The easyjet set of roaming artists, critics and curators was visible underwhelmed by this year’s showcase of contemporary art trends in the unofficial capital of the international art scene. On the one hand, the show, entitled ‘what is waiting out there’, offered little in the way of spectacular new productions, with the curator cautiously opting to re-contextualise works from the last decade, such as John Smith’s 2001 video Frozen War on media representation of the airstrikes on Afghanistan, rather than commission fresh responses to the Biennial’s promising theme of contemporary realism.  Notable exceptions included a precarious post-utopian structure by Kosovo-born artist Petrit Halilaj, which filled the main space of Kunst-Werke in Berlin Mitte and Bratislava-based Roman Ondak’s over-sized, yet functional cloakroom, which dominates the ground floor gallery of the Kreuzberg venue.

On the other hand, some of the curatorial decisions seem rather baffling, such as confining one of the few substantial new works, a fascinating film by British artist Phil Collins dealing with the fate of former teachers of Marxism-Leninism in reunified Germany, to a tiny airless projection room with single hourly screenings, or forcing visitors to travel to another part of town and walk past a row of car workshops to see a far-from-mind-blowing film and sculptural installation that could presumably have been accommodated in one of the two main venues. Among the most talked about works during the opening days of the Biennial was Renzo Martens discomforting film Episode 3, which explores the clichés and reality of exploitation in Africa by following the adventures of a Borat-like artist with a neon sign that reads ‘Enjoy Poverty’ in the Congo. 

The challenge that always faces the Berlin Biennial is that the city’s everyday art life can feel like one long biennial, with what would elsewhere be considered the unquestioned highlight of the contemporary calendar experienced by locals as just another big art event. Typically, the day after the official launch of the Biennial was the start of ‘gallery weekend’, with dozens of shows opening in private spaces around the city that collectively trumped the biennial in terms of the quantity, if not quality, of contemporary art on display. Cruising from the smart white cubes of Mitte to the East End-style warehouses with attitude in Heide Straße, and then on to trendy office block galleries near Checkpoint Charlie, brings home the fluid and highly-commercial art world ‘reality’ with which the Berlin Biennial has to contend.

While Berlin has exciting new galleries devoted to Romanian (Plan B), Polish (Žak/Branicka) and Slovenian (Galerija Gregor Podnar) contemporary art, the Hungarian-run gallery Lada Project unfortunately lost its exhibition space a couple of years back. Coincidentally, despite the presence of a fair number of East Europeans in the biennial, this time round there were no Hungarian artists selected. The Hungarian art scene was though well-represented by curators from all the major Budapest institutions, who made the short hop to take the pulse of the continent’s most happening art scene, and by the numerous Hungarian artists who have been drawn to the Berlin art hub. When the dust has settled on this year’s Berlin Biennial, it’s consciously beige and unspectacular approach may turn out to have set a new no-nonsense trend, with repercussions from Bombay to Budapest.

(Maja and Reuben Fowkes)