Fugitive Frames

The 13th Berlin Biennale explores themes of fugitivity, subversion and art's endurance

- Suraj Yengde

FUGITIVITY and foxing are positioned as non-compliant themes of the 13th Berlin Biennale. They function as introverted traps set by artists who are escaping military regimes, capitalist democracies, military-industrial complexes, caste constitutionalism, fashionable identities of recent modernities, or cultural commodities of accusatory politics.

The Urban Fox

Foxing aims at appearance and evasive distance; we cannot confidently determine whether the city fox has the capacity to take on the city's hellscape. Foxes, unlike the ruderal elements of vegetation native to the city, have a focused history of reclaiming what is theirs. The city has also preserved larger floral tracts from bygone eras where the public attends to its regimental habits of jogging, smoking, cycling, drinking, lounging, playing, creating and mating. Foxing has become a form of banditry in the coolness of the predawn city. Urban foxes share the underworld with rodents and other crawling and flying creatures who prefer to exist alongside us but on their own terms. The fox thus becomes the curator of furtive cliques. Curator Zasha Colah, working with Valentina Vivo, speaks through the doublespeak of Joker's euphemistic ‘Address’ by Sawangwongse Yawnghwe, whose dinner menu reveals the military-industrial complex's role in warfare and social tension. The arms trade serves as a bridge to the slave trade.

Investment in insurance companies fuels war games, and financial control becomes a mousetrap for those hoping to succeed. But this system extends beyond external forces—it shapes what we are offered to consume. The cultivation of a sweet tooth becomes a scandal taught to children. Even the fruits sold are replicas of sugar bodies, serving as sombre reminders of today's deterioration.

The Joker and Death in Dialogue