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Biennials have become the dominant format of promoting contemporary art on a global scale, with growing numbers of exhibitions and events in almost every region of the world. More and more scholarly research is going into the history of exhibitions, and critical reflexion on the subject is part of the public programs and publications of many biennials themselves. The question remains, however, whether art biennials just follow the flow of money and power around the globe to promote a homogenising language of contemporary art, or if they can really engage with their local audiences in a meaningful way and have a lasting effect on the civil society, the art scene and the development of the regions and cities that are hosting them?

To address this problem, the International Biennial Association held a conference and its first General Assembly in Berlin, asking the questions: “Why Biennial?” and “Why Associate?”

Maria Hlavajova from BAK in Utrecht spoke for biennials as testing grounds for a current change in the relations between public and private space and as platforms for political thought and action. At the same time, she admitted that the terms “testing ground” and “platform” have been overused by art biennials especially. She opted for the development of a “new individual and collective ethics” and a “mutualizing of resources”, if art exhibitions and events want to productively contribute to their local and global contexts. Last years’ Athens Biennial and the Istanbul Biennial of 2009 served as kind of best practice examples for her.

In an attempt to answer the question “Why Associate?”, Bartomeu Marí, director of MACBA, showed examples of the work of l’Internationale. This confederation of museums across Europe is promoting a re-writing of the art historical canon and a critical revision of institutional practices. In the context of an association of biennials, such a methodology could be applied to the hierarchies and ideologies produced by biennials themselves. Here some of the questions could be: how do we maintain a flexibility and variety of biennials, specific to the place and time in which they happen, while at the same time supporting each other with infrastructure and knowledge sharing? Why are there no artist fees for participating in an exhibition? How do we deal with the fact that biennials themselves heavily rely on unpaid or underpaid work, while they at the same time claim to address issues like precarity, economical crisis and migration?

Following the trajectory of self-criticism was the panel “Biennial Writing – Re-Assessing Art History”. Panel moderator Koyo Kouoh from RAW Material Dakar strongly spoke against an over-theoretisation of curatorial work, where the artworks in an exhibition serve as mere illustrations of the latest trend in critical theory. Curators Nicolas Bourriaud and Juan A. Gaitán supported this critique. Bourriaud stated that “the voice of the artist has to be above the curatorial subtext” and the Mexican curator of the current Berlin Biennial described his exhibition as an example of exactly this approach to exhibition making.

The panel “Institutional Critique – How to be Self-Critical in Biennial Work” assembled even more practitioners from the field. Hedwig Fijen from Manifesta defended the staging of the 10th edition of the European Biennial of Contemporary art in St. Petersburg, whose opening just a couple of weeks ago has been overshadowed by recent Russian foreign and domestic politics. Turkish artist Ahmet Ögüt spoke of the boycotts by artists of the Sydney Biennial earlier this year, after ties of its chairman and sponsors to a company that runs Australia’s offshore detention centres for asylum seekers were discovered. Galit Eilat, member of the curatorial team of the next São Paulo biennial, gave an insight into the development of the exhibition, describing the advantages and downsides of coming as an outsider to a country with a particular history and artistic scene.

With so many speakers invited and only one day to publicly discuss their contributions, the IBA failed to answer all the critical questions that were raised. At the same time, it made clear that there is a very high level of self-awareness and critical reflection from within the institutions but not so many ideas and practical approaches towards changing things. Without further developing hands-on approaches and alternative ideas for biennials for contemporary art, the IBA is in danger of becoming a “UN of curators”, as Geeta Kapur put it in her lucid contribution. She also reminded conference and audience members that it is a very fine line between being self-critical and overly self-referential. Kapur made it clear that there is no blueprint for successful and substantial art biennials but that the contradictions inscribed into all of them have to be addressed every time again.

The question which was really asked throughout the day and which will probably be asked also in the future is not really ‘Why?’ but ‘How?’.

The International Biennial Association
Conference & 1st General Assembly
10 – 13 July, 2014, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, during the 8th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art.