Orga­nized by the İstan­bul Foun­da­tion for Cul­ture and Arts, the 11th Inter­na­tional İstan­bul Bien­nial (Sep­tem­ber 12-November 8, 2009) is curated by What, How and for Whom/WHW. The exhi­bi­tion is enti­tled “What Keeps Mankind Alive?,” the Eng­lish trans­la­tion of the song “Denn wovon lebt der Men­sch?” from The Three­penny Opera, writ­ten in 1928 by Bertolt Brecht, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Elis­a­beth Haupt­mann and Kurt Weill. The Three­penny Opera the­ma­tizes the process of redis­tri­b­u­tion of own­er­ship within bour­geois soci­ety and sheds an unfor­giv­ing light on var­i­ous ele­ments of cap­i­tal­ist ideology.

Brecht’s asser­tion from this play that “a crim­i­nal is a bour­geois and a bour­geois is a crim­i­nal” is as true as ever, and the cor­re­spon­dences of rapid devel­op­ments of lib­eral econ­omy on dis­in­te­gra­tion of hith­erto exist­ing social con­sen­sus in 1928 and in present times are strik­ing. The con­cept of the Bien­nial pro­poses not to go back to Brecht as a clas­sic that needs to be redis­cov­ered and shown to new gen­er­a­tions, but rather to reflect on laten­cies of the past in the present and inves­ti­gate pos­si­bil­i­ties of art to re-examine old and open new rela­tion­ships between social engage­ment and aes­thetic gesture.

Artist List

Jumana Emil Abboud, Vyach­eslav Akhunov, Mounira Al Solh, Nevin Aladağ, Doa Aly, Karen Andreass­ian, Yük­sel Arslan, Zanny Begg, Lida Bli­nova, Anna Boghigu­ian, KP Brehmer, Bureau d’études, Cen­giz Çekil, Dan­ica Dakic, Lado Darakhvelidze, decolonizing.ps (by Sandi Hilal, Alessan­dro Petti, Eyal Weiz­man), Natalya Dyu, Rena Effendi, Işıl Eğrikavuk, Etcétera…, Hans-Peter Feld­mann, Sha­hab Fotouhi, İnci Furni, Igor Gru­bic, Nil­bar Güreş, Mar­garet Har­ri­son, Sharon Hayes, Vlatka Hor­vat, Wafa Hourani, Ham­let Hov­sepian, Sanja Ivekovic, Dongh­wan Jo & Hae­jun Jo, Jesse Jones, Alim­jan Jorobaev, Michel Jour­niac, KwieKu­lik (pre­sented by Zofia Kulik), Sin­isa Labrovic, Signs of Con­flict: Polit­i­cal Posters of Lebanon’s Civil War (a project by Zeina Maasri), David Maljkovic, Mar­wan, Avi Mograbi, Rabih Mroué, Aydan Murteza­oğlu &Bülent Şangar, Museum of Amer­i­can Art-Belgrade, Marina Naprushk­ina, Deiman­tas Narke­vi­cius, Ioana Nemes, Wen­delien van Old­en­borgh, Moham­mad Ous­sama, Erkan Özgen, Trevor Paglen, Nam June Paik, Marko Peljhan, Darinka Pop-Mitic, Lisi Raskin, María Ruido, Larissa San­sour, Hrair Sarkiss­ian, Ruti Sela &Maayan Amir, Canan Şenol, Société Réal­iste, Mladen Stili­novic, Tamás St.Auby, Jinoos Taghizadeh, Oraib Toukan, Van­ge­lis Vla­hos, Simon Wachsmuth, Artur Zmi­jew­ski, What is to be done / Chto delat?

Venues

Antrepo No.3, Karaköy
Feriköy Greek School, Şişli
Tütün Deposu (Tobacco Ware­house), Tophane

Pro­fes­sional Pre­view: Sep­tem­ber 10–11, 2009
Press Con­fer­ence: Sep­tem­ber 10, 2009 > 10.00

Inter­na­tional İstan­bul Bien­nial
İstan­bul Foun­da­tion for Cul­ture and Arts
İstik­lal Cad­desi 64 Bey­oğlu 34435
İstan­bul, Turkey
T: +90 212 334 07 63
F: +90 212 334 07 18

Image of artist Hamra Abbas prepar­ing work at Antrepo No.3 for the 2007 Istan­bul Bien­nial. Cour­tesy of the Istan­bul Foun­da­tion for Cul­ture and Arts