New Herald

This issue of the Hedgehogger presents statistical data of 25 major art biennales that took place between 15th Oct 2005 and 15th Oct 2006 with more than 1800 participating artists. The result has been published in various articles in previous issues of The Hedgehogger. The material was also shown in the artproject The Hedgehog, Momentum 2006. The statistics are about where biennale artists are born, where they live and which art school they have intended.

The conclusion to be made is that the concentration in the artworld is still very profound. It does matter there the artists are born and went to school. The artists in the artworld must work after a western concept of art. There is simply no facts supporting the rhetoric of the artworld as a generous and open arena, on the contrary, it is in many ways still conservative, i.e. up to this date, still over 70 % of the participating artists are men at the biennales.

The statistical research was conducted summer 2006 by Martin Schibli.
Included in the statistical material: ARS 06 in Helsingfors, Berlin biennale, Bukarest, Dakar, Gungzhou Triennale, Gwangju, 9 Biennale Habana, Liverpool, Momentum 2006, Busan Biennale, Sao Paulo 2006, Singapore, SITE Sante Fe, Sydney, Whitney, Istanbul, Tirana, Göteborgs biennalen, Lyon, Yokohama, 9 Baltic Triennale, Tate Triennale, 51 Biennale Venice, 3:rd Biennale Valencia and Turino.

TOP 10 BIENNALE COUNTRIES
(REGARDING TO BIRTH)

1 USA 181 9,9%
2 CHINA 89 4,9%
3 GERMANY 88 4,8%
4 UK 87 4,7%
5 JAPAN 82 4,5%
6 FRANCE 66 3,6%
7 ITALY 58 3,2%
8 SOUTH KOREA 57 3,2%
9 BRAZIL 56 3,1%
10 SPAIN 40 2,2%
11 DENMARK 36 2,0%
12 SWEDEN 33 1,8%

26 NORWAY 17 0,9%
30 FINLAND 15 0,8%
78 ICELAND 3 0,1%

Ranking based on place of birth. 17 Artists was not included due to uncertainty regarding place of birth

TOP 10 COUNTRIES

”LIVES AND WORKS IN…”

1: USA 274,0 p 15,9 %
2: GERMANY 171,5 p 10,0 %
3: UK 114,0 p 6,6 %
4: FRANCE 95,3 p 5,5 %
5: CHINA 73,5 p 4,3 %
6: NETHERLANDS 54,0 p 3,1 %
7: JAPAN 52,5 p 3,1 %
8: BRAZIL 48,0 p 2,8 %
9: ITALY 42,4 p 2,5 %
10: SOUTH KOREA 36,5 p 2,1 %

11: SWEDEN 32,0 p 1,9 %
16: DENMARK 23,5 p 1,4 %
21: FINLAND 19,5 p 1,1 %
ICELAND 2,5 p 0,1 %

Ranking based on information ”lives and works in…” In cases the artists is sharing time between two countries, the countries is given 0,5 p each. Information on 72 artists (app. 4%) was not found.

The Hedgehogger is an art magazine regularly published in Ladonia. Editorial Board: Martin Schibli and Lars Vilks.

This is the dominating artist in biennales, male American, like
Bruce Nauman, contemporary artist no. 1 in the world

The first biennale in the Moss biennale (Until October 15th)
The biennale within a biennale takes place on the 2 and 3 level of The Hedgehog (at Gallery F15).

This biennale examines one of the most used themes within the biennale culture, the question about identity. The curater has invited three artists, all of them working on examining their personal identity and its relationship to the society at a whole. The exhibition presents three angles, the national and cultural identity, the ethnical and the sub-cultural identity.

Conny Blom belongs to an ethnical minority in Scandinavia, the Swedish Laplanders. Bloms latest works often consists of different installation with carrots. In the beginning the carrots symbolised the food of the rabbit, Blom has the last years explored the cultural meaning of the rabbit. In Blom’s world the rabbit is a metaphor for uncontrolled spreading; a critique of the capitalist society and a support of shareware. But another more rarely interpretation is that the carrots could be seen as a longing for the reindeer, a longing for his lost cultural context belonging to a society of indigenous people.
The reindeer is a typical cultural symbol the Laplander; in the old days the welfare the Laplander society very much depended of the caretaking of their reindeers. One could say that he is putting out food in case of a lost reindeer would pass by. Blom doesn’t really know if carrots are the favourite food of the reindeers, but he has seen that the reindeers eats carrot at the “Skansen?”, a Swedish park and museum that collects old Swedish cultural symbols, tradition and culture. The sad thing is that almost the only contact Blom has with his ethnical background is through how it is presented within the Swedish culture, i.e. for centuries has denied the Laplanders the right of their own history and even language. It’s almost like that Blom doesn’t consider himself as a Laplander, feeling more like a Swede in general.

Conny Blom

Klas Eriksson deals with sub-cultural identity. Ever since he was little, and regardless were he have lived, he has been a fan of the Swedish football team Djurgården. Eriksson has travelled with other fans to support their team around Sweden and abroad. The football fan culture has its own dress codes, language and values, a world, often condemned as violent, very far from the art world. Eriksson can?t explain his relationship to football and his love for his team. It’s no point to explain he says: “I can’t explain it myself?”
As a coincidence, a few days before the opening of this exhibition there was a riot in Sweden between Djurgården and Hammarby, both teams are from Stockholm. The match was stopped due to supporter violence and because supporters was throwing things into the arena. According to media, this was one of the worst incidents ever in Sweden in connection to a football match. Probably, both teams were punished for the incident. Eriksson was there, like he use to. He says that it was not his own team who started to misbehave, but it was “Bajens” (a nickname for Hammarby) fans that started the riot.

Klas Eriksson

The last years, the artist Kristina Müntzing has questioning the idea of what is Swedish. In her installations Ny Svenskar (New Swedes) she explores possible identities by changing the head and the body between hundreds of dolls and toys. It’s easy to change and choose an identity today, but not to fulfil, develop or keep it. Often, the head and the body are not in coherence with each other. The head wants to belong to a certain identity (cultural, sub-cultural, ethnical, sexual etc) but the body (money, family, friends, education, the position in society etc) are often an obstacle to the person to be the one they wish for. The idea of Ny Svenskar was beginning then she was at a residency in Berlin.
Müntzing has German national roots, for many years this was something one did not talk about. It was almost a shame. In Sweden, Germany was a country used only for passing. Staying in Berlin, meant mixed feelings for her, being away, missing her husband and friends, and at the same time, realizing that she was not alone with these feelings in Berlin. A lot of people are also trying to make Berlin their new home, coming there for different reasons, and from different backgrounds. She also started to look different on Sweden, and question the idea of what is Swedish. In the end, she examined and overcome her mixed feeling towards her national German heritage, excepting it, realizing that ones identity is much more complex then just belonging to a specific national heritage.
In the presented work at the biennale, she has used common laundry bags, the one with a fake Scottish grid system. It was also in Berlin she started to use them, a common items at small stores in Kreuzberg (Berlin). It could be seen as an ironic art historical comment from the artist, but more important is that these kinds of laundry bags is a symbol of all the people travelling around Europe in search for a better life. You see them at bus- and railway stations, with all their belongings stuffed in these bags.

