The week leading up to the press preview for the 8th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art marked a change of seasons. (Disclosure: Biennale curator Juan Gaitan is a friend, and participating artist Judy Radul is my partner.) Gone were the cold winds and grey skies of winter; in their place, golden mornings, tawny afternoons and balmy evenings. Like the spargel that pokes from the earth each April through June, Berliners emerge similarly, exchanging their woollens for short pants and cotton dresses, their S-Bahn tickets for bicycles, dinners at home for those taken on restaurant patios below. Although “Berlin in the spring” does not have the same resonance as Paris during that season, the city is no less in awe of itself, no less indifferent to what it has been through and what lies ahead.