Workshops
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29.5.–3.8.2014

The Exhibition: Metamorphosis of a Concept

Young Curators Workshop in conjunction with the 8th Berlin Biennale

For the fifth time, the Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art invited young curators to a workshop for exchanging ideas and discussing curatorial issues and practice. 2014, 13 young curators from 11 different countries engaged in dialogue with a series of guests, among them curators but also experts from a range of other disciplines.

With its negotiation of the nineteenth century in today’s cultural landscape, the ten-day program adopted one of the central conceptual approaches of the 8th Berlin Biennale. Under the title The Exhibition: Metamorphosis of a Concept, María Inés Rodríguez, director of the CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux, had developed a program rooted in the assumption that the world fairs of the late nineteenth century formed the basis for the exhibition as an autonomous entity. This development maintains its influence to this day. Questions regarding the benefits, audience range, design, organization, financing of, and above all the relationship between an exhibition and the public, artworks, and artists have accompanied the exhibition format ever since, and the respective contemporary approaches to answering them offer deep insights into our understanding of making exhibitions.

Participating Young Curators

  • Nahla Al Tabbaa
  • Fernanda Albuquerque
  • Stefan Benchoam
  • Antares Gomez Bartolome
  • Inga Lāce
  • Mélanie Mermod
  • Vera Mey
  • Bill Nguyen
  • Jo-Lene Ong
  • Catalina Restrepo Leongómez
  • Bastien Rousseau
  • Noam Segal
  • Barbara Sirieix

Guest Speakers

  • Xabier Arakistain, feminist curator and art critic, Bilbao, ES
  • Heidi Ballet, curatorial assistant Young Curators Workshop 2014, Berlin
  • José Luis Blondet, curator Special Projects, LACMA, Los Angeles, US
  • Fang-Wei Chang, chief curator (2002–08) and director of Biennial and International Projects Office (2008–12), Taipei
  • Juan A. Gaitán, curator of the 8th Berlin Biennale, Berlin
  • Erin Gleeson, curator, co-founding director of SA SA BASSAC, Phnom Penh
  • Catalina Lozano, independent curator, member of the Artistic Team of the 8th Berlin Biennale, Mexico City
  • Martí Manen, curator and art critic, director of ARCO(e)ditorial 2014, Stockholm
  • Michy Marxuach, co-founder and co-director of Beta Local, San Juan, PR
  • Ana María Millán, artist, Berlin and Cali, CO
  • Tobias Ostrander, chief curator at the Pérez Art Museum Miami, US
  • Stephen Prina, artist, Boston, US, and Los Angeles, US
  • Christina Werner, co-director of the Institut für Raumexperimente, Berlin University of the Arts, Berlin

The Young Curators Workshop The Exhibition: Metamorphosis of a Concept was organized by the 8th Berlin Biennale in collaboration with Allianz Cultural Foundation, Berlin; BMW, Munich; and Goethe-Institut, Munich. The participation of two young French curators was made possible by the program Jeunes Commissaires des Bureau des arts plastiques of the Institut français.

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