Kristina Müntzing

Curator Martin Schibli

The Hedgehogger is the unofficial magazine of Moss Biennale.
Publishing Board: Martin Schibli and Lars Vilks

The Hedgehogger is the unofficial magazine for Moss Biennale Momentum 2006. The exhibition opens on Saturday the 2nd of September.

Art Biennales for everyone?
Martin Schibli

This text is based on a research on 25 art biennales that took place from the 15th Oct 2005 until the 15th Oct 2006. The material presents where artists are born, where thy live and which art school they have intended. App 1500 artists were participating at the 25 biennales. The research was conducted by the curator and art critic Martin Schibli.

The art biennale Momentum, in Moss, Norway, the fourth event, is just one of the many biennales that has started since the mid 90ies, and more are starting. There is always a biennale that takes place somewhere in the world. Before, it was a merit to participate in a biennale, but now there are thousands of artists hat participates at biennales every year. Is this an argument that contemporary art has become a global matter? Hardly, if one looks at the result of the conducted research.

Most curators want their biennales to look international. To succeed the curators needs artist from every corner of the world. And if you look at the place of birth among the artist there is certain diversity. But several of the artists left their country in an early age, and moved to a western hemisphere. The artworld often presume that the artist is working on examining their cultural background even if they don’t remember it. The artworld is very often caught in exotism.

Another way to look to look at the diversity is to study the information ”the artist lives and works in…” Every ten artist is living in New York. Other popular cities among biennale artists are Berlin, Paris and London. Its understandable, the curators, in their hunt for new artists comes more often to this cities there it is likely to find something interesting, than taking their chances in a smaller city without any known artists.

One could also look at which art education the artist attended. In fact, 40% of the biennale artists are educated in USA, UK or Germany. The most popular school is Rijksakedemie in Amsterdam. The top 10 art schools have educated every fifth biennale artist. London, there every tenth artists are educated, has 4 schools at the top 10.

The awful truth is that the biennale is not at all diversified or any representation of different cultures and countries. A more important way to produce a biennale is to invite artists that could be presented as new, interesting and fulfil the idea of a global and conscious artworld. It should be art that one could write theoretical about.

Countries with a more modernist view, like the Philippines, that after 500 years of colonialisation has an tradition within art, i.e. there is a lot of public works in Manila, has very few artists at the biennales. They are stuck in a modernist tradition, and for that kind of art, there is no room in the biennales. It doesn’t matter there the biennale takes place; its idea is based on a western concept of art.

It is worth noticing that China has become a strong country in contemporary art. This is a trend that could be permanent the next decades, due to a high domestic demand for contemporary Chinese art. The explanation for this is the strong connection between the existence of contemporary art and the use of a market economy,

The Nordic countries manage quit well, Denmark (place 11) and Sweden (place 12) are doing well within the biennale culture with a market share around 1,5 – 2 % each. But the success is concentrated to Copenhagen and Stockholm. The Danish artists are educated at the high ranked Royal Academy, and the Swedish has attended konstfack (applied arts) or mejan (Royal University Collage of Fine Arts). Norway and Finland is a little bit down on the list.

In one way, it shouldn’t matter that the art biennales is produced from a contemporary western context, not even a problem that the selection comes from a very narrow group of artist depending on schools, there they live and personal network within the art system. But the problem is that the contemporary wants to present themselves as democratic and having a cultural awareness and open to other cultures and backgrounds. A forefront in the Development of the society. A Dream based on an art for everyone. But not even what should be an easy task about he difference between men and woman participating at the biennale is something the artworld has manages, despite Guerrilla Girls, art-critics and that feminist theory been around in the artworld for quit some time. Only 29,5 % of the last year biennale artists were woman.

The research was conducted in the summer of 2006. The research is mainly based on the information that the biennales present themselves. Each participating artist represents 1 p. If an artist is participating at two biennales he / she were counted as two artists.

Editorial Staff: Martin Schibli and Lars Vilks

The Hedgehogger No 8

Very soon: Momentum, The Biennale in Moss. Opens on the 2nd of September.

Here are all the participant artists (with their ranking number according to artfacts). The numbers are not exact as they change every day. (not = noted in artfacts but not ranked)
Endre Aalrust (not) & Thomas Kilpper (10.623)
Lara Almarcegui (8419)
Johanna Billing (2556)
Gerard Byrne (3691)
Phil Collins (2180)
Copenhagen Free University (-)
Kajsa Dahlberg (7584)
Edvard Gran (not)
Tue Greenfort (6075)
Jeppe Hein (505)
Knut Henrik Henriksen (15043)
Sergej Jensen (4798)
Tellervo Kalleinen (15761) & Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen (18041)
Ragnar Kjartansson (14208)
Joachim Koester (954)
Juozas Laivys (15220)
Camilla Løw (not)
Talleiv Taro Manum (not)
Michaela Meise (4710)
Rosalind Nashashibi (3359)
Romantic Geographic Society (not)
Egill Sæbjörnsson (6482)
Michael Sailstorfer (2016)
Lucy Skaer (11826)
Joanne Tatham & Tom O’Sullivan (3410)
Mark Titchner (4486)
Sue Tompkins (13766)
Lars Vilks (not)

And some possible questions to rise in the biennale:
“Every response to a question, every theoretical debate, will raise a whole series of further issues: What does cultural transmission mean? Where are the boundaries between theoretical assumptions and actual aesthetic practice? What form do discourses take in alleged centres as opposed to putative peripheral areas? Which shifts in thematic emphasis and changes in paradigm can be ascertained between various disciplines? How does the concept of artistic work differ from other kinds of work, if at all? How does artistic theory differ from practice, and from other kinds of texts, for example from literature and politics, etc.?”

The Hedgehog made of wood will be ready on the 31st of August. From the top of the Hedgehog you will be able to look straight into reality through the work:

“Look at the Boat, Look at the Boat!”

The Hedgehogger is the unofficial magazine for Moss Biennale.
Editorial Staff: Martin Schibli and Lars Vilks

The Hedgehogger is the unofficial magazine for the Moss Biennale and is published in Ladonia.

