6th Göteborg International Biennial, 2011
Pandemonium: Art in a Time of ‘Creativity Fever’
September 10 – November 13, 2011
A genuine interest for the biennial as exhibition format, for art as knowledge production, as well as for the city of Göteborg – with its specific history and context – have all been important factors in appointing SARAT MAHARAJ as chief curator of Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art 2011.
Sarat Maharaj will work in a curatorial team consisting of Dorothee Albrecht, Stina Edblom and Gertrud Sandqvist. The overall theme, Pandemonium: Art in a Time of ‘Creativity Fever,’ constitutes the starting- point for the curatorial process taking off in December 2010. During the spring of 2011, Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art will arrange open seminars and workshops leading up to the opening on September 10, 2011.
Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art will be held September 10 – November 13, 2011. While Röda Sten is the main exhibition venue, the 2011 biennial will also take place at Göteborg Konsthall and Göteborg Museum of Art. The planning of other exhibition venues and the upcoming program will continue in 2011.
Curator
Sarat Maharaj is currently Professor of Visual Art and Knowledge Systems at Lund University, Sweden, and Visiting Research Professor at Goldsmiths College, London. Maharaj is born and raised in South Africa. In 1980 he started his doctoral studies in History of Arts at Goldsmiths College, where he later came to hold a position as Professor of History of Arts and Art theory until 2005. The title of his thesis is The Dialectic of Modernism and Mass Culture: Studies in Post War British Art. Maharaj has published several central texts concerning the postcolonial condition of cultural difference and translation, as for art as knowledge production. In 2010, Sarat Maharaj has been appointed co-curator of the 29th São Paolo Biennial. In the course of commitments, he was co-curator of the 3rd Guangzhou Triennial 2008 on the theme Farewell to Postcolonialism as well as for Dokumenta XI in Kassel 2002 together with Okwui Enwezor. Maharaj is a board member of the European art biennal Manifesta.
Co-curatorial team
Dorothee Albrecht is an artist and assistant curator of the 29th São Paulo Biennial. Albrecht is one of the funders of UNWETTER, Kunsthalle Berlin-Lichtenberg and Dreams of Art Spaces Collected. Albrecht has a Masters degree in Fine Art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart. During 2008, she worked as assistant curator of the 3rd Guangzhou Triennial in 2008. Albrecht lives and works in Berlin.
Stina Edblom currently holds the position as exhibition curator at Göteborg Konsthall and as assisting curator of the 29th São Paulo Biennial. Focusing on African contemporary art, she worked as assistant curator of the 3rd Guangzhou Triennial, 2008, under the theme Farewell to Postcolonialism. Edblom has a Masters degree in Contemporary Art Theory from Goldsmiths College, London. In 2011, she will work full time with the Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art.
Gertrud Sandqvist is Professor in Theory and History of Ideas in Visual Art at Malmö Art Academy at Lund University, Sweden. She is currently one of three co-curator at The Moderna Exhibition at Moderna Museet 2010. Sandqvist has been working as an art critic since 1980 at a wide selection of art journals, amongst them Paletten (1981-84). Between 1995 and 2007, Sandqvist was the Director and responsible for the Theory program at Malmö Art Academy. She has written several texts for catalogues and anthologies on Nordic and International Contemporary Art.
Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art has been arranged every second year since its inception in 2001. Since 2006, the biennial is hosted by Röda Sten – Center for Contemporary Art and Culture.