On Friday, September 11th was opened the 11th International Istanbul Biennial. The programme of this edition of Biennial is selected by the curator collective What, How & For Whom – WHW from Zagreb. The title What Keeps Mankind Alive? is taken from the closing song of the 2nd act of The Threepenny Opera, play written by Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill and Elisabeth Hauptmann in 1928.

The opening ceremony was planned to be directed by Oliver Frljić, Croatian author whose work is characterised by provocative reflection of everyday life. However, at the end only one part of his intervention was realised. Namely, this director had imagined to perform the opening ceremony behind fence, on the public space in Antrepo No 3 where one part of the exhibition takes place. Though, the organiser of the Biennial, Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts, was not happy with the idea in which the audience watches at the speakers through the fence. Hence the Foundation welcomed the announcements of rain and flood, by which, few days before the opening ceremony, part of Istanbul was devastated and took away thirty lives. This turned out to be the main argument for cancelation of imagined opening performance. At the end, only one part of Frljić's intervention was realised in which four Turkish actors were presented as a curator collective WHW from Zagreb, Nataša Ilić, Ana Dević, Ivet Čurlin and Sabina Sabolović. On the opening ceremony the speakers were coming one after another on the stage in front of huge audience in the hall Antrepo No 3, where more than 1500 people gathered.

The opening ceremony was followed by protest of the small group of activists. Their revolt was directed against contradictory fact that Biennial of contemporary arts, which is lead by idea of political and social engagement of art, is realised with the money coming from the private capital. Girls from WHW in an informal talk supported the activists, but they stressed that the exhibition has to be opened.

As I've already mentioned, the theme of this years Biennial is inspired by the song What Keeps Mankind Alive? In the explanation of Biennial concept we can find this statement: "this framework does not aim to rediscover Brecht, or to present him as a classic for the new generations. Rather, by bringing Brecht into the foreground, the Istanbul Biennial strives to initiate a thought experiment about the role of artistic endeavour in today's modern capitalist climate, to reconsider the strata of values and ways of action".

What, how and for whom – are three main questions of each economic organisation. Those questions also deal with the planning, conceptualisation and realisation of each exhibition, and also production and distribution of artistic works and artistic position on the labour market. If we add to this the topic of this Biennial, than it is not strange that curatorial collective WHW turn our attention on the series of data of Biennial which are measurable by numbers and moneys.

 The exhibition brings together 70 artists: 30 women, 32 men, 3 collaborative projects, 5 collectives. The youngest artist is 27 years old, the oldest 76. There are 4 dead artists. The oldest work dates from 1965. There are 25 new productions. The artists come from 38 countries. The highest GDP of these countries is $ 4,002,739 Billion US (per capita $ 45,550 US) in the United States; the lowest is $ 11,798 Billion US (per capita $ 2,197 US) in the Kyrgyz Republic. 20 artists reside outside of their home countries. 22 are represented by commercial galleries, of which 9 are based outside of the artist’s country of residence. The percentage of total budget allocated to the artists' costs is as follows: 8.29 % for production costs, 6,09 % for travel and accommodation, 8.53 % for transport of the works. Artists receive no fee. Curatorial fees amount to 1.21 % of the total budget of the Biennial. Curatorial research accounts for 1.95 % of the total budget, and the curators’ travel and living costs in Istanbul amounts to 2.53 %. As of 20 August 2009, the planned budget of the 11th International Istanbul Biennial is 2,050,299 Euros, with a deficit of 547,299 Euros.

In the preparation process for the Biennial the curatorial collective WHW followed the strategy in which they researched arts scenes in Central Asia, Middle East and all other small countries which do not have institutional support for their works. In the small interview which I made with WHW they explained how it works when some curator gets the opportunity to curate a biennial. Countries which have a great structural support for the art, such as Nordic countries, United Kingdom, Germany etc, invite curators to their countries and offer them study visit in order to present their artists. But WHW decided to direct their research to smaller countries and tried to find support for this kind of research.

The exhibition takes place in three dislocated spaces in Istanbul: Antrepo No 3, Feriköy Greek School and the Tobacco Warehouse Tütün Deposu.

The series of lectures, panel discussions and launch of book was realised in the frame of opening events. Among them we can select the launch of Brian Holmes book Escape the Overcode, published by Van Abbemuseum, Eidhoven and WHW, and Hasan Hunanović’s talk entitled Under the UN Flag who talked abut his personal experience in the tragedy of Srebrenica 2005.

500 journalists from all over the world are accredited for the 11th Istanbul Biennial. It seems that these days everyone who has some connection to contemporary arts is coming to Istanbul. If you are not already in Istanbul, you have almost 2 months in front to come and see this consistent and quality exhibition. More about artists you can find on the official web site of 11th Istanbul Biennial.

The exhibition is opened till November 8.