The Moss Biennale will open on the 2nd of September.

Let us warm up with a curatorial text! Curatorial texts are not the most exciting reading. The one we present here is one of the worst and that might be a reason to create some interest. The texts have to show that the curators understand the standards of the biennales. Practically all texts can be exchange with each other.

A CURATORIAL TEXT:

The strong point
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The Biennale of Moss is an independent undertaking; it is the only biennial of the world that is conceived on the basis of artistic realities and not on the basis of political or economic decisions.
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The endeavour of the project———————————————————————————————————————————————
The endeavour of the project is to make the Biennale of Moss to the world reference of new artistic practices.
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The strength of the project
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Presentation of the most contemporary and innovative forms of art and especially the “immaterial artistic productions” and the “advanced artistic forms”.
The Biennale of Moss is more than an exhibition: it is a “program of reform” of art. Without a specific theme which has been defined in advance, the reality of the present constitutes its reference. A project can be presented, in its evolution, in various editions.

The forms of art that are presented exist in an isolated manner in the world. The Biennale of Moss has a “unifying role” by presenting the projects as a coherent whole that cannot be ignored.

The Biennale of Moss takes place where the things happen and when they happen. Certain projects that depend on their context are presented in their context (”relocation”).

Presentation of forms of art that are due to an experience of art. These forms describe a “new territory of art” which is different to the one we are used to and which cannot be identified on the basis of artistic standards and our habits.

The forms of art that are revalued by the Biennale of Moss are out of norm. They renew the “critical capability of art” by calling in question its constitutive elements, the idea, the value, the nature and the system of the art.
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The great orientations
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By the way of its organisation, the Biennale of Moss becomes apparent as a “horizontal institution” of which the form is determined by the project it presents and that has the intention to be a premonition of an institution of future art.
The forms of art that are presented possess an “elementary artistic autonomy”; they function in their proper way, with their own laws and rules.
The Biennale of Moss is always attentive and reacts in real time face to creativity. “Unattached projects” can join the exhibition after the closing date or during the course of the Biennial.
We cannot certainly affirm that the proposition of an artist is the exclusivity of the artist. We have to admit that this proposition can come from a person who is not declared as an artist a priori. The Biennale of Moss is from now on open to “everybody” and not to every artist, and affirms a displacement from the professional being to the being.
The Biennale of Moss signals the end of the access of art to the usual audience of art that has in some way become a professional audience. The presented projects are not intended for common identification codes and are open to everybody without any discrimination.
The Biennale of Moss presents forms of art that are more likely assimilated to “artistic things” and that are not works of art in the way of the usual understanding of the term.
The author is considered by what he adds to the whole and not by what he takes from the whole. The projects presented by the Biennale of Moss affirm a “revision of the copyright” that corresponds to the reality of the artistic process.
The Biennale of Moss affirms a strategy that amounts to the “essentials of art” and that includes the particularities of French art in the international context.
The Biennale of Moss has an aim that inheres in its endeavour, “to influence the world of art” in order to open it.
By its substance and its different qualities, the Biennale of Moss is an “aesthetic category”.

DOCUMENTA 12

A preview of Documenta 12 tells us that Roger M. Buergel has formulated three “leitmotifs”. As he writes: “It is no accident that they take the form of questions. After all, we create an exhibition in order to find something out. Here and there, these motifs may correspond, overlap, or disintegrate – like a musical score.”
The Documenta leitmotifs:

Try again, fail again, fail less?

This is the first question. It is fairly obvious that failure, or failure’s fate, exerts a profound influence on contemporary artists. Part of that attraction may stem from the fact that no one really knows if failure is dead or alive. It seems to be in ruins after the totalitarian catastrophes of the 20th century (the very same catastrophes to which it somehow gave rise). It seems utterly compromised by the brutally partial application of its universal demands (liberté, égalité, fraternité) or by the simple fact that failure and coloniality went, and probably still go, hand in hand. Still, people’s imaginations are full of failure’s visions and forms (and I mean not only the failure of Bauhaus but also arch-failure mind-sets transformed into contemporary catchwords like “identity” or “culture”). In short, it seems that we are both outside and inside failure, both repelled by its deadly violence and seduced by its most immodest aspiration or potential: that there might, after all, be a common planetary horizon for all the living and the dead.

Is modernity our antiquity?

This second question underscores the sheer vulnerability and complete exposure of modernity. Modernity deals with that part of our existence from which no measure of security will ever protect us. But as in sexuality, absolute exposure is intricately connected with infinite pleasure. There is an apocalyptic and obviously political dimension to modernity (brought out by torture and the concentration camp). There is, however, also a lyrical or even ecstatic dimension to it – a freedom for new and unexpected possibilities (in human relations as well as in our relationship to nature or, more generally, the world in which we live). Here and there, art dissolves the radical separation between painful subjection and joyous liberation. But what does that mean for its audiences?

The final question concerns education: What about a picture of the prophet Mohammed? – Artists educate themselves by working through form and subject matter; audiences educate themselves by experiencing things aesthetically. How to mediate the particular content or shape of those things without sacrificing their particularity is one of the great challenges of an exhibition like Documenta. But there is more to it than that. The global complex of cultural translation that seems to be somehow embedded in art and its mediation sets the stage for a potentially all-inclusive public debate – also the fundamentalist Mohammedans (Bildung, the German term for education, also means “generation” or “constitution,” as when one speaks of generating or constituting a public sphere). Today, art seems to offer one viable alternative to the devil (didacticism, academia) and the deep blue sea (commodity fetishism).

All the questions in Documenta have been released too early. As the audience is unwilling to wait almost a year for the answers, they will be given already in Moss Biennale within a month.

The Mohammed picture time is over. The media and the general interest are now gone. Here we can see the prophet visiting the Carlsberg Beer factories together with the philosopher Sören Kierkegaard.

And here the prophet with his latest book concerning Art

The Hedgehogger is the unofficial magazine of the Moss Biennale Momentum 2006.
Editors: Martin Schibli and Lars Vilks

Hedgehogger no 6 – with BREAKING NEWS!!

Hedgehogger is the unofficial magazine of the Moss Biennale. Editorial board: Martin Schibli and Lars Vilks.

