From Berlin: Berlin Biennale 2012

Love it or hate it, the 7th Berlin Biennale is one of the most talked-about events of the year. Curated by Artur Żmijewski and Joanna Warsza (both from Poland), this biennale is explicitly focused on political art and strives to be a think tank focused on one question: How can art bring about real, tangible change? This is the question Żmijewski and Warsza ask all of their interlocutors in Forget Fear, the accompanying publication.

At the central venue, the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, there are works that explore different strategies. There are token Occupiers as well as a room filled with videos of protests and street performances. According to one of Warsza’s interviewees, the notable Serbian activist Srđa Popović, the Conceptual Art legacy is important for contemporary protest movements. A number of the participants invite their audiences to partake in symbolic acts. In Blood Ties (2012), the former Bogotá mayor, Antanas Mockus, wants viewers to sign with a drop of blood a contract that states they won’t take any drugs for the duration of the biennial, in memory of drug-war victims. Khaled Jarrar proposes to stamp passports with a “State of Palestine” visa for State of Palestine (2011–ongoing). The biennial also honors the tradition of agitprop by presenting works such as Self # governing (2011–ongoing) Belorussian-based Marina Naprushkina’s self-published newspapers that explore the alternatives to the dictatorial regime of Aleksandr Lukashenko.

Since the biennial places so much emphasis on tangible results, a question comes up: Which of the works have the most potential to raise hell? One thinks of the controversial actions by groups such as the Ukrainian FEMEN and the

Khaled Jarrar. State of Palestine, 2011-ongoing. Photo: Khaled Jarrar. Courtesy of the Berlin Biennale. 

Russian Voina, the latter not presented in the exhibition but named as co-curators in a gesture of support. Their performances—such as FEMEN’s occupation of the famous Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, ringing its bells while topless in defense of the pro-choice movement—provoke intense debates across all strata of their respective societies. But are shock tactics still viable in the United States and Europe, where capitalism has learned to absorb its critiques? As Jean Baudrillard wrote, following the acts of the French far-right politician Jean-Marie Le Pen and of Abu Ghraib, only evil can now speak about evil most effectively.¹ But there is an urgent need for more political art that makes its voices heard among the broad public, including the standard-bearers of the right wing. The question “What can art do?” remains open, and American arts institutions should pick up the torch.

The Berlin Biennial is on view at multiple venues in Berlin, Germany, through July 1.

Julia Glosemeyer is a writer based in San Francisco. She is the art correspondent for the eventseekr blog.

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NOTES:

1. “A bitter truth: radicalness is on the side of the intelligence of evil. …Only evil can speak evil now—evil is a ventriloquist.” Jean Baudrillard, The Agony of Power (Cambridge: Semiotext(e)/MIT Press, 2010), 39.