Parasol Unit closes London space, UCCA expands to Shanghai, and new biennials emerge globally

Parasol Unit Foundation will shutter its London exhibition venue in March 2020, though director Ziba Ardalan plans to continue organizing exhibitions internationally. In Beijing, UCCA revealed plans for a third Shanghai location opening in 2021, following the recent launch of UCCA Dune in Hebei Province. Berlin celebrated two Hannah Höch Award recipients: Monika Baer received the lifetime achievement honor with €25,000 and a solo exhibition at Neuer Berliner Kunstverein in June 2020, while Natascha Sadr Haghighian, who represented Germany at the 2019 Venice Biennale, won the midcareer Förderpreis worth €38,000 for exhibition and publication production. The Sharjah Biennial Foundation announced its 15th edition will present Okwui Enwezor's final curatorial project, titled Thinking Historically in the Present, which he began developing in early 2018. This edition will include Postcolonial, the second chapter of a trilogy Enwezor conceived during his artistic directorship at Haus Der Kunst. Two new biennials were announced: the inaugural Helsinki Biennial, opening June 2020 under the theme Under the Same Sea, curated by Pirkko Siitari and Taru Tappola of Helsinki Art Museum, featuring 35 artists including Paweł Althamer and Tadashi Kawamata; and Beijing's Techne Triennial, a media art event organized by CAFA Art Museum opening in January, curated by Zhang Ga with about 120 works by 130 artists, including an exhibition co-organized with ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe.