KloHäuschen in the plane to the 12th Istanbul Biennial, 2011:

“In recent years we have seen a lot of biennials. They look like and want to look like everything but an exhibition. We have decided to make a real exhibition.”

And KloHäuschen immediately fell in love with the curators of the 12th Istanbul Biennial. Because the exhibition was allowed to exist for itself, just like KloHäuschen exists for the purpose of being itself.

Not serving anyone or having to be useful for anything. And in that moment KloHäuschen also wants to host an “art exhibition”. Yes, every 2 years! The best available out there.

The KloHäuschen Biennial

Since 2012, the KloHäuschen organizes its own Biennale. It was inspired when it read an interview with their two curators on a flight to Istanbul Biennale 2011 in Skyline magazine. The point of the interview is that a biennial is neither a tool for city marketing nor has any other political purpose to serve. But that it is an art exhibition, which is usually international and takes place every two years.

These curators are concerned with the „purpose“, or its absence. For the KloHäuschen this is a valuable statement in its clarity – After all, it must be up to today again and again its guests and visitors, explain to the press and others that it is not a „exhibition room“ ist (nor „Gallery“, „Museum“, „Offspace“, … so all rooms that serve a declared „purpose“). Because of just about every „purpose“ absolve the KloHäuschen the „Measures for the inspiration of the Klohäuschens at the wholesale market hall“. Thus, it is none of the above-mentioned „purpose rooms“, but just an old men’s urinal, which invites his guests to play with him and to develop something new together.

With its own Biennale, the KloHäuschen itself, just once every two years, really turns into an „exhibition space“. Completely self-aware and public. And by the way, it also confirms its status as a sovereign space again and again, because:

„If you have your own biennale, then you are someone like Venice or Istanbul“.
Everyone knows that.