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Torbjørn Rødland, Hat on Fire, 2016

At the press conference for the 9th Berlin Biennale New York based collective DIS (Lauren Boyle, Solomon Chase, Marco Roso and David Toro) said that it was the first and the last biennial that they have ever curated. Taking place in a four venues around the iconic Parisier Platz in the city of Berlin – KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Akademie der Künste, ESMT European School of Management and Technology, The Feuerle Collection – the exhibition faces up to the fear hidden behind the terms such as “Anthropocene”, “big data”, “post-internet”. It introduces the world of today where the present is incomprehensible and the future is closer to fiction than plans and forecasts.

Participating artists were invited to take an active part in this reality. Presented works (many of them where especially created for the ocasion) submit to building of the alternative here and now – materializing the paradoxes that make up the world in 2016: the virtual as the real, nations as brands, people as data, culture as capital, wellness as politics and so on. “Let’s give a body to the problems of the present where they occur so as to make a matter of agency – not spectatorship” – says DIS. It’s up to the viewers’ whether they want to perceive the present as a drag.

KW installation view of Roe Ethridge, Chris Kraus and Babak Radboy, Untitled (Not in the Berlin Biennale), 2016
Alexa Karolinski/Ingo Niermann, Army of Love, 2016
åyr, ARCHITECTURE, 2016
Anne de Vries, Oblivion, 2016
Camille Henrot, Office of Unreplied Emails, 2016
Camille Henrot, 11 Animals that Mate 4 Life, 2016
Camille Henrot, Office of Unreplied Emails, 2016
Camille Henrot, Office of Unreplied Emails, 2016
Akademie der Künste, installation view (LIT)
Akademie der Künste, installation view
Torbjørn Rødland, Hat on Fire, 2016
Roe Ethridge, Untitled (Not in the Berlin Biennale), 2016
Anna Uddenberg, Transit Mode - Abenteuer, 2014–16 TM, 2016
Martine Syms, More Than Some Less Than Others XX, 2016
Bjarne Melgaard, SUPREM(E), 2016
Timur Si-Qin, A Reflected Landscape, 2016
Marlie Mul, Cigarette Bucket, 2015
Rare Candy with Ander Rennick for Centre for Style
M/L Artspace, In Bed Together, 2016
Liam Osborne for Centre for Style, Locating the centre #3 2016
Lizzie Fitch/Ryan Trecartin, (As yet untitled sculptural theater), 2016, exhibiting Ryan Trecartin, Permission Streak, 2016
Akademie Der Künste venue detail
Christopher Kulendran Thomas, New Eelam, 2016
Christopher Kulendran Thomas, New Eelam, 2016
Nik Kosmas Installation View at Adademie Der Künste

The Present Is a Drag
Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art
4.6 – 18.9.2016

Weronika Trojanska

is an artist and art writer

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