8th 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. 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.

The last Berlin Biennale, the bb8, took place from 29 May to 3 August 2014 under the curatorship of the Colombian Juan Gaitán. 75.000 people visited the exhibition during the whole running time.

With this Berlin Biennale, the curator, Juan A. Gaitán focused on the unstable relationship between experienced history and scientific historiography. 58 artists from all over the world were invited to mark and investigate history and its fragments. The exhibition referred to the historization that can be noticed in Berlin and in other cities.

The works of the 8th Berlin Biennale were exhibited in already existing cultural institutions to strengthen Berlin’s present cultural infrastructure and bring these institutions to the attention of a broader spectrum of citizens as well as visitors of the city. Several artists used this as occasion to deal with institutions directly by intervening with and reacting to their approach to collections and forms of presentation. The 8th Berlin Biennale was accompanied by a total of 50 events and over 87 artists and cultural producers dispersed through out all venues. The events included lectures, talks, concerts, screenings, performances, and dinner lectures.

Artistic Director / Curator: Juan A. Gaitán
Artistic Team: Tarek Atoui, Natasha Ginwala, Mariana Munguía, Olaf Nicolai and Danh Vo
Artists: Zarouhie Abdalian, Bani Abidi, Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc, Saâdane Afif, David Chalmers Alesworth, Carlos Amorales, Andreas Angelidakis, Leonor Antunes, Julieta Aranda, Tarek Atoui Tarek Atoui in collaboration with Uriel Barthélémi, Jim Black, Tony Elieh, Charbel Haber, Mazen Kerbaj, Magda Mayas, Morten J. Olsen, Sharif Sehnaoui, André Vida, and others, Nairy Baghramian, Bianca Baldi, Patrick Alan Banfield, Alberto Baraya, Rosa Barba, Gordon Bennett, Zachary Cahill, Mariana Castillo Deball, Carolina Caycedo, Center for Historical Reenactments (CHR), Tacita Dean, Mario García Torres, Beatriz González, Agatha Gothe-Snape, Shilpa Gupta, Cynthia Gutiérrez, Ganesh Haloi, Carsten Höller, Iman Issa, Irene Kopelman, Matts Leiderstam, Li Xiaofei, Glenn Ligon, Goshka Macuga, Santu Mofokeng, Shahryar Nashat, Olaf Nicolai, Otobong Nkanga, Christodoulos Panayiotou. Judy Radul, Jimmy Robert, Anri Sala, Slavs and Tatars, Michael Stevenson, Mariam Suhail, Vivan Sundaram, Gaganendranath Tagore, Wolfgang Tillmans, Tonel, Danh Vo & Xiu Xiu, Kemang Wa Lehulere, Carla Zaccagnini and David Zink Yi.

The Berlin Biennial is organized by KW Institute for Contemporary Art.