Berlin Bienniale

The Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art was founded on March 26, 1996 by Klaus Biesenbach, founding director of KW Institute for Contemporary Art, and a group of collectors and patrons of the arts.

The idea of establishing a biennial in Germany was inspired by the Venice Biennale in 1995. Following the demise of aperto – the forum for young contemporary art founded in 1981 – there was much discussion about the need to heighten the profile of contemporary art in Berlin, a fact which undoubtedly accelerated the project’s progress.

The Second Berlin Biennale ran from 20 April to 20 June 2001 and included works by approximately 50 artists (deliberately fewer than at the first) from more than 30 countries, several of them very young. It was curated by Saskia Bos, who adopted the theme of ‘connectedness, contribution and commitment’ and sought to reject commercially oriented art and foster engagement with the public, to ‘exhibit a utopian sociability in art’.
Works were again exhibited at the Kunst-Werke Institute for Modern Art and the postal centre in Oranienburger Straße, and also under the elevated S-Bahn at Jannowitzbrücke and the Allianz Building, known as the Treptowers.