DIS Curates 9th Berlin Biennale with Commercial and Digital Critiques

The 9th Berlin Biennale, titled 'The Present in Drag,' ran from 4 June 2016 to 18 September 2016 across multiple venues in Berlin, Germany. Curated by the New York collective DIS, the exhibition featured works that critically engaged with neoliberal culture, digital technology, and commercialism. Key installations included TELFAR's showroom of branded goods, Debora Delmar Corp.'s green juice bar, and Josh Kline's video piece 'Crying Games' with face-swapped political figures. Other notable artists included Katja Novitskova, Timur Si-Qin, Yngve Holen, Josephine Pryde, Guan Xiao, Christopher Kulendran Thomas, Jon Rafman, Ei Arakawa, Will Benedict, Simon Denny, GCC, Camille Henrot, and Adrian Piper. Venues comprised the Akademie der Künste, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Feuerle Collection, and ESMT European School of Management and Technology. The biennale's themes explored art's complicity with capitalism, virtual reality, and gentrification, with DIS questioning whether it contained contemporary art. Adrian Piper contributed signage works, adding gravitas to the generational project. The event was reviewed in ArtReview's September 2016 issue.