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feature berlin biennial
How does this programme relate to the exhibition? Surely nobody
can go and see all of these events. Are they all part of the show or are
they extensions of the show?
EF: I would say that they are also the show. It was really important for us
to find a way to show work that didn’t cooperate with the usual rules of
the exhibition, to accommodate artists who wanted or needed a forum
to talk about or work on or experiment with projects that couldn’t be
shown in any of the venues we have because it wouldn’t have made
any sense. Or who wanted to create something that made sense for
one night only. Artists were interested in this, so we were interested
in finding a forum in which it could take place. Once we realised how
many artists, or thinkers connected to artists, or artists who wanted to
work with scientists or a philosopher or nuclear physicist about some
question related to their work were around, it became apparent that this
could also be a show in its own right. Just not the kind you usually get
in a biennial. The idea isn’t that everyone will see all 63 nights, but that
somehow, collectively, one might be able to constitute an exhibition
and collective experience out of all this. I also think that there is really
something for everyone in it. There are very different kinds of events.
And so one could imagine that there would be a scientific crowd at
certain events, one that, usually, would never meet with the artworld.
And that was also of interest to us.
ArtReview: That’s all right for the people who live in Berlin, but visitors won’t have
What will the biennial look like? the opportunity to choose which events to attend.
Elena Filipovic: EF: They might have the chance to see only a few of them, it’s true.
Phew… However, they might also want to come back.
At the moment you’re the only people who can see anything. You How does this biennial relate to the city? So far the Berlin Biennial
know the names; you are developing the projects… has always had some very strong connections with Berlin, from the
first one, featuring mainly Berlin artists, to the last, which was very
EF: But the list of names, is not it… Given all these new productions nostalgic about a certain period on Auguststraße. Does it follow a
and the fact that there are so many new works being produced, part trail there? Does it have to follow a trail?
of the joy is not knowing exactly how things will turn out. It is a process
we’ve set in motion, and we’re trying to do everything we can to create Adam Szymczyk:
conditions so that everything will be as good and as interesting as it can Well, certainly we are working in a particular place. We are living and
be. There is some part of it that one can’t see yet, even as curator. Of active in Berlin, but as to the question of in what way the biennial
course, we know the venues. And there’s this night programme for 63 relates to the city, I’m… should we talk about our choice of venues? The
nights, each different, with people doing wildly distinct things… reasons we chose those places or, I don’t know, in what way the biennial
could or should relate to the city? And why, actually, in many biennials
What will those things be? it seems to be almost like an ethical requirement to accentuate this
sort of relationship to whatever city the biennial happens to be in? Of
EF: Events of all kinds… They include things that may approach the course, the city is an interesting problem, perhaps. I mean, it’s an issue
lecture form, let’s say. In the case of a lecture about meditation, taking it that has to be approached when you start working on the exhibition,
from the mystics to [Johannes] Itten, but I think it will look still a little like but whether or not a biennial should be doing something to this city,
a lecture, and it will be in the planetarium, and there’s something about that I don’t really know. And I don’t know exactly how it should do that.
the choice of venue and the person and the subject of their talk that will I mean, the biennial is simply one of many exhibitions that are staged
make it quite special. Then there’s also performance, there is a young here. Quite a big one, and very present, but I don’t really see a possibility
artist in the biennial, Ahmet Ogüt, who is making a project to be viewed of connecting it to the city, because then the question is, ‘Which city?’
by day, but also will be doing a project during the night that recreates and there are so many ways to talk about the city that I don’t really
a situation in the courtyard of KW [Institute for Contemporary Art, want to name one type of relationship that the biennial establishes or
one of the biennial’s venues] that we viewed on the streets of Istanbul. proposes with the city.
We will also include screenings, but introduced by different people – a
historian, for example, will talk about The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and What differentiates the Berlin Biennial from other shows?
he offers a Marxist reading of the alienation of the masses in the film.
It’s not as cultish as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and is seemingly far AS: The fact that it’s in Berlin. Although, from a certain point of view
away from these questions. Well… there is no difference. It’s a biennial and that’s a form that has become
artreview 82
Berlin.indd 82 7/3/08 12:21:22
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