The art market is globalized, but the artistic and curational practice meets very different basic conditions on each continent. The workshop therefore offered cross-border opinion and experience exchange, and the possibility to arrange actively the social program of the bb5. 14 young curators from no less than 14 countries have been invited as participants by representatives of the Kunst-Werke Berlin e.V., the Goethe-Institut Munich and the Allianz Kulturstiftung.

In the beginning of February, a jury with bb5's curators, Elena Filipovic and Adam Szymczyk, the Director of the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Gabriele Horn, Dr. Barbara Honrath of the Goethe-Institut, and Michael Thoss of the Allianz Cultural Foundation chose following participants:

Venturing into different areas of Berlin and addressing the past and current history of the once-divided city, the 5th berlin biennial brought together many recent and new artworks that have been chosen or conceived to respond to the spaces in which they have been displayed. The exhibition was open from April 5th till June 15th, 2008.

During the day, the works of over forty artists have been on view at three main venues: in the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, in Mies van der Rohe's modernist Neue Nationalgalerie, and in the "Skulpturenpark Berlin-Zentrum". During the night, and over the entire duration of the 5th berlin biennial, every sundown initiated audiences into lectures, performances, workshops, concerts, special film screenings, field trips, and other nocturnal acts held in locations spread throughout the city.

The berlin biennial has established itself as an open space that experiments, identifies and critically examines the latest trends in the art world. The innovative character of this "art lab", which tries and tests the greenest shoots in the art world is to be expanded, with the particular aim of giving young artists the opportunity to introduce themselves to broad sections of the public.

Although the exhibition had an essentially public character, it also had an inner forum in which event organisers, artists, curators, selected critics, cooperation partners, sponsors and promotors committed to the advancement of this association work at shaping the exhibition and its seismographic interpretation of current cultural and social developments.

Project period: April 2.-10., 2008

Project venue: Berlin, further information at the schedule

Project partner: Kunstwerke Berlin e.V., Goethe-Institut Munich and BMW