Is the Present Still Present in Contemporary Art?

“Still Present” is the title of the 12th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art 2022. The title is not limited to a name, it shows the profound premises of 75 artists and groups from all over the world to uphold a concept intended to spread awareness over a multiplicity of unprecedented grueling challenges in the world today.

This Biennale is the second most important contemporary art event in the country after the Documenta. It is held every two years at various locations in Berlin, Germany, since 1998. This year it takes place at these venues: Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg y Pariser Platz, Dekoloniale Memory Culture in the City, Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin, KW Institute for Contemporary Art Stasi Headquarters. Campus for Democracy.

Our collaborator, the contemporary artist Ana Patricia Palacios, was present at the event in Berlin and selected a few art works that best convey its essence:

Deneth Piumakshi Veda Aarachchige, SELF- PORTRAIT AS RESTITUTION FROM A FEMINIST POINT OF VIEW 2020

The curator Kader Attia observes:” …More than ever before, algorithmic governance has taken over our present moment; it has become a field of unprecedented economic struggle over behavioral data extraction, which is such a powerful economic model that we feel powerless to free our present from its clutches. We project ourselves daily onto the future or past, while believing that we constantly act in the present”, and then poses the question: “How do we reclaim our present?”

Mayuri Chari, works from the series I WAS NOT CREATED FOR PLEASURE, 2017–22,

The answer to this question is not a simple one, but Kader Attia presents it in simple terms. “By reclaiming our attention”, he says, “Art offers a present that is protracted and, above all, free. Inherent to emotion, consciousness is movement in the present: as emotional, interpretive beings, we are totally unpredictable in the present, and this allows us to escape the technologies of capitalist behavioral manipulation and imperialist governance that colludes with it. So more than ever, we must remain present!”.