13th HAVANA BIENNIAL 2019

XIII Biennale Havanna 2019
"LA CONSTRUCCIÓN DE LO POSIBLE"
12.04.2019 - 12.05.2019

artists:
Leila Alaoui, Abdoulaye Konaté, Yves Trémorin, TRES Colectivo, Adler Guerrier, Adonis Flores, Alberta Whittle, Barbados, Alejandro Campins, Alexia Miranda, Alydia Wever, Ana Gallardo, Asunción Molinos, Camilo Yáñez, Charo Oquet, Cheikh Ndiaye, Clemens Krauss, Dania González Sanabria, David Beltrán, Dayana Trigo, Donato Piccolo, Colectivo El puente_lab, Ela Spalding, Emmanuel Tussore, Esther Aldaz Brunetto, Fernando Foglino, Frank Ernesto Martínez González, Geraldine G. Javier, Ghazel , Guy Woueté, Hans Hammid Rasmussen, Ibrahim A. Ahmed, Isak Berbic, Jackie Karuti, Javier Hinojosa, Jorge Méndez Blake, Jose Braithwaite, José Manuel Fors, José Manuel Mesías, José Villa Soberón, Juan Carlos Alom, Kadir López, Karlo Andrei Ibarra, Katsuhiko Hibino, Laeïla Adjovi y Loïc Hoquet, Lais Myhrra, Lourdes de la Riva, Luis Gárciga + C.A.S.I.T.A, Manaf Halbouni, Manuel Mendive, Marcos Benítez, Marianne Fhamy, Mary Sibande, Matilde Marín, Maurice Mbikayi, Max de Esteban, Maya Watanabe, Mehdi-Georges Lahlou, Moataz Nasr, Narda Alvarado, Natalia Rondon, Nathalie Mba Bikoro, Nicolás Consuegra, Tellervo Kalleinen + Oliver Kochta, Oscar Figueroa, Oscar Leone, Pedro Cabrita Reis, Ravi Agarwal, Reena Saini Kallat, René Francisco Rodríguez, Richard-Viktor Sainsily Cayol, Rocío García, Romina Orazi, Ruslán Torres, Ruy Cézar Campos, Ryan Mendoza, Sara Ramo, Semilleros Colectivo, Sun Xun, China, Tadasu Takamine, Tamara Campo, Tania Candiani, Olanrewaj Tejuoso, Théo Mercier

curators:
Margarita González Lorente, Nelson Herrera Ysla, Margarita Sánchez Prieto, José Manuel Noceda Fernández, José Fernández Portal, Ibis Hernández Abascal, Lisset Alonso Compte

LA BIENAL DE LA HABANA, recognized among the most prestigious events in Latin America, the Caribbean, and the world, has made visible not only Cuban artistic thought and practice, but the contemporary artistic creation of the Global South and other regions of the world. Since its emergence in 1984, it has been a platform for justice and equality. It has stimulated sociocultural work, theoretical reflution and the transformative role of visual arts in a polarized world, culturally segregated and dominated by market supremacy. The event aims to give continuity to its foundational projections taking into account the conditions of a world in which nuclear and warmongering threats, xenophobia, racism, forced displacement, fascist tendencies, violence against which it is different have intensified , ethnic-cultural conflicts, inequality, terrorism, the systematic use of lies and an environmental crisis that threatens the survival of the human species itself.

This crisis affects us all and in particular the island countries of the Caribbean. The cult of consumerism and the promotion of an irresponsible waste of the natural resources of the planet, make it essential to mobilize broad sectors in the work of preserving the society - culture - nature balance. Science has understood the need to approach this issue in a multidisciplinary and systemic way, and art has not been oblivious to it.

Given the persistence of military, economic, political and cultural hegemonisms, models of existence are reconfigured in an attempt to bring about new emancipatory projects and to dignify the coexistence between human beings in the midst of so many contradictions. Among them, the rescue of community life forms, the struggle for the preservation of memory and the validation of other knowledge and knowledge systems; the search for greater correspondence between creation and life practices; or of points of convergence, nodes and networks that propose spaces for future models of understanding and solidarity among human beings.

The 13th Havana Biennial, to be held from April 12 to May 12, 2019, proposes to encourage interaction between creators, curators, experts and institutions, in a variety of procedures that provide sustainability variants, without departing from the purposeful nature that every work or artistic project represents. We hope that art points to new paths of collective reasoning and that its achievements offer, from the confrontation of different creative and circulation models, a greater rapprochement between audiences, localities and levels of experience. Together with the idea of ​​responding to the present, these practices would outline possible notions of the future that, at least at the poetic or symbolic level, correspond to some needs for social transformation.

Can the artistic involve a new social dimension and serve as a model for the encounter with new sustainability structures? To what extent do emerging survival, emancipation and social development practices inspire and generate new narratives and artistic methodologies? What kind of relationships can we establish between curators, artists, projects, groups and emerging practices, national and international institutions, or even between different schemes of art circulation?

The next edition assumes the Biennial as a space for those artistic typologies that understand creation as a living event or ongoing experience. We are interested in those strategies that result from multiple conflicts or propitiate the existence in networks of exchange beyond aesthetic autonomy and the traditional notion of authorship, with a transformative vocation and recognition of diversity. Likewise, to strengthen the formation of new social and symbolic relationships generated by different modes of interaction with art by assuming cross-cutting approaches in perspective. cultural and multidisciplinary.

We aspire to the creation of circuits between which modalities of coexistence and respect are tested. International biennials that have remained almost oblivious to each other, would find here a close twinning dialogue; artists and artists become managers would be evidenced as a possible unit; Development projects and initiatives that contribute to local and community interests would converge on the same level. Also, curators, mediators of the artistic activity and emerging cultural managers, along with others already established, would accompany these processes from the collegiate understanding and mark a difference between the usual mechanisms of circulation of the biennials.

In this way the institution, in line with art and its permanent transformative exercise, would maintain the energy needed to contribute to human improvement in the midst of any complexity. Havana will once again host its most important international event of the visual arts and leaves open, from now on, a platform for exchange and analysis of the ideas that will shape it.

Curators team
13th HAVANA BIENNIAL
WIFREDO LAM CONTEMPORARY ART CENTER