Athens Biennale 2018 Preview Opens During documenta14

While documenta14 unfolds across Athens, the Athens Biennale has launched a prologue and discussion space for visitors. Founded in 2007, the biennale's sixth edition is titled "Waiting for the Barbarians" and is curated by Heart & Sword Division. It contrasts with documenta14, questioning whether a real "Learning from Athens" is possible and what terms like freedom, north, south, and indigenous mean in contemporary cultural debate. The biennale will open in 2018 instead of 2017 due to organizational delays. For ten days until April 15, it occupies the Bageion, a 19th-century former hotel closed for twenty years, reopening for this event. Curators state that since the new century, barbarians have been at the gates, often portrayed positively as rootless, hybrid, global nomads, which they see as a premise for collective failure to predict today's regression. Concurrently, under the biennale's umbrella, a show by Artists at Risk (AR) opens at Varvakios market. AR, founded in 2007 by Ivor Stodolsky and Marita Muukkonen as part of Perpetuum Mobile, combines contemporary art and human rights, aiding persecuted artists through AR – Safe Haven Residencies. Works include Erkan Özgen's video "Wonderland" showing a deaf-mute child signing war horrors, Issa Touma's photos of a bombed toy factory in Aleppo with a selfie caption, and Pınar Öğrenci's video about a Baghdad musician.