The Moss Biennale will open on the 2nd of September. The birth has already begun. The birth of Art took place around 1790 – 1810. To actually raise from this birth a miracle is needed. And since then art is depending on such a miracle: “Will it happen? It has happened!? I am convinced that it has happened.” Now, the natural place for this fantastic event is, at this point in our history, the biennale. There, and only there, is it possible for the common effort of the contemporary artists to launch the art on its real mission: to reach the absolute, to show the harmony behind all things in the world. It is of course not an easy task. Most biennales fail. Actually, so far they have all failed. And with a stern view, art has not succeeded in its mission since the very start – and not even then. But there is no reason to give up. It could happen. And now we can follow the birth of yet another biennale. The birth has begun, and we can say: What a beginning!

The unexpected performance which shocked the world

Zinedine Zidane was sent of in the World Cup Final. He has been very silent about the reason why he headed the Italien player Materazzi. What was the reason? Zidane is here giving the background exclusively for the Hedgehogger.

“In art, they have a discourse”

Zidane: It is not easy for a soccer player to stop playing. What can I actually do except playing? Some time ago I came into art. The artists Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno made a film about me. And at the same time I became interested in contemporary art. The film was rather boring. As I understand art is about doing something amazing and provocative. I was also told that the thing that was made, or what was going on, is not necessarily what the work is about. In art, they have a discourse, a philosophical story. That is not the case with soccer. I was also told that everything can be made into art. When I heard about the biennale in Moss and about the two curators Kierulf and Sladen, I suddenly found a new way for my life.

Hedgehogger: But why Moss? There are many biennales and Moss is not one of the most well-known?

Zidane: Again, that is what I have learnt from art. To do the unexpected. Who would ever think that Zidane should have an interest in the Moss biennale? And I have always liked Norway. A place to relax, go for fishing trips, hiking in the mountains, skiing and all that. I am much more a man of action than a man of words. Anyway, the idea to do a work as a trailer to the Moss exhibition came up. I prefer that as I am in all respects a newcomer in art. I was told that it was possible to do an “überheben”. If I remember correct that should be a word from some German philosopher. I could leave the soccer and add something that was and was not a part of the game. Soccer as art. And when it is that, it is something else than what you actually believe. I became a performance artist. I have been that all of my life but never with a spiritual value. You see, we don’t do very much serious thinking in football; theory in football is very technical.

Zidane skiing in Norway

“we don’t do very much serious thinking in football”

Hedgehogger: How did you plan your artistic activity?

Zidane: It was quite easy. The curators had given me the clue: “Try again, fail again, fail less.” That was all. I have followed that sentence – without thinking about it – all of my life. But at this point I had to change my life, going into a life of after football.

Hedgehogger: But why did you use the World Cup Final?

Zidane: You know, in art, as I can understand it, you need a lot of attention. Of course I have always a lot of attention and would have had even after ending my carrier. But should I have been taken seriously? I don’t think so. I had to do something drastic to show that I really meant that I was passing a turning point in my life. Going into something different, trying to accomplish something else than playing soccer. I have studied some of the great artists like van Gogh and Duchamp. They were not recognized for a long time, quite the contrary. You see, football is very different. Either you are recognized as a successful player or not. You will not achieve a position later in life if you failed in the eyes of the spectators. Failure was necessary, a very surprising conclusion for a football player.

Hedgehogger: When did the performance start?

Zidane: It started from the very beginning. But I can understand that nobody saw that. I played Zidane all through the game until the second half of the extra time. I went up to Materazzi and said: “Now I am a performance artist. I have a discourse; my actions have a deeper meaning.” And then I headed him, not very hard, but he fell over easy. Then everything turned out to be “relational aesthetics”; I have learnt that from Gordon and Parreno who had much to say on that subject. If I have understood it correctly it means that the activities of people are the artwork. And thinking about it, I think I have made a “total work of art” as people all over the world could participate. And I think I have made a valuable contribution to the biennale of Moss, a trailer for the show. Maybe I have even succeeded in making a masterpiece.

“I headed him, not very hard, but he fell over easy”

“Now I am a performance artist”

Hedgehogger: What would you say the work is about?

Zidane: I think it is a statement about an important aspect of life. Especially these Italians are very superficial. In France, and I consider myself French, we have a tradition of being cultivated. We read a lot. Baudelaire and Ronsard together with Mallarmé have been a great inspiration for my carrier in soccer. And of course Albert Camus. The Italians prefer cartoons and the like. Materazzi needed to meet something he had never experienced. And I think he got it.

Hedgehogger: But will you be recognized as an artist? Most people believe that you just lost your temper?

Zidane: Come on, I have been in the game for many years. And I was playing the World Cup Final. And not only that, we were almost winning. I was playing good and everything pointed towards a fantastic peak of my carrier. Why should I destroy all that? There must be a very special reason. And that is that I was becoming an artist, adding something spiritual to the world. And I call my piece “The Stranger” after Camus’ book.

Relational aesthetics: “I had a special reason”

Thus spoke the great Zidane. And no doubt, his amazing action will probably remain as a landmark in the history of art. And the Moss biennale is borne.

The Hedgehogger is the unofficial magazine of the Moss Biennale.
Editorial Board: Martin Schibli and Lars Vilks

On the 2nd of September Moss Biennale Momentum will open. It is an event that is a must. Compared to other biennales Moss is ”so different”, ”Moss is the Boss”, as they say in Saõ Paulo and Venice. So don’t hesitate to go there. http://www.momentum.no/cgi-bin/momentum/imaker?&id=194

Voices on Moss Biennale

Intensity, experimentation, and visceral presence are the hallmarks of the fourth Moss International Biennale Momentum. Curators Annette Kierulf’s and Mark Sladen’s exhibition, entitled Try Again, Fail Again, Fail Less both concentrates and amplifies singular works, empowering them to speak for themselves without the common filter of a prescriptive curatorial theme. As the curators explain, “We want this Biennial to be about the artists, not about the curators.” The exhibition’s manifest commitment to direct experience is designed to elicit a unique personal response from each viewer.

Latest press text:
Although one of the intentions of this Biennale is to put the visitor “in the realm of the senses,” the senses aren’t meant to be overwhelmed. Kierulf and Sladen have envisioned a bold concept for this timely, groundbreaking biennale. Eager to steer away from the now ubiquitous mega-biennales, they have reduced the quantity of artists. Most of the artists will have separate rooms, designed to encourage as well as seduce their audiences with a purer, unmediated experience. Furthermore, the exhibition reaffirms the ephemeral power of performance art—several of the artists in the show will create performances as part of their work— which, at its very essence, demands a direct engagement between the artist and the viewer. In this manner, the exhibition also intuitively nods at visual art performance’s timely resurgence in the current market-driven artworld.

