Among Franz Kafka’s collected works is a fable about a boatman with the peculiar name Hopeless. In a small boat with a small sail, the man navigated the treacherous Cape of Good Hope “and leaned back peacefully. What did he have to fear?” the narrator asks—as Hopeless glided “over the reefs of these perilous waters with the nimbleness of a living being.”

There is no shortage of reasons for fear or perilous reefs in the present of this 13th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art: unchecked militarization, a capricious judiciary, and a “hellish ecocide” are but a few of the programmatic crises highlighted by Zasha Colah, the exhibition’s curator. They form the backdrop against which Colah unfolds her counterproposal of post-apocalyptic optimism, with contemporary art at its core. Works of art are asserting themselves against their extinction “with the nimbleness of a living being” and through “radical acts of imagination.” They are so fleeting, poetic, and agile in their material and performative strategies that—as with the performance of the India-born artist Amol K Patil, hidden behind a religious street procession—they bypass cultural institutions altogether and elude censorship with clandestine ingenuity.

Others are brimming with humor. A humor that acts as an antidote, thus allowing to reclaim control over a situation. Take the case of Burmese painter, activist, and performance artist Htein Lin, who—in league with other detainees—was handed absurdly long prison sentences by cronies of the junta and responded by bursting into laughter. A laughter of realization at the brutal illegality of a justice system, bordering on the Kafkaesque, but also an emancipatory, defiant laughter that, as Zasha Colah writes, restructures and negates the prevailing false order of the world. It is the same defiant stance that shapes the richly multifaceted artistic practice Htein Lin wrested from the bitterness of his incarceration.

Such a refusal of the status quo is more vital today than ever. Rarely in the history of the Berlin Biennale has there been a more fitting moment to present, as Colah has envisioned, an international artistic perspective on our time. In Europe, the enemies of freedom, equality, and the rule of law are making a grab for power and, in Germany, the self-evident values of an open and pluralistic society are under attack from authoritarian agitators. Political pressure has mounted. To highlight the strategies that contemporary art is using to counter all this, the 13th Berlin Biennale showcases sixty artistic positions from nearly forty countries, exhibited across Berlin in venues that—as the Berlin Biennale has done in past editions—also invite exploration of an alternative history of the city’s present.

The German Federal Cultural Foundation wishes to thank Zasha Colah, her team, and all participating artists for their contributions to a Berlin Biennale that marks a new beginning. In this first edition following the departure of Gabriele Horn, Axel Wieder has taken the helm. We wish him and the entire team the best of luck. At the same time, we are full of hope that this 13th edition of Berlin Biennale will be a “living thing” as well as a resounding success.

Katarzyna Wielga-Skolimowska
Executive Board / Artistic Director, German Federal Cultural Foundation

Kirsten Haß
Executive Board / Administrative Director, German Federal Cultural Foundation

opening remarks by the German Federal Cultural Foundation