[artinfo] Fwd: The 7th Berlin Biennale announces Associate Curators: Voina Group from Russia and Joanna Warsza

[Sári Stenczer]

*Press Release*
Berlin, November 28, 2011


*The 7th Berlin Biennale announces Associate Curators: Voina Group from
Russia and Joanna Warsza*

Artur Żmijewski appointed the Voina group from Russia and Joanna Warsza
from Warsaw as Associate Curators, who will work together to develop the
concept and program of the 7th Berlin Biennale.


*Voina*

Oleg Vorotnikov (a.k.a. Vor), Natalya Sokol (a.k.a. Kozljonok or Koza),
Leonid Nikolajew (a.k.a. Leo the Fucknut) and Kasper Nienagliadny Sokol

The art collective Voina (engl.: war) from Russia was founded in 2005 by
Oleg Vorotnikov and Natalya Sokol. Voina engages in street action art that
is directed against the Russian authorities. Their actions are regularly
joined by a large group of anonymous activists. Numerous lawsuits have been
filed against the group and its activists. Most recently Natalya Sokol and
her son Kasper have been arrested for several hours in mid-October 2011.
Oleg Vorotnikov, Natalya Sokol, Leonid Nikolajew and Kasper decline the use
of money and live in St. Petersburg without a permanent home. Their creed
is, as Natalya Sokol declares: "The artist who denies political awareness
is just a designer."

"We do not expect that the Voina group will be practicing an ordinary
curatorship. Maybe they will knock at the doors of artists' studios, but
not to check the art works, but to remind us about the ethos of the artist.
They are among the last few believers who practice an art that is a direct
political job. They continue their own, limitless, erratic and serious
practice in Russia. Have they already done their 'best artwork'? Is it
maybe the huge dick on Litiejnyj brigde in St. Petersburg? We do not think
so. Their best artwork is the reminder that as the art world, we are on the
way to just become a neoliberal elite who plays for financial gain and the
accumulation of symbolic capital." (Artur Żmijewski and Joanna Warsza)

Read a quote from a conversation with Leonid Nikolajew here:
http://www.berlinbiennale.de/blog/en/allgemein-en/quotes-from-an-interview-with-lonia-jebniety-engl-leo-the-fucknut-16762

For further information:
http://en.free-voina.org

Most recent actions by Voina:
Action "Dick captured by KGB". June 14, 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw-rx6JqQIE&feature=player_embedded#!

Action "Leo the Fucknut is our President!". May 16-22, 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2tqrO0GTIc&feature=related


*Joanna Warsza *

Joanna Warsza, born in 1976, is a curator on the cusp of the performing and
visual arts. She graduated from the Warsaw Theater Academy and completed a
postgraduate course at the University of Paris 8 dance department. She is a
founder of the independent platform Laura Palmer Foundation (
www.laura-palmer.pl). Joanna Warsza has worked mostly in the public realm,
curating projects that examine social and political agendas, such as the
invisibility of the Vietnamese community in Warsaw, the phenomenon of
Israeli Youth Delegations to Poland, or the legacy of post-Soviet
architecture in the Caucasus. Together with Krzysztof Wodiczko she runs a
seminar on conflict, trauma and art at the Warsaw Higher School for Social
Psychology as well as on the performativity in contemporary culture. She
has realized projects with Berlin theater Hebbel am Ufer, Warsaw Museum of
Modern Art, the AICA Armenia, the GeoAir Tbilisi, the Centre Pompidou or
Biennale de Belleville, both in Paris, among others. She is an editor of
Stadium-X - A Place That Never Was.
Since the beginning of 2011 she has worked with Artur Żmijewski on the
development and realization of the concept of the 7th Berlin Biennale.
Joanna Warsza lives and works in Berlin and Warsaw.

Read a conversation between Joanna Warsza and Artur Żmijewski here:
http://www.berlinbiennale.de/blog/en/allgemein-en/universalizing-the-exception-16719


The 7th Berlin Biennale takes place from April 27 to July 1, 2012.

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


*KW Institute for Contemporary Art
Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art*
Auguststraße 69
D-10117 Berlin

*www.kw-berlin.de*
*www.berlinbiennale.de*

*www.facebook.com/KWInstituteforContemporaryArt*
*www.facebook.com/BerlinBiennale*

Weitere Informationen / Further information:
Denhart v. Harling . T +49. 30. 243459. 42 . *press at berlinbiennale.de
*