Rachel Haidu Knihy

In a supportive article covering the 4th Berlin Biennial, critic Steven Henry Madoff took a moment to question what many have termed "Biennial Fever," writing, "Are [biennials] here to capture trends or to advance artists' voices in a larger social dialogue? Do they promote international understanding or local interests? Are they bully pulpits for curators turned ideologues, or are they simply there to tap the art market's stopwatch till the next survey of hot new things draws the attention of an ever expanding universe of collectors?" For the 2008 edition of this always-provocative international fair, Curators Adam Szymczyk and Elena Filipovic brought together primarily newly commissioned work by 50 emerging and established international artists for a round-the-clock exhibition that included 63 nightly events. This expansive volume documents it all, and contains contributions by writers, critics and artists including Beatriz Colomina, Bettina Viesmann, Cameron Jamie, Gabriel Kuri, Babette Mangolte, Ahmet Ögüt and Katerina Seda.

"This book explores what art can tell us about "the self," or the sense of interiority that each of us, as separate individuals, experience. Today the "self" is often dismissed because it seems to ignore the ways in which we are all defined by structures and categories of identity (from capitalism and the family to constructs of gender and race). Yet, as Rachel Haidu observes, our feelings that we are singular and individuated--regardless of the structures we belong to--can be intensified, deepened, and negotiated by art. Artworks not only elicit feelings in the viewer that she is profoundly herself, but some even examine how interior lives come to feel private and unique. Haidu investigates this sense of interiority through the work of six contemporary artists who consciously want to provoke the experience in viewers: painters Philip Guston and Amy Sillman; film/media artists James Coleman and Steve McQueen; and contemporary dancers/choreographers Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Yvonne Rainer"-- Provided by publisher