GIBCA Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art

While playfulness seems to have permeated artistic strategies during the last century, radical imagination has provided a space for encounter and a frame for thought and action in today’s political struggles. Meanwhile related experiments with curatorial models and strategies that have characterized the last decades constitute an important effort to rethink the framework of cultural production. However, the role and understanding of either notion and of the seamless relation between them have undergone constant changes, reflecting the new conditions of our time and giving rise to a number of questions, such as: What is the transformative power of play? How do forms of playfulness affect or help manifestations of radical imagination? What does indeed constitute radical imagination?

Reflecting on the above, Play! Recapturing the Radical Imagination is explored through the individual contributions of four curators: Katerina Gregos, Claire Tancons, Joanna Warsza and Ragnar Kjartansson in collaboration with Andjeas Ejiksson. The biennial does not lay claim to final and universal formulations regarding the nature of play or the ownership of imagination, neither does it have a “one-size-fits-all” answer to the above questions. By using the agency of play to deconstruct established systems of meaning, GIBCA rather aims to create an ecstatic space that remains open and expectant; a space of encounter, learning, and disruption. The different curatorial episodes and the works of invited artists reflect on manifold issues of affection, memory, radical sexuality, being on the edge, political satire, and possibilities for the future. Together they constitute a dynamic meeting point for creative playfulness and forms of activism, social experimentation and fictional narratives, philosophical deliberation and possibilities of reflection.

The Politics of Play


Curated by Katerina Gregos

Venue: Röda Sten Konsthall

Artists: Nabil Boutros (Egypt/France) / Ninar Esber (Lebanon/France) / Parastou Fourouhar (Iran/Germany) / Jorge Galindo & Santiago Sierra (Spain) / Guerilla Girls (USA) / Nevan Lahart (Ireland) / Tala Madani (Iran/USA) / Otobong Nkanga (Nigeria/Belgium) / Roberto Paci Dalò (Italy) / Pavel Pepperstein (Russia) / Qiu Zhijie (China) / Fernando Sanchez Castillo (Spain) / Marinella Senatore (Italy) / Olav Westphalen (Germany/Sweden) / Wooloo (Martin Rosengaard & Sixten Kai Nielsen) (Denmark) / Liv Strömquist (Sweden) / Luc Deleu T. O. P Office (Belguim)

Weight


Curated by Ragnar Kjartansson in collaboration with Andjeas Ejiksson



Venue: Stora Teatern, 2-day long performance/exhibition, 7–8 September

Artists: Carolee Schneemann (USA) / Spartacus Chetwynd (UK) / Margrét Helga Sesseljudóttir (Iceland) / William Hunt (UK) / Nanna Nordström (Sweden) / Eunhye Hwang (Korea/Germany)


AnarKrew: An Anti-Archives
Gothenburg Carneval on Record

Curated by Claire Tancons

Venues: Göteborgs Konsthall and Hasselblad Center as well as Götaplatsen, Esperantoplatsen, Kungsport Avenyn, the port of Göteborg, and Nefertiti Jazz Club

Artists: Roberto N Peyre (Sweden) / Andreas Gedin (Sweden) / New Beauty Council & MYCKET (Sweden) / Jean-Louis Huhta (Sweden) / Psychic Warfare (Sweden) / Nicoline van Harskamp (the Netherlands) / Deimantas Narkevicius (Lithuania) / Karol Radziszewski (Poland) / Sonia Boyce (UK)

Art and Crime—Legally on the Edge 
A Forensic Exhibition in the Backwaters of Gothenburg


Curated by Joanna Warsza

Venue: Kajskjul 207 – Lilla Bommen/Gullbergskajen

Artists: Tania Bruguera (Cuba/USA) / Forensic Architecture & Füsun Türetken (UK & Turkey) / Núria Güell (Spain) / Maja Hammarén (Sweden) / Katarzyna Krakowiak (Poland) / Jill Magid (USA) / Mapa Teatro (Columbia) / Marion von Osten (Germany) / Markus Öhrn (Sweden) / Sunshine Socialist Cinema (Sweden) / with special contribution by crime fiction writer Åke Edwardson (Sweden)