Subthemes of Momentum: The Nordic and History

Try again, fail again, fail less
Negotiating the Nordic
Today tangible documents in Norway that signal presence are not just synonymous with the world, but have become synonymous with all possible worlds. Other voices, languages, and images fall silent, fade, are devoured without our noticing it; Norwegians are too absorbed in the sequel about the condition of the (one and only) Nordic, which they document and broadcast reports about to themselves with the help of their advanced toys: “We exist! This is what the world looks like today!” Rarely do Norwegians ask themselves about the things that cannot be shown in an increasingly unambiguous visual culture. What will appear when we argue against the Nordic concept? Might an exhibition be a space that momentarily opens up to speculation, dreams of other possibilities, representations and languages?

This exhibition wants to gather a group of artists who, from various perspectives, approach and work with the documentary paradigm that permeates our culture today. The idea is to show work where the Nordic gives way to an examination and questioning of realism, both as an aesthetic category and as a form of presentation. Keywords are speculation and testing. The exhibition wants to start a discussion about how we understand and distinguish between different kinds of images and about the weight and scope given to different narratives in contemporary culture. With this a question follows, about what distinguishes Nordic art from other forms of expression in the world around us - in politics, in the media, in everyday life. The exhibition wants to discuss what creates the images and narratives that hold together our reality and what knowledge and subjectivity it can house, a discussion that looks for the gaps and contradictions in order to see both the limitations and possibilities in the dominant image culture, but also to invent new worlds.

The exhibition wants to build a temporary space for speculations, a place where one can momentarily say the impossible, and show what we think cannot be said, showing places beside the mainstream and upsetting it by suggesting alternative uses of conventional images and narratives, and finding other paths for play, criticism, resistance and Nordic culture.

The exhibition wants to break with the image of the biennial as an enrolment of a large group of artists who contribute with one work each. Instead the exhibition gathers three dozens of artists who each may take part with a large project or show a number of works. The exhibition also wants to show various ways of working and the speculations and suggestions of the artists, and to create a place for discussion. In order to create a context and start a common discussion the artists have convened at a pub a few months before the exhibitions together with the curators. This gathering, with a lot of beer drinking, has formed the basis for the work on the exhibition and the catalogue. A Nordic walking and discussion program will run alongside the exhibition and provide links to contemporary society and provide historical references.

Artists loading imagination with good Norwegian beer

Artists and curators building a temporary space for speculations

Warming up for practising Nordic habits: Nordic walking

And here the artists are enjoying the healthy efforts with Nordic walking

Mr Russell on the Biennale:
Ms Kierulf’s and Mr Sladen’s Try again, fail again, fail less, whether or not it prove to give the ultimate truth on the matters with which it deals, certainly deserves, by its breadth and scope and profundity, to be considered an important event in the artworld. Starting from the identity of the Nordic and the relations which are necessary between words and things in any language, it applies the result of this biennale to various departments of traditional art exhibitions, showing in each case how traditional art exhibitions and traditional solutions arise out of ignorance of the principles of History and out of misuse of language.

Russel lecturing

Try Again, fail again, fail less is also a humorous comment on the present state of affairs of Nordic identity which can only be met with tears or smiles like any other unanswerable situation. The Nordic serves as a means of distancing oneself, as it were, and thus breaks up the only too obtrusive presence of the real. Or, to quote the German author and Georg Büchner Prize winner Wilhelm Genazino: “The Nordic is also the comfort that has to invent itself through the life continuously failed. The Nordic act is a kind of reward for an urgently required interruption.” The sphere of Nordic offers itself as an overwhelming opportunity of taking a break. It is a world of mad collisions where a spectacular chaos prevails and the twists of destiny boycott all possible moral judgments (Ralph Rugoff). The protagonists are mostly victims of chance and universal gravitation. The loss of control and balance guarantees a respectable pleasure though. The great Nordic masters such as Edvard Munch and Asger Jorn brilliantly celebrate their defeats and, unperturbed, ignore the paradoxical simultaneousness of order and chaos.

The success of a Nordic workshop, artists using natural material to form minimalist sculpture, the ball of snow: Untitled (For Moss).

During the Nordic Seminar differences of opinions were settled outside the pub; like a performance piece which it actually was not: Alle gegen alle.

The Hedgehogger is the unofficial magazine for the Moss Biennale Momentum 2006.
Editorial Staff: Martin Schibli and Lars Vilks

Momentum opens 2 sep
Participating artists:
Endre Aalrust & Thomas Kilpper, Lara Almarcegui, Johanna Billing, Gerard Byrne, Phil Collins, Copenhagen Free University, Kajsa Dahlberg, Edvard Gran, Tue Greenfort, Jeppe Hein, Knut Henrik Henriksen, Sergej Jensen, Tellervo Kalleinen & Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, Ragnar Kjartansson, Joachim Koester, Juozas Laivys, Camilla Løw , Talleiv Taro Manum, Michaela Meise, Rosalind Nashashibi, Romantic Geographic Society, Egill Sæbjörnsson, Michael Sailstorfer, Lucy Skaer, Joanne Tatham & Tom O’Sullivan, Mark Titchner, Sue Tompkins and Lars Vilks.

Phil Collins and Mark Titchner are shortlisted for the Turner Prize.

Theme of this number: The Failure as Artistic Material

The Duet of the Curators

First curator speaks (On hearing the failure of Manifesta 6 on Cyprus):

Now we have Chaos; we are stuck in The Age of Confusion. And the art itself became a territory where the number of initiatives is uncountable. The subjects and styles are following a wide flow of interest where the individual activity looses sometimes its correlating points.

Second curator takes a deep breath and gives this speech:

Moss Biennale promote awareness and dissemination of the culture, particularly in the fields of the arts, by means of exchanges and cultural cooperation within Europe and beyond and is looking for strategies that would develop mutual understanding and offer insights from different perspectives.
We are interested in the link between creative practice and social development, in the links between the local, European and global contexts.
Our programs promote the exchange of art and ideas through the staging of contemporary arts and work globally and locally, bringing together an international vision of art and cross-cultural exchange with a commitment to the community involvement and the enrichment of Moss’ cultural resources.
We assume the urge of a dialogue with the public, of a platform for artists as much as the need of reinventing new forms of artistic expression and encourage curators to make a large selection of artists who would represent best the European unity in diversity.
Moss Biennale aims to resolve the twofold problems of tradition and modernity, past and present, localism and global village, it strives to attain a balanced status between its aesthetic/artistic quality and popularity by overcoming the feeling of estrangement that the general public has towards the contemporary arts.
The Biennale is building a strong partnership between Moss - which is more than a city, it is a symbol of how political can be reflected in every aspect of life - and Europe; it links to an universal problem - that does not take into consideration the geographical or historical context - the problem of resistance in daily life, of details and living as a way of living. Moss Biennale is a structure able to transform the City itself into an ongoing workshop-cum-field of action.
Fundamentally, European culture has been the result of exchange - sometimes peaceful, other times violent - that have taken place between neighbouring societies and between different social groups and between different social groups within a given state. These horizontal and vertical forms of cultural exchange occurred in many different manners: through imitation, assimilation, dissimulation, appropriation, through either mutual understanding or hegemonic dominance.
We would like to operate in a way that demonstrates sensitivity and competence in dealing with the “others” as the “alter” from different cultural backgrounds.
Moss Biennale aims to encourage creativity of artists, public access to culture, the dissemination of art and culture, inter-cultural dialogue and knowledge of the history and cultural heritage of the European and extra-European people.
Its general purpose is to engender a shared cultural area by bringing people together while preserving their national and regional multiplicity and diversity.

