(7 Jun 2018) LEADIN
The 10th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art festival has opened in the German capital.
The title of this year's festival is "We don't need another hero" and the focus is on art from developing countries.
STORYLINE
The Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art is one of the highlights of the cultural calendar of the German Capital.
Every two years a new team of curators takes over venues across the city for a three-month exhibition showcasing contemporary art from across the globe.
This year the curator team is led by South African curator Gabi Ngcobo and the title is "We don't need another hero."
Moshekwa Langa is one of several South African artists showcasing works at the festival.
His large installation is titled "Miracle in the Rain" and consists of large sheets showing water in different forms.
He explains how he was first inspired to depict water when visiting the Kimberly hole, a large man-made pit filled with turquoise water in South Africa.
"Probably the first thing that inspired me was the Kimberly hole in South Africa. The image of it has always been green," he says.
"I think, even when I went to visit the sea for the first time it occurred to me that I have always seen it as a blue thing but every-time I took the water into my hands I never saw that. So, I tried in some different ways to recreate this sensation of looking at water as it appears when it is presented."
Most of the artists from Africa, the Caribbean and South America.
The festival has a postcolonial focus on race and the global system after colonialism.
"We are all post-colonials," says Thiago de Paula Souza, a Brazilian member of the curating team.
"But I wouldn't say only one. We are trying to look to multiple voices and to position ourselves towards the moment that we are in now. So I think that we are trying to learn from the past. Trying to not repeat the same mistakes. And try to pave a walk through the future."
Lydia Hamann and Kay Osteroth are two German artists who have chosen to depict the South African artist Mmakgabo Mapula Helen Sebidi in her studio.
It is one of a series of 11 paintings that pays tribute to artists they admire.
"We looked at who we are admiring? Who inspires us? Who do we want to be involved with? Who do we think is crazy in his or her artistic positions? Who do we want to deal with," says Hamann.
Another German artist is dealing with the issue of migration.
Mario Pfeifer has created a video installation dissecting a case in a small town near Dresden in Germany in 2015 when a vigilante group tied an asylum seeker to a tree.
The video installation uses actors to recreate the events leading up to the incident.
"I want to create a discourse, a dialogue, in the society for the broad masses," he says.
"For me, the form that I'm dealing with realism, so with realistic pictures and journalistic pictures and anthropological pictures. Something that hopefully can speak directly to the public. I don't really work in the abstract, but always focused on reality in the society."
The festival will take place at four venues in Berlin, the largest exhibitions at the Academy of Art and the Institute for Contemporary Art.
For Kay Osteroth is it exciting to show her work in the same festivals as other artists from around the world.
"It is great and exciting to be shown here in the context where a lot of international artists are presented. We are very happy…"
The Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art festival opens to the public on June 9 and runs through September 9.
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