Under the title ‘passing on the ephemeral’, the 13th Berlin Biennale will open on the evening of 13 June 2025 at four locations in Berlin with over 170 works by more than 60 artists. More than half of these works were produced especially for the exhibition. Throughout the entire duration of the 13th Berlin Biennale, activations will take place at various locations in the city. Under the title Encounters, they will also open up the exhibition space to unexpected and ephemeral acts, not all of which will be announced in advance. The current edition of the Berlin Biennale is curated by Zasha Colah. Valentina Viviani is assistant curator.
Abb. oben: courtesy of 13. Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art
Artists also work under the most adverse circumstances – in prison, under censorship, repression and torture. In the face of legislative violence, artists make artistic claims. For the 13th Berlin Biennale, Indian curator Zasha Colah is working with artists from Myanmar, north-east India, Argentina, the Zambezi Belt, Sudan, Kazakhstan, Hungary, Italy and Germany, among others.
There has hardly been a more appropriate time in the history of the Berlin Biennale to exhibit international perspectives on our times. The exhibition explores the ways in which thought and imagination persist even under conditions of persecution, militarisation and ecocide. Despite the restriction of their freedoms, artists can discover a profound freedom in the concentrated space of their thinking.
The title of the 13th Berlin Biennale, passing on the fleeting, also refers to the aesthetic character of the works on display, to fleeting forms of transmission and materialisation, to an art that incorporates the body and orality. In the Encounters series of events, the artworks address the viewers directly: in theatre productions, reading groups, lectures, tribunals, spoken word, memorial walks and stand-up comedy.
The following artists are part of the 13th Berlin Biennale:
KW Institute for Contemporary Art
Akademia Ruchu; Anawana Haloba; Armin Linke; Bwanga ‘Benny Blow’ Kapumpa; Chaw Ei Thein; Die Fliege (Htein Lin, Chaw Ei Thein); Etcétera; Exterra XX – Künstlerinnengruppe Erfurt; floral (Ceija Stojka, Erika Kobayashi, Fredj Moussa, Hannah Höch, Nyi Pu Lay and Ma Thida, OMARA Mara Oláh, Steve McQueen); Freeszfe; Gernot Wieland; Gernot Wieland with Carla Åhlander & Konstantin von Sichart; Han Bing & Kashmiri Cabbage Walker; Huda Lutfi; Iris Yingzen; Judith Blum Reddy; Kazuko Miyamoto; Kikí Roca, Las Chicas del Chancho y el Corpiño; Margherita Moscardini; Mila Panić; Mila Panić and guests (Carmen Chraim, Deo Katunga, Maya Upchurch, Sasha Dolgopolov, Tamer Katan, Victor Patrascan); Nge Nom; Panties for Peace; parallel society; Piero Gilardi; Sarnath Banerjee; Sawangwongse Yawnghwe; Tsuyoshi Ozawa (with Andreas Eberlein, Dagmar Tinschmann, Daisuke Deguchi, Jinran Kim, Kathrin Schiffbauer, Li Koelan, Manuela Warstat, Yuan Shun); Yoshiko Shimada and BuBu de la Madeleine; Zoncy Heavenly
Sophiensæle
Amol K Patil; Daniel Gustav Cramer; Luzie Meyer; Major Nom
Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart
Gabriel Alarcón; Jane Jin Kaisen; Larissa Araz; Vikrant Bhise; Zamthingla Ruivah Shimray
Ehemaliges Gerichtsgebäude Lehrter Straße
Anna Scalfi Eghenter; Artcom Platform; Busui Ajaw; Elshafe Mukhtar; Exterra XX – Künstlerinnengruppe Erfurt; flüchtigkeit (Daniella Bastien, ☂️ M. M. Thein, Steve McQueen); Fredj Moussa; Helena Uambembe; Htein Lin; Isaac Kalambata; Memory Biwa; Memory Biwa und Gäste (Anike Joyce Sadiq, Céline Barry, Lusine Khurshudyan); Merle Kröger; Milica Tomić; Padmini Chettur; People’s Tribunal (mit Bana Group for Peace and Development, ALPAS Pilipinas und International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) – Germany, சிந்துஜன் வரதராஜா (Sinthujan Varatharajah), مشترى هلال (Moshtari Hilal)); Salik Ansari; Shahana Rajani; Simon Wachsmuth; Stacy Douglas.
For the 13th Berlin Biennale, atelier le balto is designing the garden at the former Lehrter Straße courthouse and supervising the artistic project by Nge Nom at KW Institute for Contemporary Art.
Encounters and fugitive acts
Throughout the duration of the 13th Berlin Biennale, activations will take place at various locations in the city. Under the title Encounters, they will also open up the exhibition space for unexpected and ephemeral acts, not all of which will be announced in advance. These planned and surprising encounters aim for immediate complicity, for a different relationship between artwork and audience.
