühne Pavilion, and ZK/U – Center for Art and Urbanistics.

Gabi Ngcobo was curator of the 10th Berlin Biennale

The Berlin Biennale selection committee had chosen the South African curator Gabi Ngcobo to serve as curator of the 10th Berlin Biennale. Since the early 2000s Gabi Ngcobo has been engaged in collaborative artistic, curatorial, and educational projects in South Africa and on an international scope. She is a founding member of the Johannesburg based collaborative platforms NGO – Nothing Gets Organised and Center for Historical Reenactments (CHR, 2010–14). NGO focusses on processes of self-organization. The CHR investigated how artists explore and process historic legacies in contemporary art. Ngcobo has curated numerous exhibitions, including “A Labour of Love” at the Weltkulturen Museum in Frankfurt am Main, which the Federal Cultural Foundation financed through its TURN – Fund for Artistic Cooperation between Germany and African Countries.

Gabi Ngcobo had invited Moses Serubiri (Kampala, UG), Nomaduma Rosa Masilela (New York, US), Thiago de Paula Souza (São Paulo, BR), and Yvette Mutumba (Berlin, DE) to collaborate with her as the curatorial team. In addition graphic designer Maziyar Pahlevan created the visual identity for the 10th Berlin Biennale.

The Berlin Biennale is organized by KUNST-WERKE BERLIN e. V.