The thirteenth edition of the Berlin Biennale, originally slated to take place in 2024, has been postponed a full year over concerns that it would otherwise fall during what the German Cultural Foundation in a statement characterized as a “biennial super art year.” Pointing to their own “pandemic-related organizational delays,” the Biennale’s organizers noted, “Because other international biennials were also postponed to 2024 due to the pandemic, a competition for resources can be expected,” which will ultimately limit the capacities and availability of the artists. Among the biennials taking place in 2024 are the Sixtieth Venice Biennale, curated by Adriano Pedrosa, the first Latin American person to organize the storied event’s main exhibition; the Tenth Glasgow International; the Fifteenth Gwangju Biennale; and the Seventeenth Biennale de Lyon.
Launched in 1996, the Berlin Biennale was last staged in 2022. That edition, curated by French-Algerian artist Kader Attia, sparked controversy owing to the inclusion of work by Jean-Jacques Lebel, specifically his photographs depicting the torture of detainees at Iraq’s notorious Abu Ghraib prison. The works’ appearance in the show prompted Iraqi writer Rijin Sahakian to pen for Artforum a public letter to the Biennale’s organizers. Titled “Beyond Repair,” the missive decried the display of Lebel’s photos as exploitative.
“Images of leashing, electrocution, and mass rape reinforce the long-standing portrayal of the Arab, the Iraqi, as animal, both disposable and in need of being controlled, warred upon. This work did nothing but enforce and enlarge these tactics,” wrote Sahakian. The letter was additionally signed by more than four hundred artists, including Raed Mutar, Sajjad Abbas, and Layth Kareem. Attia responded, explaining that the Biennale’s curatorial team “deemed it important not to indulge the impulse to turn a blind eye to a very recent imperialist crime—a crime conducted under military occupation that was quickly brushed under the rug with the intention of prompting a swift forgetting,” noting that “this is how imperialism fabricates its impunity.” Shortly thereafter, Mutar and Abbas moved their own works out of the Hamburger Banhof, where the offending photos were on display. Kareem’s video piece remained on view at the museum, but was displayed in a different room.
