A staged, low-lit installation recreates a gritty comedy-club atmosphere where Mila Panić performs recurring stand-up sets titled 'Big Mouth.' Each event pairs Panić with a guest comedian; performances combine sharp humor with political content. The performer warms up an audience composed largely of art-world professionals, which the show both exposes and confronts. Jokes range across Bosnia, Ukraine, and Palestine, leveraging dark humor to target systems and perpetrators rather than victims. The work positions humor as a strategy for sustaining critical thought amid trauma while contrasting with lukewarm reviews that critique institutional hesitancy to name current crises explicitly.
A lone barstool on a low stage, dim lighting, tables carved with text...is this a grimy comedy club in a Brooklyn basement? No, it's the Berlin Biennale! Mila Panić, an artist and comedian from Bosnia, has set up an installation in KW as part of the 13th Berlin Biennale, titled 'Big Mouth,' in which she has been performing punchy stand-up shows since the opening in June.
Panić started the night by warming up the crowd, teasing the newcomers and asking what everyone did for a living. As she went around, it was quickly clear that this is a crowd full of art professionals-artists, curators, museum guards. From the start, then, 'Big Mouth' exposed the insularity of the audience, while setting the stage for a show that thrived on confrontation.
In an earlier interview, Berlin Biennale curator Zasha Colah spoke about the use of comedy in the biennial, saying that "even in the moment of torture, these artists are using strategies of humor to remain whole and to keep thinking... dark humor, in particular, is not just a panacea that makes you survive pain, but is something that allows the thinking body to keep working."
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