Vasyl Cherepanyn has been appointed curator of the 14th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, which will take place in summer 2027.
Cherepanyn is a curator and researcher whose work has focused on the East European region in its post-Soviet condition. He plans for the Biennale to respond to the socio-political and cultural landscape of Berlin.
‘Epitomising the historical period after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Berlin Biennale has the potential for creating a kind of publicness defined not just in artist or academic terms but out of social-political necessity. For me particularly, such an approach is based on experience working in Ukraine. It is especially urgent now, as Russia’s colonial war confronts people throughout Europe with the most pressing questions of our time’, said Cherepanyn.
He was unanimously selected by a committee composed of Akiko Miki, director of Naoshima New Museum of Art; Emma Enderby, director of KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; Julia Grosse, strategic consulting and conceptual development at Gropius Bau, Berlin; Marina Naprushkina, artist, Berlin; Marta Kuzma, curator and professor at Yale School of Art, New Haven; Nicola Trezzi curator at Pinacoteca Agnelli, Turin and Pablo José Ramírez, curator at Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.
Axel Wieder, director of the Berlin Biennale, said: ‘Vasyl Cherepanyn brings a distinctive perspective to the 14th Berlin Biennale, not only in his geographic background, but also in his curatorial approach, focusing on collective artistic endeavors that are deeply grounded in current social contexts and their urban surroundings.’
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