The 13th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art titled passing the fugitive on opens on the evening of June 13, 2025, 7-10 pm, at four locations in Berlin with over 170 works by more than 60 artists. More than half of the artworks are newly commissioned for the exhibition.
The 13th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art is curated by Zasha Colah. Valentina Viviani is Assistant Curator.
Artists work. Under the harshest conditions, imprisonment, censorship, repression, torture. In the face of legislative violence artists make artistic claims. For this 13th Biennale, the Indian curator, Zasha Colah is working together with artists notably from Myanmar, the Northeast of India, Argentina, the !Garib-Zambezi-Afrasian-Seabelt, Sudan, Kazakhstan, Hungary, Italy, and Germany.
Rarely in the history of the Berlin Biennale has there been a more fitting time to present international perspectives on the present moment. The exhibition considers the ways in which thinking and imagination persist, even under conditions of persecution, militarization, and ecocide. Despite constraints on their freedoms, artists may discover profound freedom within the focused space of their minds.
The title of the 13th Berlin Biennale—passing the fugitive on—also refers to the aesthetic character of the works on view, which incorporate ephemeral forms of transmission and materialization, often engaging the body and orality. In the event series Encounters, the works of art speak to viewers directly. They encompass theatrical stagings, performances, reading groups, talks, tribunals, spoken word, commemorative walks, and stand-up comedy.
The 13th Berlin Biennale opens at the following locations in the city: KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Sophiensæle, Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, and in the former Courthouse Lehrter Straße.
The Berlin Biennale has been supported by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation) as one of its “cultural beacons” in Germany since 2004.
Information on the exhibiting artists may be found here.
Sister Organizations
Highlighting independent institutions as incubators for artistic innovation in Berlin, the 13th Berlin Biennale has forged sisterhoods with cultural spaces deeply rooted in the city. Sections of the program are hosted and organized in curatorial complicity with these four sister organizations: European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture (ERIAC), Filmrauschpalast Moabit, SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA, Sophiensæle.
Encounters and fugitive acts
Various activations, tribunals, performances, lectures, and walks will take place during the opening week and throughout the exhibition’s duration. TheEncountersseries opens up the exhibition space to unexpected or ephemeral acts that are not always listed in the program in advance. These scheduled—and spontaneous—encounters seek to create a sense of immediate complicity, creating a different relationship between the artwork and its audience.