Everything must change. Radical Intelligence. Salonica 9

The 9th Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art seeks to offer a new perspective on the institution and is being restructured both spatially and conceptually. It questions not only the demand for “change,” a theme that seems to run through life and art both locally and globally, but also the perception, content, need, and significance of “change” in general—now, and in connection with present moments of the past.

With the ambiguously cryptic title “everything must change. RNS9,” curated by the independent curator and art historian Nadia Argyropoulou, the 9th Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art aims to connect life and art in unexpected ways, with humor and creativity, in a non-didactic but alternatively pedagogical and fiercely joyful manner. It will focus on critical points that shape the present and already form the future, with a perspective on a world of many worlds.

“everything must change. RNS9.” Within the framework of questioning what “must change,” the exhibition also addresses the excitement, awe, and fear triggered by the urgent present of Artificial Intelligence, yet attempts a more substantive and unexpected step in the very concept of multifaceted, revolutionary thinking beyond the banal invocation of the technological miracle-trauma. Radical Intelligence, the R.I. in the strange acronym of the title, is combined with the abbreviation S9, where the popular version of “Salonica” (instead of Thessaloniki) is encoded, so that the title incorporates the direction and address, the dynamic of the approach towards and the emission from the city, in order to achieve, as much as possible, the temporary coexistence of space and its symbols.

The event includes international artists, a large portion of new works, both digital and non-digital, commissioned specifically by MOMus, within the context and conceptual framework of this particular curatorship. Participating in this are various social, artistic, and scientific groups and individuals, while it is developed in terms of every characteristic (identity, spaces, actions, communication, collaborations), so as to engage and involve the questions posed by the title and its content.