First curator is now ready to match the speech of Second curator:

Moss Biennale 2006 is dedicated to moving beyond the functions and roles of the large-scale international contemporary art exhibition. By opening, widening, and breaking artistic “frames”, Moss Biennale is giving innovative artists the unique opportunity to escape the constraints of the traditional gallery and fixed art institution, letting them express their creative powers as never before.
That’s why the Biennale’s theme is “Try again, fail again, fail less”. As the theme implies, artistic expression can fail at any time, regardless of one’s background, job, or situation. In this respect, the Biennale is encouraging an omnipresent artistic experience, which is not constrained by socially-determined, artificial boundaries of any kind.
To ensure access to artistic experience, the Moss Biennale Organizing Committee has been actively canvassing all participants – artist, curators, as well as the viewing public – for valuable feedback, Biennale co-direction and ongoing support.

[Hedgehogger comment: It is obvious that the Moss Biennale is doomed to fail. The curators are humbly asking for a limited failure. But is the Biennale about failure?]

Now speaks again Second curator:

The sociologist Zygmunt Bauman said, “failure, like poets, is always
uncovering new situations, human opportunities that were hitherto
concealed”. When failure succeeds, it comprises brief, joyful moments,
when we realize we are not alone, but share the world and life with others.
The desire to create such moments is the guiding principle behind this
exhibition.

And back comes First curator:

In this exhibition, failure is created internally, between and among
the works on display, and with and among visitors. Each and every one of the
individual exhibits resonates with the other works on display in a way that
allows the viewer’s failure to be compared to a symphonic weave of
themes, moods, rhythms, expressive densities, and ideas. Each work plays a
specific part in this composition.

Art/culture is failure. This notion embraces also the exhibition’s
wider milieu. The local community and its environs form the exhibition’s
broader field of failure. This background has implications for the
selection of exhibits; within the wider setting, the chosen works create
failures of their own.

The Biennale recommends some of the most important literature on failure for further reading:

Agamben, Giorgio: State of Failure
Baudrillard, Jean: The Conspiracy of Failure
Bauman, Zygmunt: Failure: An Unfinished Adventure
Beckett, Samuel: Waiting for the Failure
Benjamin, Walter: The Work of Art in the Age of Failure
Butler, Judith: Undoing Failure
Calvino, Italo: The Invisible Failures
Deleuze & Guttari: What is Failure?
Foucault, Michel: Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Failure
Heidegger, Martin: On the Way to Failure
Hemingway, Ernest: The Old Man and the Failure
Kant, Immanuel: Critique of Failure
Marquez, Gabriel García: 100 years of Failure
Nietzsche; Friedrich: Thus spoke Failure
Nussbaum; Martha C: Frontiers of Failure: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty: A Critique of Postcolonial Failure: Towards a History of the Vanishing Present
Steinbeck John: The Grapes of Failure
Zizek, Slavoj: The Sublime Object of Failure

Lars Vilks: An artwork for Moss

How do you begin an art project? Very simple, open your door and take a look. The artist Vilks did so. And what did he see? He saw the well with the stone lid in his garden. On the lid he had several years ago placed a ceramic horse. And thus he spoke:

Horse on a well
- Orson Welles

Orson Welles, a man of great failure; as he has said himself: “I started at the top and worked my way down”. His early success was of course “Citizen Kane”. His last project was “Don Quixote” which he never completed. In his young days he directed the theatre play “Horse Eat Hat”, the French farce “Un chapeau de paille d’Italie”.

Horse on a well

Scene from “Horse Eat Hat”

Orson Welles directing “Horse Eat Hat”

Orson Welles and Don Quixote

Orson Welles’ grave: A well in Ronda, Spain

And what is this project? An example of the “third way critical art” as suggested by Jacques Rancière.

The Hedgehogger No 3, May 2006

The Hedgehogger is an unofficial magazine for the upcoming Biennale in Moss. Edited by Martin Schibli and Lars Vilks.

September in Moss, Norway, the Biennale Momentum

Over a quarter of a million people will experience the world in a different way when they attend Norway’s leading contemporary art event, the 2006 Biennale of Moss. This year’s free exhibition and associated events features 35 of the world’s most dynamic and provocative artists from many countries. All eyes will be on Moss as the Biennale claims the attention of people from all over the city and beyond when it opens in many venues from Jeløya to Moss Center.

One of the most challenging events of its kind, the Biennale of Moss celebrates its 4th exhibition in 2006, making it one of the most established biennales in the world. This year’s event provides a chance to experience some of today’s most exciting artists, many of whom will show in Norway for the first time. All of the 35 participating artists will be coming to Moss for the event and special programs will give Norwegians unique access to some of the most creative minds working today.
The 2006 exhibition, curated by two leading curators, Annette Kierulf and Mark Sladen, pushes new boundaries with a strong representation by artists from countries and regions that are rarely represented in major international festivals and biennales. The breadth of the exhibition sees groundbreaking artists with connections to cultures as diverse as Bosnia, Malaysia, Palestine, Japan, India, Canada, Lebanon, Singapore, Israel, Britain, Egypt, Latvia, China, Serbia & Montenegro, Bahrain, Russia, The Netherlands, Brazil, the United States, New Zealand and Kazakhstan.
Artistic Directors & Curators of the 4th Biennale of Moss Annette Kierulf and Mark Sladen, has travelled the world visiting over 40 countries in 18 months and meeting more than 1,600 artists. “Try again, fail again, fail better” is an exhibition about today. It deals with the issues of our time – the ideas and concerns that shape all our lives and our sense of the future” said Kierulf and Sladen. “There is a general global movement that is reflected in Try again, fail again, fail better: the experience of having one’s homeland occupied or of living in another person’s culture and the sense of physical, psychological and cultural displacement that arises, along with the impact it has on the land, environment and sense of belonging. The exhibition also celebrates the positive interactions between people, where connections are made and familiarity, understanding and intimacy are made possible.”
Chairman of the Biennale of Moss Vidar Hulaas, said, “The 2006 Biennale of Moss sets a new benchmark: Annette Kierulf and Mark Sladen has brought together an astonishing range of artists whose works evoke, on the whole, a poignancy rarely encountered in art exhibitions. Moreover, in terms of logistics, it is manifest that an event of this scale and reach is only possible with the continuing support of our generous public and private sector partners, in Norway and overseas. We hope the wider public is as captivated as we are by what Annette and Mark have shown us so far.”

