Zasha Colah of the Berlin Biennale: “What is happening in Germany right now is self-censorship”

You hear that the Biennale is going to be very political, and hearing something like that is actually quite depressing. Politics, you think, should stay out of art these days, because it's precisely the moral politicization of aesthetics that has led to the current state of fear, shitstorms, cancellations, and denunciation in the last few years.

This has led to the new Minister of State for Culture, Wolfram Weimer , and Berlin's most famous museum curator, Klaus Biesenbach, now boastfully writing against political correctness in order to unleash artistic freedom again. But the whole political thing is so depressing because political art is not only usually quite bad, but above all, never achieves anything. Or should that be precisely what's changing in Berlin?

One week before the Berlin Biennale begins, curator Zasha Colah sits in the famous courtyard of the Kunst-Werke Berlin on Auguststraße. It's relatively early in the morning, and during our conversation, the courtyard comes alive. The Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art has been held since 1998, at constantly changing locations, but always here at KW . Zasha Colah has a disarmingly large smile; one forgives her for speaking in such a rambling, constantly drifting manner. She circles every question like a shark around its prey, but in the end, instead of snapping, she turns euphorically to another topic.

Much of what she says remains secret. It's a pleasure to listen to her. For about two weeks now, the most beautiful part of Colah's two years as a curator has been happening here. Numerous artists from all over the world are arriving in Berlin (60 works alone), and the approximately 170 works of art are being installed at the exhibition venues. The discussions, thoughts, plans, and fantasies blend into the reality of the space and the work. During the conversation, artists constantly arrive with suitcases and big hugs. In addition to the KW, this time the Hamburger Bahnhof , the Sophiensaele, and the former women's prison in Berlin-Moabit are being used.

Zasha Colah was born in 1982 and grew up in Mumbai, India, and Lusaka, the capital of Zambia . She was in Berlin from 2014 to 2017 and has been living in Turin for a few years. She works closely with her assistant curator Valentina Viviani, who comes from Argentina. "Both countries underwent an economic transition in 1990, and a lot of it stems from there," says Colah. We don't know that much about her idea for the Biennale. We won't know much more after the conversation either. We more have a feeling. And we learn that the curator is interested in forms of expression of civil disobedience, which she includes humor in.

Volatility, a "cultural skill," is represented in the title of the exhibition. The biennial focuses on artists who, in Myanmar and elsewhere, have found new forms of protest through oppression, she says. And who have perfected an artistic language over decades. "I was interested in how people in oppressive systems send new messages." Does Colah have artists from the GDR in her program, where this inauthentic form of speech was also perfected?

She enthusiastically mentions the Erfurt women's artists' group, which was active in the GDR between 1984 and 1994 and grew from a fringe group to a cultural center in Thuringia. Colah also talks about the Polish Akademia Ruchu, which used peaceful methods to disrupt the typical flow of daily life, such as the act of deliberately tripping among passers-by in front of the then headquarters of the Communist Party. Or the Burmese painter Htein Lin, who, during a six-year prison sentence under horrific conditions, painted pictures on his uniforms and sheets and had them smuggled out. "I'm not a big fan of the term activism and believe that all art is political, even flowers," says the curator. Berlin is an interesting city because biennials often take place on the periphery, not in the capital.

However, the local art world is in a very strange state this summer. Since Hamas's terrorist attack on Israel, politicians have been demanding an unfettered sense of state, which often stands in stark contrast to the opinions, statements, and desires of artists who feel a strong sense of solidarity with Palestine. This is leading to discord, to say the least. It is leading to a climate that no one could have foreseen.

Since then, there has been a drastic increase in anti-Semitic crimes, and many Jews no longer feel safe. Furthermore, international artists are increasingly avoiding Berlin because they feel they can no longer express their opinions openly. "This is making Germany provincial," HKW director and Berlin curator Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung recently told the Berliner Zeitung.

Pilloried for a quote taken out of context

Colah, too, has now been insulted and pilloried by both the left and right for a quote on Instagram taken out of context. There's no censorship in Germany, she claimed – and that's what they accused her of. In the interview in question, she complained about the prevailing preemptive obedience. Later, she told the Tagesspiegel newspaper about the status of freedom of expression and her work: "I won't name names, but the public climate has led some artists to prefer not to exhibit in Germany. They don't want their lives or those of their families to be scrutinized."

Today she adds: "I worked under official censorship in China for the Yinchuan Biennale. Two of my texts, which I wrote for an exhibition, were canceled by the state. Because of a painting that dealt with domestic violence against women. I had to rewrite the text twice. Then it passed. But what's happening in Germany right now feels even more dangerous. Because it's self-censorship."

One would like to continue talking for a long time. Especially, of course, about more pleasant things, such as the fox, the heraldic animal of this 13th edition of the Biennale. "The fox," we know from a German rap group and also from the current BVG advertisement, "the fox has to do what a fox has to do." But what does he actually have to do? The wonderfully scribbled figures that are everywhere here, however, look just as inspired by the Joker, this carnivalesque figure who has found his own language, who often oversteps the mark, and from whom much has always been expected in terms of humor.