In contrast to most biennials that are born from the vision and concept of a single artistic director, the Tenth Berlin Biennial was a collaborative effort by five curators, under the guidance of South African-born Gabi Ngcobo. Entitled We Don't Need Another Hero, it is a biennial that centers the voices of artists that are perhaps less well known in an art world increasingly validated by art fairs and capital, but one where artists expect viewers to enter their worlds, to shift perspective if need be, and in so doing to meet the limits of their own subjectivities. With no unifying theme, it is a thought-provoking biennial that flatly refuses to take on the burden of identity politics.
“Let's face it, we are at war,” announced Gabi Ngcobo in her opening statement at the press conference in June 2018 in Berlin, invoking the Fallist student movement that emerged in...