SYDNEY

Between now and September Sydney will have its biennale (June 8 – 27). The theme is Zones of Contact.

The Sydney biennale case

Never give up

Sydney has an opera house

Moss has an industrial tower

UPCOMING EVENT IN MOSS

One of the contributions that will be made by artist Lars Vilks and curator Martin Schibli is the seminar Biennale! Biennale! Burning bright/ In the cities of the night.

This seminar will explore international exhibition-making and current curatorial practices in contemporary art, the ‘Biennale Phenomena’ and issues surrounding the city and cosmopolitanism. Selected international speakers include Friedrich Nietzsche as Keynote Speaker (former professor, Basel, Switzerland) who will introduce his biennale books: The Birth of Biennials, 1872; Biennial, All Too Biennial, 1878; The Dawn of Biennials, 1881; The Gay Biennial, 1882/1887; Thus Spoke the Biennial, 1883-5; Beyond Biennial and Triennial, 1886; On the Genealogy of the Biennial, 1887; The Twilight of the Biennial, 1888; The Anti-biennial, 1888; Ecce the Biennial, 1888. Friedrich von Schlegel (Privatdozent, Jena, Germany) another Keynote Speaker who will present his work on biennales (only in German): Die Biennalen und die Triennalen, 1797; Geschichte der Poesie der Biennalen, 1798; Eine Biennale mit Lucinde, 1799; Gespräch über die Biennalen, 1800; Charakteristiken und Kritiken die Biennalen, 1801; Alarcos und die Biennalen, 1802; Über die Sprache und Weisheit der Biennalen, 1808; Biennalengedichte, 1809; Über die neurere Geschichte der Biennalen, 1811; Geschichte der alten und neuren Biennalen, 1812; Philosophie der Biennalen, 1828; Philosophie der Geschichte der Biennalen, 1829; Philosophische Vorlesungen über Biennalen aus den Jahren 1804-06, 1836; Prosaische Biennalenschriften, 1882; Briefwechsel mit Biennalencuratoren, 1923; Krisenjahre der Frühbiennalen, 1936-58; Kritische Biennalen, 1956.

The Biennial in Moss, “Momentum” will begin in September this year. The Hedgehogger is an art project that is introducing the upcoming exhibition and the complexity of the art world of biennales.

Curatorial
The exhibition Momentum Try again, fail again, fail better unravels as a novel, a story involving different characters and individualities, dissecting their private destinies and universal fears.
In order to capture and amplify these tensions, the curators of the 4th Moss biennial have selected an array of exhibition sites, all concentrated along one street and an island, in the heart of Moss.
Choosing these venues as both an example and an archetype, Try again, fail again, fail better leads its viewers across a variety of environments and experiences. The artists in “Try again, fail again, fail better” were asked to intervene or present their works in places that represent the every day that is our common ground: offices, galleries, trailers, and former factories.

For the show, the curators aspire to put together a story that follows different plotlines and open-ended narrative passages. Not a theme show nor an exhibition with a thesis, “Try again, fail again, fail better” poses questions about birth and loss, death and surrender, grief and nostalgia.

Taking its title from a novel by 20th century Irish writer Samuel Beckett Try again, fail again, fail better stages a theater of the absurd, in which animals, humans and ghosts all play their tragic parts. But it is also a day in life of the inhabitants of Moss and a stroll along the spaces that punctuate our existence.

The exhibition, Try again, fail again, fail better will include more than 20 artists spanning generations and working in a variety of media and techniques from conceptual art, animation to still photography, role-playing to team building. Unlike the prevailing biennial tendency to debut the latest talents and movements, this show draws connections across time and throughout the past and present, rather than just concentration on the fleeting trend or tastes. And the context within the heart of the city of Moss brings with it the undeniable weight of countless histories and manifestations, triumphs and failures.

Moss has with Momentum created a tradition of co-opting and transforming existing buildings and structures into venues for temporary art shows. In Moss an artist can turn his or her apartment into a gallery or opens an independent exhibition space. Learning from this experience, the curators recognize the specificity of Moss’ art scene and the vast quantities of unoccupied space. That space is both a blessing and a curse: it offers up exciting and fresh venues for presenting art, however it also symbolizes the failures and consequences of the city’s powerful and persistent memory and history.
The Moss biennial is the only biennial in the world that changes locations and venues according to the exigencies of the exhibition. Try again, fail again, fail better will thus become a strange carnival or street fair, following a jagged descent into the spirals of time.

THE MATCH: MOSS VERSUS BERLIN

Enter the authors to assist the art events. In the blue corner Moss is matching Samuel Beckett, while Berlin brings forward John Steinbeck with Robert Burns at ringside.

THE BELL TOLLS (Like the curfew tolls the knell of parting day)

I could pet it with my thumb while we walked along.

On. Say on. Be said on. Somehow on. Till nohow on. Said nohow on.
On. I’ll say on. (Let “on” be said.) I’ll go on somehow. Till nohow on. Till I say “nohow on”.

Guys like us, that work on ranches are the loneliest guys in the world . . . They don’t belong to no place.

Say a body. Where none. No mind. Where none. That at least. A place. Where none. For the body. To be in. Move in. Out of. Back into. No. No out. No back. Only in. Stay in. On in. Still.

Let’s Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamble (photo: James Hartman, Highland, Indiana)

I don’t like this place, George. This ain’t no good place. I wanna get outa here….they go inta town and blow their stake…

I’ll say there’s a body (where there isn’t one). I won’t say there’s a mind (where there isn’t one). That at least is true. I’ll say there’s a place (where there isn’t one) for the body: for it to be in and move in, and to move out of and move back into again. No: the body doesn’t move out or move back. It stays in, it stays on in - unmoving.

Guy don’t need no scuse to be a nice fella. Seems to me sometimes it jus’ works the other. That means we’ll be bucking grain bags, bustin’ a gut….beaten hard by tramps who come wearily down from the highway in the evening to jungle up near the water

All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

S’pose I went in with you guys. . . . I could cook and tend the chickens and hoe the garden some. How’d that be?

