Curator's Voice: Adam Szymczyk on the Berlin Biennial

BERLIN—An obvious problem with international mega-exhibitions like biennials is that the general visitor who arrives after the exclusive opening events often misses out on a good part of the excitement. The Utopia Station at the 50th Venice Biennial in 2003, for example, was a chaotic but dynamic hub of performances and lectures during the early part of the almost five-month exhibition, but later became a rather ruin-like setting, where one got only a faded glance of what might have happened there before. The curators of the fifth Berlin Biennial (bb5), taking place from April 5 through June 15, are challenging the critical temporality of a show by offering a different format. “When things cast no shadow,” as the show is called, will be divided into two parts: the usual daytime exhibition and a program of “fleeting events in the dark” scheduled nightly throughout the duration of the biennial. ARTINFO spoke with Kunsthalle Basel director Adam Szymczyk, who is curating the Biennial together with Elena Filipovic, about this and other organizing principles of the show.

Adam, I’ve heard the phrase “Day and Night” in conjunction with the biennial – is it the organizing theme of bb5? And did the theme change at all as you developed the show?

The concept has changed a lot over the past year. The biennial’s title is “When things cast no shadow” — the phrase “Day and Night” was just a way of attracting attention to the two different parts. One part is exhibitions in different locations, both conventional art venues such as Kunst-Werke (KW) or the Neue Nationalgalerie (NNG) and less familiar or typical venues. But no matter what the location is or how big they are or what they are about, these shows all necessarily share similar characteristics: They open at a given place in the morning and close in the evening — whereas the night program is different. It takes time, not space. We invented this series of events, which is called “Mes nuits sont plus belles que vos jours” (my nights are more beautiful than your days) as a possible subversion of the traditional, static exhibition format. The titles [of the biennial and the evening programming] complement each other.

The night events take place both in conventional spaces, such as theaters or cinemas, as well as in the planetarium and other less familiar locations. And they speak to very different audiences: There’s a theater workshop by Augusto Boal, a nominee for this year’s Nobel peace prize; a performance by Alexandra Bachtzetis; a live music event in which Keiji Haino provides the soundtrack to JO — a recent film by Cameron Jamie; and lectures ranging from one on the history of levitation by Olaf Blanke to one on robotic technology by Holk Cruse.

The title “Mes nuits sont plus belles que vos jours” is borrowed from a movie by Andrzej Zuławski. What is the relation?

First of all it’s a beautiful line, but I also highly value Zuławski’s cinema. We have two things by him in the biennial. In addition to the title, which is borrowed from this rather less important erotic thriller from the late 80s, there is The Silver Globe, a highly ambitious but unfinished Polish science fiction production from the 70s. The director will be at the screening.

You curated bb5 with Elena Filipovic. Had you ever worked together before?

No. I was appointed to run the Biennial, and when I came to Berlin I realized that I wanted to do it with someone. It was not so much about bringing in a collaborator who I know well, but rather someone with whom I could have a conversation and who would bring in some aspects that I could not.

I guess finding the right locations was a big part of framing bb5 conceptually – especially in regard to the last edition, which Maurizio Cattelan, Massimiliano Gioni, and Ali Subotnik held along Auguststrasse in Berlin’s central Mitte neighborhood. You are still using the Kunst-Werke, which is the “home” of the Berlin Biennial, but you’re also expanding to the Neue Nationalgalerie, designed by Mies van der Rohe, and to the Skulpturenpark Berlin Zentrum, a sculpture park located within the former military zone or “death strip” that divided East and West Berlin. What kind of works will you show in these two challenging, historically significant venues?