Röda Sten Konsthall as the organiser of Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art (GIBCA) is delighted to announce the appointment of Christina Lehnert as curator of the 13th edition of the project, taking place at art centres and collaborative venues throughout the city of Gothenburg and the region of West Sweden, from September 20–November 30, 2025.
“I look forward to developing the coming biennial edition together with Christina, in Gothenburg and the region. It’s exciting to see how her compelling curatorial practice, committed to close dialogue with artists for extensive artistic projects, can contribute to and shape the biennial format.” (Ioana Leca, Artistic Director GIBCA)
Regarding her appointment and the curatorial proposal for GIBCA 2025, Christina Lehnert writes: “I am honoured and excited to be able to work with the GIBCA team on the upcoming 13th edition of the biennial in various locations and institutions in and beyond Gothenburg. As a curator it becomes more and more crucial to foster strong alliances among institutions and to secure the artist’s practice. As a renowned biennial, GIBCA can provide these spaces and networks for discourses that serve the urgent needs of art and the artist’s voice.”
In times of increased vulnerability for the cultural sector all throughout Europe, collaboration is key to maintain the possibility for artists and curators to realize projects and localize their proposals, and preserve the encounter with art as a right, and not a commodity. In view of the foregoing, the coming biennial edition tests a decentralised process, acknowledging and consolidating the existing infrastructures for presentation, production and engagement with contemporary art.
A project of an independent non-profit art centre, Röda Sten Konsthall, Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art is in 2025 co-produced in dialogue with and across four neighbour institutions: Gothenburg City Library, The Gothenburg Museum of Art, Göteborgs Konsthall and Skövde Art Museum.
Christina Lehnert has been a curator at the Kunsthalle Baden-Baden since 2022. From 2018 to 2022, she served as a curator at Portikus in Frankfurt am Main. Before that, she was the interim director of the Kunstverein Braunschweig and received a curatorial fellowship from the Gebert Foundation for Culture in Switzerland. Lehnert has worked in numerous institutions, including the Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, where she continues to serve as a member of the international acquisitions committee.
In recent years, she has curated a series of exhibitions focused on art as a reflection of political moments, often exploring micro-narratives against the backdrop of larger socio-political issues. Her curatorial interests lie in sound and performance, as well as collective practices in the arts. These projects have featured artists such as Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Thuy-Han Nguyen-Chi, Jimmy Robert, William Pope.L, Georgia Sagri, Lydia Ourahmane, Willem de Rooij, Alia Farid, Hajra Waheed, Leo Asemota, and Nástio Mosquito, among others.
An initial curatorial outline of the project will be publicly presented in Gothenburg on November 22, 2024.
About GIBCA
Organiser: Röda Sten Konsthall in collaboration with Gothenburg City Library, The Gothenburg Museum of Art, Göteborgs Konsthall and Skövde Art Museum.
Director: Mia Christersdotter Norman
Artistic Director: Ioana Leca
Curator GIBCA 2025: Christina Lehnert
The Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art is a project founded in 2001. As a platform for the presentation of international contemporary art, GIBCA aims to be an important junction between local, national, and international discourses on issues of urgent collective interest. Each biennial consists of exhibitions and programmes hosted by established art institutions in Gothenburg and the region of West Sweden, by independent initiatives, and in the physical and digital public realm. The biennial is also the facilitator of GIBCA Extended, an open network for contemporary art actors in the region of West Sweden, be it museums, galleries, artist-run initiatives or curatorial platforms, that programme at the time of the biennial and develop the questions brought forward by the project.
Curatorial collaborations (2023–2001): João Laia; Lisa Rosendahl; Nav Haq; Elvira Dyangani Ose; Katerina Gregos, Claire Tancons, Joanna Warsza and Ragnar Kjartansson in collaboration with Andjeas Ejiksson; Sarat Maharaj with co-curators Gertrud Sandqvist, Dorothee Albrecht, and Stina Edblom; Celia Prado and Johan Pousette; Edi Muka and Joa Ljungberg; Sara Arrhenius; Carl Michael von Hausswolff; Ewa Brodin, Britt Ignell, and Lasse Lindkvist.