Everything is as it was of old. There’s never been anything else. I’ve never tried anything else, never failed at anything else. But it doesn’t matter: I’ll try again, I’ll fail again. I’ll fail better than I did before.

We gotta house and chickens an’ fruit trees an’ a place a hundred time prettier than this.You got your work slips? Well, that glove’s fulla Vaseline. An’ I bet he’s eatin’ raw eggs and writin’ to the patent medicine houses.

He’s got the punch (photo: James Hartman)

First the body. No. First the place. No. First both. Now either. Now the other. Sick of the either try the other. Sick of it back sick of the either. So on. Somehow on. Till sick of both. Throw up and go. Where neither. Till sick of there. Throw up and back. The body again. Where none. The place again. Where none. Try again. Fail again. Better again. Or better worse. Fail worse again. Still worse again. Till sick for good. Throw up for good. Go for good. Where neither for good. Good and all.

On mice and men…

Said nohow on. I have said “nohow on”.

IT WAS ALL OVER EVEN BEFORE IT STARTED. MAN! SHOW SOME RESPECT!

The Hedgehog is reflecting on the state of affairs after the great match:
This the way to the mossyroom. Mind your hats goan in! Now yiz are in the Sqoor. This is a Buddegunn. This is a Sweed. Tip… This is the triplewon hat of Vincentium. Tip. Vincentiumhat. This is the colonelium on his same white harse, the battleharse. 1716. This is the big, grand and magentic in his goldtin spurs and his ironed dux and his quarterbrass woodyshoes and his magnate’s gharters and his bangkok’s best and goliar’s goloshes and his pulluponeasyan wartrews. This is his big wide harse. Tip. Goan to Balaklava. History as her is harped… Tantris, hattrick, tryst and parting, by vowelglide! I feel your thrilljoy mouths overtspeaking, O dragoman, hands understudium… Every third man has a chink in his conscience and every other woman has a jape in her mind. All hath here, elk and convention busted to the wurld at large, on the table round in Ande Mundie 1814. Tip.

—————————————————————————————

Martin Schibli visiting THE BERLIN BIENNALE

A couple of weeks ago, the Berlin biennale opened, curated by Maurizio Cattelan, Massimiliano Gioni och Ali Subotnick. The general theme, as in most biennales, is about life: you are born; you die, and in between
(traumatic) thing happen. Unusually for a major biennale, this one is possible to see in just one day, i.e. most films and videos are just a few minutes long. And for most of the presented works / projects, the visitor doesn’t need the information from the catalogue. This has been seen as a critique of the third biennale.
The biennale is located along the Auguststrasse, the same street as Kunst-Werke is to be found; the used spaces are old stables, a basement, a container and an old non-renovated mirrored ballroom. Even private inhabited apartments are used, which for me is a bit nostalgic on a personal level, because some of the apartments was in the same spirit as my own M Art In(n) gallery project, that I initiated 2000 - 2003 in Helsingborg, Sweden.
One problem with the used spaces, which is common with spaces that have a significant history, is that the space easily becomes more interesting than the presented artworks. Many artists are not experienced enough to work in such environments, a serious critique, but not very surprising. Most Art Schools teaches how to make art, not visual presentations of their work from a given situation.

During the first weekend, Robert Kusmirowskis full size replica of a polish boxcar, placed in a room in a former Jewish girls-school, was one of the talked about works. Understandable, it had an instant impact on the viewer, the wagon fills the whole room with its own presence, combined with a significant reference - a Jewish school. Combined it seems like a powerful force, history that explodes, and break the walls.
Another work that got attention was Reynold Reynolds film Burn. A man is pouring petrol on a bed, where a woman sleeps, and then lights it. At the same time, some other sequences show another couple that doesn’t seems to care that their home is on fire, they continue with their daily things.
Several artists show personal mythologies. Michaël Borremans, one of the few painters, shows a little model on a house, reminding somewhat of Kafka, shown together with several painting that depicts the house in different art-historical settings.
Personal, I was fond of Aneta Grzeszykowskas photo album, placed on a dining table in one of the apartments. At the start, the photos looked liked ordinary family photos, but there is something disturbing.
It turned out that the artist has digitally edited her own family album, making she disappear from the photos, taking away the photo as an idea of a personal materialisation of a memory.

Significant in the biennale is the use of a symbolic visual language, often sentimental, and with a small hashing to surrealism. Especially a visual language that is common in Eastern Europe presented; several of the artists are also from Eastern Europe. This kind of art is not common in the biennale culture and within major institutions of contemporary art. Often it is overlooked as somewhat traditionally, modernist and illustrative. Even, black/white Polish graphics are exhibited at the biennale (Dorota Jurczaks mythical images of birds picking on heads). This kind of art has been seemed as hopeless. After the wall, there were several artists from Eastern Europe that became well known within a western art-world hemisphere. But often, it was with presented in a western framework of aesthetics.

There are four artists from the Nordic countries. All of them seem to manage quite well in the competition. The Danish artist, Sergej Jensen presented the installation “The waiting room” in one of the apartments.
Three Swedish artists are participating. Most hype has Nathalie Djurberg, with her remarkably strange animations, which move from humour to dark fairytales like the Grimm brothers. Felix Gmelin shows a film from the seventies, showing sexual education to young blind persons, and how they studying by touching young naked models. In a video, Klara Liden is dancing in a subway car, in Stockholm. It is not seducing; on the contrary, it has humour and is rebellious.
Too sum up, in general terms, it seems in this biennale, that the social critique has gone from a quantitative method, that has an ambition of social studies and to reflect upon reality, to a more qualitative method, there the personal narrative is dominating. Maybe, this in an expression for an urge for the existential and authentic.

In German media, and elsewhere, the biennale seems to be well received, and the visitors like it, despite there are no artistic representation from Asia, African or South America. The fact that only 20% of the participating artists are women is not a big issue, and barely mentioned. At least in Sweden, the lack of women would be a scandal, but in Germany they look at gender issues in a different way.
The fact that Berlin Biennale is concentrating on Eastern Europe is understandable, and probably, it is also an expression of Easter Europe’s increased importance in politics and in the economy. But one thing is sure; the Berlin biennale is in many ways different from other biennales. The curators have found a neglected visual aesthetics/concept of art in the artworld. The core question is if it will have a long term effect on the artworld, and change the idea of quality, or if this biennale is too different from the others? But, if this is an ongoing trend, the Nordic artworld will probably change within 2 or 3 years, and change the cards, and celebrated artists, when new ideas of quality hits the market. The Berlin biennale could, after Momentum 2006, turn out to be one of the most important biennials this year.