Biennials, bienninals, biennials...

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Miho Iwahashi on February 9, 2008 at 23:56

especially, these 10years how many biennales and triennales have increased in the world?
in my country, it seems that art was not so popular, especially contemporary art 10years ago.
but making international exhibition such as biennale is activated the city where takes place and involved ordinary people who don know much about contemporary art.
now it is getting known the art, but still only art lovers or art students go to galleries.
about museums in Japan... the government has cut the budget for the museums.
therefor it is might be good use city budget for the art, besides the city itself get popular, too.
and there are big sponsorship, they also benefit.

it is difficult to see other country's artists' artwork here Japan.

one of curators said, it seems that there is a notional isolation of art... because people go to for example, exhibitions like venice biennale, documenta, munster sculpture project, art basel to see art from oll over the world.
and so did i tho... last year.

Permalink Reply by Gus23 on March 3, 2008 at 3:46

A few years ago, when I was an undergrad art student at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, I had the opportunity to listen to a lecture by Laura Hoptman, the curator of the 51st Carnegie International. She mentioned a movement within the art world called Festivilism, which I thought was really interesting. There's an anticipation for grand and spectacular site-specific installation work that gets people really excited.

I think it's similar to haute couture fashion in Paris. While the fashion is only for a select few, there are elements within the high fashion pieces that trickle down to the rest of society. Biennials could act as a theatrical display of common ideas from artists around the world. Artreview.com should have the first online biennial!

Permalink Reply by Per E Riksson on March 9, 2008 at 11:49

Its like rock festivals.

Every little village seems to have a rock festival these days. Ages ago all scandinavians went to the big Roskilde festival, in Denmark, to get our need for Beer, rock and sleeping in soaked tents. Now I can pick and choose. Should I pick the one with Judas Priest or that one with the Sex Pistols reunion or why not see if Babyshambles show up at....
And I dont have to travel far for that.

Ages ago there was Dokumenta.
Now they´re everywhere. Why?

Because of TOURISM!

Art and rock n roll turism brings nice euros, dollars, pounds, yen, whatever to the city, town, village that host the biennial.

For artist festivals brings a size of crowd that a small rock band never could get in a small club. The Biennial brings the spotlight to what the artist do, that the artist never could have in a gallery.

Besides that some of the biennials gives you ranking point on the Artfact net which will get you new opportunities to take on a biennial. Which brings more ranking points.
Besides that, the important biennials seems to have a certain impact on some of the world wide artmarkets. Will that decrease with a 100 plus Biennials? Possibly.


The Curators role are important as well. In the end, they are the true stars of the Biennial. A good Curator brings success to the event, place and artists.


Personally I never bothered visit one. Can´t say why really. It just haven´t been my cup of tea.
Personally I cant say if there is to many of them or to few. But I can see why they blossom in the art market today.

Permalink Reply by Patricia Fernández Miranda on June 13, 2008 at 20:46

I prefer the intimate relationship of a gallery to ampular events where, what matters is that unless the artist. As the tourism fair, a rally, a festival of music, that's the goal of most biennials, without suggesting the false promises of promotion to the artist after collecting the money becomes just smoke and fumes.

Permalink Reply by Patricia Fernández Miranda on June 14, 2008 at 19:58

Is a good idea dawn!, polusion in the art world, the deterioration of beauty by pollution .... ENVIRONMENTAL? or the cultural parasites.
a greeting.
Patricia

Permalink Reply by Patricia Fernández Miranda on June 14, 2008 at 20:24

OK, dawn, the purpose is laudable, but how this process works. There is a date, I guess that the place is Art Review.
Add the art work to this site?

Permalink Reply by Dimitrios on June 15, 2008 at 5:52

The cost to enter a Biennale can cost artists thousands? Well, first of all let's just say that artists can't get in in Biennales. The are 'so' prestigious that only selected galleries, with selected artist can attend. For artist Joe Blow, no chance to get in.
This whole biennale thing is just a escrocery of the highest level, and since this is so succesfull, other cities try to copy it. It's all about the money, baby. Not the art.

Permalink Reply by Dimitrios on June 15, 2008 at 21:27

Hi Dawn, I remember this one. I was also very excited, but I emailed artists that had shown and did a search on google to find any artist listing Florence Biennale in their resumés. As you say, they were all dissappointed in their handling of things. Very amateuristic. The only good thing they had to say was the interaction with the other 'loser' artists. :-). I used this letter that I received from them to get an article in the local newspaper (I played in on the game) "Local artist Dimitrios selected for Florence Biennale" you know what I mean? :-)

Permalink Reply by Scott Cartwright on August 6, 2008 at 2:03

An over-saturation of biennials, art fairs, and well.. artists in general is probably an extension of the need of global credit expansion. Just the same with needing to produce and sell an exponential quantity houses, cars, airplanes, etc. Art works the same way. The art market is a speculative bubble, another house of cards.

Permalink Reply by Melek Baydar on September 16, 2011 at 8:33

It was a way for an Artist to show his art. My critical works are nor so wanted from our regime in Turkey.

This was a way for me to show the world what is the situation in Turkey, that there is no freedom for artists,  and helping an Artist friend. The regime destroyed his sculpture of peace!

Turkey was considering demolishing a giant peace sculpture being built near the border with Armenia. The work called the Statue of Humanity towers over the city of Kars - with two 30m-high sculptures representing a divided human.
It is the creation of well-known Turkish artist "Mehmet Aksoy" and, when finished, it would have one figure extending a hand to the other.

Kars once had a large Armenian community, which was annihilated in 1915 as part of mass killings which Armenians and many historians call a genocide.
Turkey rejects the term and says atrocities were committed on both sides in World War I.
In 2009 the two countries agreed to normalise relations and, in that spirit, the former mayor of Kars commissioned the sculpture.

Melek Baydar

 

Respect for Mehmet Aksoy/Mehmet Aksoy`a saygi, From 1. International Biennial of Art Izmir (May  2011),

2011, Acryl on Canvas, 210 x 210 cm