Part of the Labyrinth

Press and professional preview: September 6, 11–5pm   
Register here for accreditation.

Opening: September 7, 11–5pm    

Biennial venues: Röda Sten Konsthall, Göteborgs Konsthall, Gothenburg Natural History Museum and Franska tomten/Packhusplatsen

Artists:   
Elena Aitzkoa, Özlem Altin, Henrik Andersson, Ibon Aranberri, Sissel M. Bergh, Hannah Black, Black Quantum Futurism, Liv Bugge, Paolo Cirio, Kajsa Dahlberg, Cian Dayrit, Michelle Dizon, Sean Dockray, Åsa Elzén, Annika Eriksson, Ayesha Hameed, Tamara Henderson, Rachel de Joode, Hanna Kolenovic, Susanne Kriemann, Kent Lindfors, Antonia Low, Rikke Luther, Eric Magassa, Ohlsson/Dit-Cilinn, Doireann O’Malley & Armin Lorenz Gerold, Oliver Ressler, Lorenzo Sandoval, Pia Sandström, Lina Selander & Oscar Mangione, Knud Stampe, Ayatgali Tuleubek
 
“Neither separate, nor the same, the coming two editions of Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art in 2019 & 2021 are made as an entanglement in honour of the “both…and”. The project addresses the consequences of a world view founded in presumed inherent separability – between genders, species and continents, as well as between nature and technology, the economy and the environment, the past and the future – and how these distinctions are currently being challenged in different ways.”
–Lisa Rosendahl, curator  

Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art (GIBCA) celebrates in 2019 its tenth edition, an occasion to consider on the embedded temporality of biennials and test new forms of commitment to topicality, artists and audiences, by appointing Lisa Rosendahl as curator for the biennials in 2019 and 2021.   

Titled Part of the Labyrinth, GIBCA 2019 makes use of the term interconnectedness as both motif and method. The tenth edition of the biennial takes the form of an exhibition woven between four principal venues, accompanied by public programs and commissions.     

Each exhibition site is used as a thematic point of departure: from the collections of Gothenburg Natural History Museum to Röda Sten Konsthall’s industrial heritage, the colonial history of Franska tomten, and the modernist architecture of Göteborgs Konsthall. Bringing together these places within a common framework makes visible their shared history and interrelationships.  

Part of the Labyrinth is the start of a conversation developing into 2021, when the biennial coincides with the 400-jubilee of the city of Gothenburg—an occasion to enquire into how our own precarious times can be understood as a consequence of transformative shifts in the 1600s, such as the formulation of a mechanistic and cartesian world view. The 2019 biennial title echoes the lines by Danish poet Inger Christensen: “I think/ therefore I am part/ of the labyrinth” (Letters in April, 1979) written in response to René Descartes’ “Cogito, ergo sum” (1637). 

As a long-term commitment to site, the biennial commissions a series of soundworks informed by histories of past and present Gothenburg. In September a first work in the series, developed in collaboration with Göteborg konst, will be released and made available online through the biennial app. From 2019–2021, the biennial will also invite artists and other voices to respond to the many layers of history connected to Franska tomten, a plot of land in the Gothenburg harbour exchanged in 1784 as part of a trade deal with the French Empire for the Caribbean island of Saint-Barthélemy. 

GIBCA continues the collaboration with an open network of art organisations in West Sweden. Between September-November 2019, more than 50 museums, artist-run spaces, galleries or temporary initiatives associate under the umbrella of GIBCA Extended and present contemporary art projects informed by the motif and framework of Part of the Labyrinth.   

With the participation of 35 artists, Part of the Labyrinth aims to unsettle binaries produced by modernity through exploring entangled histories such as the relationship between colonialism, industry and environmental destruction, and the interplay between human and non-human ways of looking at the world.   
 

Opening week
    
Friday, September 6   
Press and professional preview at all exhibition arenas 11am–5pm.  Press preview starting 9am. Please register here. 
Opening Crossworlds, a showcase of artists from West Sweden, and programme release of GIBCA Extended regional network at 3:e Våningen, 6–10pm   

Saturday, September 7   
Opening of Part of the Labyrinth 11am–5pm   
Inauguration: Röda Sten Konsthall, 12pm   
GIBCA Conversations: participating artists in dialogue with curator Lisa Rosendahl, 3–5pm   
Opening party: Club Addis-Dakar take over Röda Sten Konsthall, 9pm–late  

Public programme throughout the biennial is available here.  


About GIBCA   
Organizer: Röda Sten Konsthall    
Director: Mia Christersdotter Norman   
Artistic Director: Ioana Leca    
Curator GIBCA 2019 & 2021: Lisa Rosendahl   

Main funders: Gothenburg City, Region of West Sweden, Swedish Arts Council.   

Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art (GIBCA) is a Nordic art biennial. A platform for presentation of international contemporary art, GIBCA aims to be an important junction between local, national and international discourses on relevant current themes. Each biennial consists of several exhibitions and programme hosted by established art institutions in Gothenburg and in the public realm.    

Curators of previous GIBCA editions (2017-2001): Nav Haq; Elvira Dyangani Ose; Katerina Gregos, Claire Tancons, Joanna Warsza and Ragnar Kjartansson in collaboration with Andjeas Ejiksson; Sarat Maharaj with Co-Curators Gertrud Sandqvist, Dorothee Albrecht and Stina Edblom; Celia Prado and Johan Pousette; Edi Muka and Joa Ljungberg; Sara Arrhenius; Carl Michael von Hausswolff; Ewa Brodin, Britt Ignell and Lasse Lindqvist.   

Lisa Rosendahl is an independent curator and writer. She has curated exhibitions at Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Malmö Konstmuseum, Kunsthal Charlottenborg and Kunsthall Trondheim amongst other places. Her most recent curatorial projects have focused on industrial modernity and extractivism in Scandinavia and include exhibitions such as Rivers of Emotion, Bodies of Ore (2018) Extracts From a Future History (2017) and The Society Machine: The Industrial Era From the Perspective of Art (2016). As Curator at Public Art Agency Sweden 2014-2017, Rosendahl curated and commissioned temporary artworks for public space across Sweden. She is Associate Professor of Exhibition Studies at Oslo Art Academy since 2018. 

 

Further information    
Sofia Alfredsson, Head of Communication GIBCA: press@gibca.se  
T +46 31 12 08 46