contemporary art

11th Berlin Biennale: Gropius Bau

9 September 2020

Magazine C&

2 min read

Berlin

Contemporary art

Curation

María Berríos

Agustín Pérez Rubio

Each year’s Berlin Biennale is put together by a different group of curators. Thus, this art event is influenced by their perceptions of society and the modern world. The Biennale explores artistic developments and presents the unfamiliar against the backdrop of the city, its people and their relationship to art. The slow opening of the 11th …

Each year’s Berlin Biennale is put together by a different group of curators. Thus, this art event is influenced by their perceptions of society and the modern world. The Biennale explores artistic developments and presents the unfamiliar against the backdrop of the city, its people and their relationship to art.

The slow opening of the 11th Berlin Biennale began a year ago, and since then it has been exploring the many cracks we carry, the fissures that keep us apart and those that bring us together. Many of the invited artists and participants in the Biennale have been exploring and practicing this, each in their own artistic terms, in their own contexts and temporalities. Making space to share these experiences demanded that we slow down the unsustainable pace of biennials and forgo the expectation of a singular concept, a novel idea to once again fix things into place. The motto of this year’s Biennale is “The crack begins within”, borrowed from the Egyptian poet Iman Mersal.

Curators: María Berríos, Renata Cervetto, Lisette Lagnado, and Agustín Pérez Rubio.

Cian Dayrit, different tapestries. 11th Berlin Biennale, Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin. Photo: Charles González

Andres Pereira Paz, metal sculptures. 11th Berlin Biennale, Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin. Photo: Charles González

Deanna Bowen, The God of Gods: A Canadian Play, 2019/2020. 11th Berlin Biennale, Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin. Photo: Charles González

Katarina Zdjelar, Not a Pillar Not a Pile, video, 2017. 11th Berlin Biennale, Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin. Photo: Charles González

Mapa Teatro – Laboratorio de artistas, The Moon is in the Amazon, installation, 2020. 11th Berlin Biennale, Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin. Photo: Charles González

Antonio Pichillá, Acción de un personaje árbol (Action of a Tree Character), 2017, and Abuela (Grandmother), 2018. 11th Berlin Biennale, Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin. Photo: Charles González

Aline Baiana, The Cross of the South, installation, 2020. 11th Berlin Biennale, Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin. Photo: Charles González

Aykan Safoğlu, installation. 11th Berlin Biennale, Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin. Photo: Charles González

Bartolina Xixa, Ramita seca, la colonialidad permanente (Dry Twig, The Permanent Coloniality), video, 2019. 11th Berlin Biennale, Martin-Gropius-Bau Berlin. Photo: Charles González