Would it be possible for a biennale to become both a point of stasis, and the starting point for reflection on the crucial issues that contemporary societies are facing in the current conditions of acceleration and increasing inequality? To examine, from a critical distance, people’s standpoint towards the world and the planet? To bridge the gap between the viewer and contemporary art and to overcome curatorial and institutional complacency in order to get to the core of politics and daily life, also by reconsidering artistic practice as a condition of labor both within and outside institutions and norms? Arguably these questions are too many, but none of them is superfluous.

The 7th Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art aspires to act as a field for the redefinition of values and priorities, a process which is more likely to happen when things are seen from a critical distance. This detachment aims to shape our positions, stimulate our vision and make us act. The vehicle in this effort is history. The concept of the contemporary in art -which is largely defined by the biennales- is often correlated to that of urgency. But if this sense of urgency could be perceived as a driving force, history could identify the paths that by-pass dead-ends.

The four month program comprises the main exhibition, hosted in all five MOMus venues in Thessaloniki and Athens and other venues in Thessaloniki, as well as the Performance Festival (17-24.10.2019) and a series of artists’ talks, conferences, masterclasses and special projects exploring aspects of the core theme of the Biennale. With the support of ΝΕΟΝ.

Director: Syrago Tsiara
Curatorial Team: Louisa Avgita, Domna Gounari, Panagis Koutsokostas, Areti Leopoulou, Theodore Markoglou, Thouli Misirloglou, Hercules Papaioannou, Eirini Papakonstantinou, Katerina Syroglou, Maria Tsantsanoglou, Syrago Tsiara