A new curatorial team is in place for the 10th edition of the Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, slated to open next summer.
Gabi Ngcobo. Photo by Masimba Sasa. Courtesy Berlin Biennale.
Curator Gabi Ngcobo has invited the following curators as collaborators: Moses Serubiri of Kampala, Uganda; Nomaduma Rosa Masilela of New York; Thiago de Paula Souza of São Paulo; and Yvette Mutumba of Berlin. Ngcobo also selected graphic designer Maziyar Pahlevan to create the visual identity for the biennale.
Ngcobo, who is from South Africa, was most recently the co-curator of the 32nd Bienal de São Paulo. She was also previously assistant curator at the South African National Gallery in Cape Town, and head researcher at the Cape Africa Platform, where she curated the 2007 Cape07 Biennale.
Moses Serubiri. Photo by Alex Lyons. Courtesy the Berlin Biennale.
According to a statement, each of the collaborators has “ongoing, malleable, and open-ended research interests ranging from the politics of opacity to projections on life after the end of the world.” Over the years each has worked with Ngcobo on various initiatives.
Nomaduma Rosa Masilela. © Nomaduma Rosa Masilela. Courtesy the Berlin Biennale.
As stated on the the website, the upcoming edition of the Berlin Biennale “proposes a plan for how to face a collective madness.”
Thiago de Paula Souza. Photo by Leo Eloy. Courtesy the Berlin Biennale.
Looking at the city of Berlin as an international hub for sharing ideas, the curatorial process will be “selective, non-comprehensive, and will not provide a coherent reading of histories or the present of any kind.”
Yvette Mutumba. Photo by Benjamin Renter. Courtesy the Berlin Biennale.
Furthermore, the “key starting points will be strategies of self-preservation as acts of dismantling dominant structures and building from a non-hierarchical position,” according to a curatorial statement.
Maziyar Pahlevan . ©Maziyar Pahlevan. Courtesy the Berlin Biennale.
The 10th Berlin Biennale will take place from June 9, 2018 through September 9, 2018 at various venues in Berlin.