7th Berlin Biennale ends this sunday, July 1

28/06/2012

These are the upcoming events.

Detailed information on the complete event program can be found on the Berlin Biennale website www.berlinbiennale.de.

Until 1.7.2012
COMMEMORATION TO TAKE WITH YOU
Berlin-Birkenau by ?ukasz Surowiec
KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Auguststraße 69, 10117 Berlin

The project Berlin-Birkenau by Polish artist ?ukasz Surowiec brought hundreds of young birches from the area of the former concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau to Berlin where they are spread on over 24 different public sites in nearly every district of the city and can strike roots. The birches are now under the care of all these numerous cooperation partners.

That this task is not always easy shows a case of destruction in Berlin-Lichtenberg. In this district ten birches have been planted in the Quartierpark Seehausener Straße together with youths from the youth clubs Leos Hütte and Welseklub. Unknown persons uprooted and removed these lively and growing “bearers of memory” three weeks after the planting and inauguration. At the moment the district’s city council Christina Emmerich together with the youths tries to find a new place: “Together we will publicly articulate our protest against the destruction as well as our strong will to re-erect the living memorial.” This example shows how the past is reaching for the present and how important it is to also symbolically take on responsibility.

You can actively work against forgetting as well. So far more than 1.000 visitors have taken seedlings from the installation by ?ukasz Surowiec at KW Institute for Contemporary Art with them. Still until July 1, 2012 every visitor can take little seedlings including a care description and certificate from the artist home.

28.6.2012, 7 pm, in English
AM I A GOOD ARTIST? IS ART A PRETENTIOUS CONCEPT?
Lecture Performance by Antanas Mockus, followed by a conversation with Doris Sommer
KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Auguststraße 69, 10117 Berlin
Free admission

Antanas Mockus, former mayor of Bogotá, employed what he called “sub-art” in his political practice. In Colombia in the mid-1990s—a period of hostility, bloodshed, and narco-trafficking—he created a nonviolent, performative politics of images and gestures. His program of citizen culture (Cultura ciudadana), a form of civic self-education based on games and staged situations, led to a significant drop in the homicide rate during his two terms as mayor. With this approach he effectively suspended politics as usual, destabilizing rational discourse, disarming hate speech, and subverting bureaucratic rule. In the last presidential campaign in Colombia he asked his opponent to conduct the election campaign for him. As an artist-politician and contributor to the 7th Berlin Biennale he has promised that if the homicide rate in Mexico does not drop during the exhibition, he will declare himself a failed artist and art a pretentious concept.

Antanas Mockus is an artist-politician, philosopher, mathematician and a former university dean.
Doris Sommer is Professor at Harvard University, Cambridge (USA) and initiator of the Cultural Agents Program.

28.6.2012, 7–8 pm
EVENING ON ARTISTIC AND POLITICAL CLAIMS OF thE 7TH BERLIN BIENNALE
Weekly evening by art:berlin: moderated by Jessica Pluntke
KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Auguststraße 69, 10117 Berlin
Admission 4 Euro / reduced 3 Euro

28.+29.6.2012, from 10 am, in English, French, German, and Spanish
PREOCCUPIED CONFERENCE
Autonomous University, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Auguststraße 69, 10117 Berlin
Free admission, donations welcome

The international conference will offer the unique opportunity to engage with the ideas, theories, art, and activism that have powered the Occupy movement.
The international speakers will present academic papers, films, and performance pieces in two rooms of KW.

29.6.2012, from 7 pm, in English
7TH BERLIN BIENNALE FOR CONTEMPORARY POLITICS. IN BETWEEN
Discussion and music-action by Krytyka Polityczna
KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Auguststraße 69, 10117 Berlin
Free admission

This is the final event of the series on the occasion of the 7th Berlin Biennale organized by Krytyka Polityczna since October 2011. The series aimed to provide discursive tools in order to discuss political effects of artistic actions and the artistic dimension of political strategies. The Krytyka Polityczna series of debates and music-actions in Berlin was a platform to discuss the events of the 7th Berlin Biennale in relation to the respective contemporary political issues.

7 pm
This open meeting and discussion considers the effects of the initiatives and actions conducted throughout the long-term process of the development of the Berlin Biennale and the duration of the exhibition. Reflecting on the practices of combining artistic and political tools that the Berlin Biennale introduced, where does this process lead us and what are the next steps?

9 pm
For their 5th music-action Let’s Dance! Krytyka Polityczna invited the DJs Gloria Viagra,
S?awek Belina and Wojtek Zra?ek-Kossakowski. Music always had and still has the unique ability to build communities and to unite people; for example by singing or dancing together. S?awek Belina and Gloria Viagra with guests present a DJ set (and audio/video installations) focused on minorities: national, sexual, religious... Let’s dance! Together!
The music-action project is supported by the City of Warsaw.

30.6.2012, 10 pm, in English
A GENTRIFICATION PROGRAM
Screening by the Institute for Human Activities
KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Auguststraße 69, 10117 Berlin
Free admission

The video reports from the Opening Seminar of A Gentrification Program by the Institute for Human Activities that took place on the verge of a former Unilever plantation, on the Mompoyo River, Democratic Republic of Congo, some ten days ago. A Gentrification Program, initiated by the Institute for Human Activities, is a 5-year endeavor to establish a study site where a radical acceptance of the terms and conditions of the production of artistic critique does not undermine it, but feeds its articulation. The aim is to recalibrate art’s instrumentalization for the accumulation of capital (the shorthand for which is of course, gentrification) into a critical, progressive, and interventionist tool, and forge unapologetic relations to the real.

Participants of the Opening Seminar: Mumbanza mwa Bawele, Botalatala, TJ Demos, Nina Möntmann, Réné Ngongo, Marcus Steinweg, Eyal Weizman, and as special guest Richard Florida.

30.6.2012, midnight
“THE LAST ONE TURNS THE LIGHT...!“
Renata Kaminska / Bel Etage in the framework of the Draftsmen’s Congress: Light-painting on the façade of KW.
Façade of KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Auguststraße 69, 10117 Berlin
Free admission

1.7.2012, noon–8 pm
COME PICK UP!
Give away action with Pawe? Althamer in the front garden of the St. Elisabeth-Church, Invalidenstraße 3, 10115 Berlin
Free admission, free pick-up

The Draftsmen’s Congress, initiated by Pawe? Althamer, has come to an end. The communally painted walls will be divided into bigger (1 x 2,5 m) and smaller pieces and distributed for free in the garden of the St. Elisabeth-Church. Following Althamer’s approach, this happening of giving away the continuously changing walls of the church enhances the democratic and participatory process of the Draftsmen’s Congress. Everyone can take one piece of this communal work. Come and pick up a part of the Draftsmen’s Congress!

The 7th Berlin Biennale will take place from April 27 to July 1, 2012 and is curated by Artur ?mijewski together with Associate Curators Voina and Joanna Warsza.

The Berlin Biennale is organized by KW Institute for Contemporary Art and funded by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation).