Ahmet Ögüt, Ground Control, 2007 at the Kunstwerken in the Auguststraße

The Berlin Biennial has been taking place every two years since 1996 and has since then accelerated a number of careers in the German art scene — last year, for example, founding member Klaus Biesenback became chief curator of the section for Media at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Other Berlin Biennial participants such as Franz Ackerman, Thomas Demand, Olafur Elliasson, Monika Bonvinci and Jonathan Meese today are internationally celebrated. 

The 2006 Biennial took place (as always) along the August-Straße in Berlin-Mitte, nostalgically referencing the new beginning in East Berlin during the nineties.

Today however, Berlin-Mitte is a gentrified place, firmly in the hands of tourists and mainstream shopping brands. This is probably one of the reasons why the curators added additional spaces to the 5th Berlin Biennial. Beside the Kunstwerke at August Straße they have selected a further three new locations. An evening program of lectures, performances, readings and music was taking place all over the city.

The new venues are related related to the history of the German capital. The Schinkelpavillion is a neo-classical building built in GDR times in the historic centre of Berlin. There, the visitor finds a strange mixture of historical reconstruction and GDR Design. In the Schinkelpavillion some of the Biennial participants reference artists that are important to their work, such as the Iranian artist Nairy Baghramiam who presents mirrored objects of the the designer Janette Laverriere.

At the border of the Mitte and Kreuzberg quarters, on the former death strip of the once divided city the curators have furnished a sculpture park. The location is a wasteland, encircled by ugly office buildings. All investor fantasies failed here. The weeds grow wildly, building rubble piles up and local residents walk with their dogs, typically pitbulls and mastiffs. The works presented in the sculpture park do not try to revalue or adorn this non-space. The art remains inconspicuous and subordinate to their surroundings. For example, the sound work of artist Susan Hiller, is hidden in a mountain of debris. Killian Ruethemann dug three hundred semi-spherical holes into the earth — these will probably be washed away in the first rain. Pedro Barateiro copied a bus stop from the lonely highways of Kazakhstan, a piece which fits well with the hopeless ensemble of buildings made with prefabricated concrete slabs. If in spring the grass grows and the trees bloom, the art at this place will probably step still further into the background.

Alongside this uncommonly ugly place the curators of the Biennial selected a place of absolute beauty and perfection: The new national gallery of Luwig Mies van the Rohe in the western part of Berlin. The building, finished in 1968, is considered a masterpiece of late modernism. Here, the Biennial poses the question of the legitimacy of modernism and the possibilities of the presentation of art. Marc Camiile Chaimowicz dares to attach patterned curtains, counteracting this palace of glass and steel. Paola Pici has blocked the entrance with a monumental lattice structure. Applied to the surface of the sculpture are cheap glittered stones in different colours. The glitter and trashy adornments works just like the ornaments on the curtains, a provocation in this temple of the modernism.

The Biennial constantly provokes the viewer. At the main venue, the Kunstwerke in the August Straße, the largest exhibition space appears completely empty. Only after looking for details one discovers that the floor is covered in tarmac. Here, the Turkish artist Ahmet Ögüt premiers his 2007 work "Ground Control", realised in Istanbul. While on first look Ground Control looks like a piece of minimal art, it is in fact a reference to a practice of the Turkish government to open the country increasingly by roads, not only advancing the countries' infrastructure, but above all improving national control and power.

Work with context, places with history where typical for the 5th Berlin Biennial. The participating artists are unknown, large gestures are missing — often it is not easy to notice the art at all. Thus Ulrike Mohr plants birch trees in the sculpture park, which before grew on the roof of the former GDR parliament building the "Palast der Republic". The trees are only recognised as exhibits by the attached descriptions. 

The Biennial suits its curator Adam Szymczuk, looking more like a shy nerd than a cool Hedi Slimane Boy. The art, which he issues will not please the art jet set, or the mode and design public. The art of the 5th Berlin Biennial is quiet, close-lipped and withdrawn. The event itself is a refusal, it gives no security and no answers.