The 13th Berlin Biennale leads visitors through familiar and unfamiliar parts of the city, presenting a diverse program with unseen artistic positions from across the globe. Curator Zasha Colah has chosen the urban fox as a model for this year’s edition: a creature that roams the streets uninvited, slipping through gaps in the city’s fabric. Likewise, the participating artists and collectives take over the exhibition spaces. Many of the works resist immediate interpretation. What is exhibited is the resistant art that emerges from conflict zones or gives voice to their stories. At the former courthouse on Lehrter Straße — open to the public for the first time in over a decade — visitors encounter the powerful “Prison Paintings” by Burmese artist Htein Lin. After participating in pro-democracy protests in Myanmar in 1988, Lin was sentenced to seven years in prison by the military regime. Behind bars, he painted with whatever materials he could find: bed sheets became canvases, soap scraps became brushes.
Displayed near the adjacent former prison, the works bear physical and emotional traces of that time. Colah invites viewers to reflect on the site’s layered history, where anti-war activist Karl Liebknecht was once arrested, artists now question the boundaries between justice and injustice, and who gets to define them. The Biennale offers a global context, yet it does not follow the media spotlight. Instead, it illuminates voices often marginalized in the Western art world. At Hamburger Bahnhof, Jane Jin Kaisen presents a multimedia installation exploring the entangled histories of colonialism, trauma, and resistance on the South Korean island of Jeju. At Sophiensæle, performance, body, and narrative intersect in intimate, time-based formats. Overall, this year’s program occupies the edges of institutional practice. Many participating artists work collectively or in close collaboration with local communities, often in regions underrepresented in international discourse. For those seeking a slower, more dialogical experience, the Focus Tours offer a space for reflection and conversation. Guided by artists and mediators, these tours encourage deeper engagement and personal interpretation, far from the rushed pace of conventional exhibition visits. The next date is 09.08.2025, with Thesea Rigou, a Cypriot artist, educator, and gardener. Like the fox that inspired it, the 13th Berlin Biennale moves through urban interstices, curious, alert, often unnoticed, yet always present. You may not find immediate answers, but you’ll likely discover new ways of seeing.
Text: Laura Storfner & Nina Trippel / Photos: Marvin Systermans, Eberle & Eisfeld / Credit: Han Bing & Kashmiri Cabbage Walker; Helena Uambembe; Jane Jin Kaisen, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025
13th Berlin Biennale until 14.09.2025.
You can find the entire program here. Next focus tour 09.08.2025 16–17h at KW.
@berlinbiennale
