Each artist was commissioned to mount an installation that engages the environmental and historical aspects of the island.
Since the early 1990s, the Cuban art collective Los Carpinteros has been creating elegant sculptures, drawings and installations that engage the public with a mix of wry humor and political resonance.
For Performa 15, new commissions, performances, and installations will engage with themes of history (particularly the Renaissance, this year's "historical anchor"), geography (this year's featured country is Australia), geometry, media, politics, spectator dynamics, and more.
The Parisian photographer and Street Artist JR, well known for creating large scale black and white installations that engage and celebrate everyday people knew that this high profile image-centric hub would be a draw, but the near-continuous lines must have been a surprise.
Even the vitrine marked "Installation in Progress" engages, with a tea service whose delicate forms are pinched and dented like George Ohr pots.
The work is visceral — bird corpses are not neutral emblems — but it also feels heavy-handed, hitting all the right notes of socially engaged installation art from the '90s, but falling a bit flat.
But the drawings remind us that we are observers in a gallery, even as the installation asks us to engage in self-examination.
While the giant sonic tripod installation Nyloïd by Cod.Act engaged the audience physically and attacked its vital space, CI, a mindblowing performance by Diamond Version, a collaborative project from minimal label Raster-Noton founders Nicolai and Bender, more than met viewers' expectations including ours and may remain the tipping point of this edition.
The allure of the art biennial, longtime promoter of political installations and socially engaged conceptual art projects, has faded over the years as the art world has increasingly become brand-conscious and obsessed with art fairs and money.