Programme on the opening weekend:
Han Bing: Walking the Cabbage in Berlin [Walking the Cabbage in Berlin], 2020/25
Walking a cabbage on a small cart is an absurd gesture that satirically mocks the absurdity of certain political realities in times of militarisation or censorship. Walking the Cabbage is a social intervention that Han Bing first performed on Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 2000. Since then, Bing has been walking cabbages, as well as other types of fruit and vegetables, through public spaces in order to stimulate dialogue and promote critical reflection. To mark the opening of the 13th Berlin Biennale, Bing will once again ‘walk the cabbage’ under the title Walking the Cabbage in Berlin (2020/25). Bing understands cabbage as a symbol of nutrition in the countryside and refers to its importance in today’s China as a staple food for people with limited resources.
KW Institute for Contemporary Art
Meeting point: pavement in front of KW Institute for Contemporary Art 13th June 2025, 8 pm
Major Nom with Shu1o1O, Ngar galay (Little Fish), Larmashee: The Beggars’ Convention, 2025
The Burmese director and junta critic Zarganar wrote the play Beggars’ National Convention, in which he mocked the Burma Socialist Programme Party, in 1987 in the run-up to the elections. After one of the performances, the actors were arrested. For the 13th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, Major Nom, a key figure in the Civil Disobedience Movement following the military coup in Myanmar in 2021, will restage the previously male-cast play as an Anyeint performance with queer and female-identifying performers in drag.
Sophiensæle, ballroom
14th June 2025, 5 pm + 8 pm
15th June 2025, 5 pm + 8 pm
Gabriel Alarcón: 4000 m above sea level. ABOVE SEA LEVEL, 2025
The processional routes in the Andes are marked by apachetas – piles of stones erected collectively by travellers, each carrying a stone representing their wishes and petitions to supernatural beings. The presence of these piles of stones symbolises the resilience of a culture that could not be completely eradicated. Gabriel Alarcón erects a small apacheta in Berlin using local stones and elements.
Hamburger Bahnhof – National Gallery of Contemporary Art
Meeting point: Main entrance gate on Invalidenstraße
15th June 2025, 2 pm
Milica Tomić: The Berlin Statement. Who Makes Profit on Art and Who Gains From It Honestly? [The Berlin Statement. Who Profits on Art and Who Gains From It Honestly?], 2025
The performance The Berlin Statement. Who Makes Profit on Art and Who Gains From It Honestly? [The Berlin Statement. Who Profits on Art and Who Gains From It Honestly?] by Milica Tomić expands on the Edinburgh Statement by Yugoslavian conceptual artist Raša Todosijević (1945-2024). He wrote and performed this work in 1975 as a sharp critique and analysis of the power relations of the global art system. In her performance, Tomić uses space and language to expose the roles and dynamics in today’s art system based on Todosijević and to find new answers to the current situation. Her work reflects the shifts in the art world under the pressure of global neoliberal capitalism and the rise of oligarchic technocracy and shows how class struggles continue to be fought in the field of art.
Tomić first performed the Edinburgh Statement in 2012 as part of the Pančevo Biennale and the October XXX symposium. In 2016, she reworked the piece from a feminist perspective under the title The Nottingham Statement. She performed another version, which placed the piece in a new cultural and political context, under the title The Belgrade Statement at the 59th October Salon in 2022.
Former courthouse Lehrter Straße
Stairwell, 1st floor
15th June 2025, 6 pm
Exhibition companion / Publication
The publication accompanying the 13th Berlin Biennale contains information on the artists as well as additional texts on the curatorial concept and the exhibition venues of the 13th Berlin Biennale. The authors are Alicja Schindler, Claire Tancons, Kate Sutton, Kito Nedo, Somrak Sila, Sumesh Sharma, Valentina Viviani and Zasha Colah. The publication is available at the box offices at KW Institute for Contemporary Art and in the former Lehrter Straße courthouse, at Walther König in Hamburger Bahnhof and on the website of the 13th Berlin Biennale.
184 pages, €12
Design: Enver Hadzijaj
ISBN 978-3-00-082629-0
WHEN?
Opening: Friday, 13th June 2025, 7 pm
Exhibition dates: Saturday, 14th June – Sunday, 14th September 2025
WHERE?
1.
KW Institute for Contemporary Art
Auguststraße 69
10117 Berlin
2.
Sophiensæle
Sophienstraße 18
10178 Berlin
3.
Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart
Invalidenstraße 50
10557 Berlin
4.
Ehemaliges Gerichtsgebäude in der Lehrter Straße
Lehrter Straße 60
10557 Berlin
