The Berlin Biennale for contemporary art takes place every two years at various locations in Berlin and is characterized by different concepts by well-known curators. It promotes experimental formats and gives the responsible curators the freedom to present the latest relevant and courageous artistic positions independent of art market and collection interests.
Each issue brings together artists, theorists and practitioners from different fields and allows them to enter into a dialogue with the city of Berlin and its residents. The German capital is constantly changing, so it remains fragmented, diverse and contradictory. Against the background of this stimulating atmosphere, the Berlin Biennale explores artistic developments that make the hidden visible and the unknown tangible. Participation has helped numerous young artists to achieve an international breakthrough.
More information about previous editions can be found here
“I am often asked what comes after decolonial thinking.
However, I am less concerned with what comes after and more with the fact that this is an ongoing exchange in the here and now, a series of acts of repair that are taking place in different areas of society.”
Colonialism persists in the present, long after people in the Global South have achieved political independence. More than 500 years of colonial thought and action have shaped all areas of life - in the societies of the South as well as in those of the North. Colonial violence, fascism and capitalist overexploitation continue and new varieties emerge. Freeing knowledge, thinking and acting from colonial patterns is what drives a decolonial process, which calls for people to unlearn what they have learned and to repeatedly question their own point of view.
Kader Attia looks back on more than two decades of decolonial commitment. As an artist, thinker and activist, he has been particularly concerned with the notion of repair, first of objects and physical injuries and then of individual and societal trauma. The repair turned out to be a possibility of cultural resistance, a kind of agency that finds expression in different practices and forms of knowledge. As curator of the 12th Berlin Biennale, Kader Attia makes this approach the starting point of a program that engages contributors and audiences in a critical debate and a common search for ways to care for the now.
With art as a particular form of repair at its core, the 12th Berlin Biennale unfolds along a series of questions. How can a decolonization of the arts be conceived – from the restitution of looted goods to an anti-colonial culture of remembrance? What role can feminist movements from the non-Western world play in the reappropriation of history and identity? How are the climate crisis and colonialism related? How can resistance to resource depletion look like and how can original knowledge contribute to preserving ecosystems?
The 12th Berlin Biennale features exhibitions, interventions and events at several locations in the city and, as a discursive space, extends over various areas of knowledge production. From June 11 to September 18, 2022, a polyphonic program will be developed in which artists, scientists and activists will come together. They map the world with its ruptures and contradictions, design counter-narratives to the colonial narrative and together design new forms of agency for the future.
Exhibition locations of the 12th Berlin Biennale
The 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art announces the exhibition venues:
- Academy of Arts, Hanseatenweg and Pariser Platz
- Dekoloniale of Memory Culture in the City
- Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum for Contemporary Art - Berlin
- KW Institute for Contemporary Art
- Stasi headquarters. Campus for Democracy
With its exhibition venues, the 12th Berlin Biennale maps historical ruptures as well as political and social transformation processes that began in Berlin and have an impact far beyond the city. Against this background, the contributions to the 12th Berlin Biennale formulate decolonial strategies and practices for the present.
