The Routledge Companion to Art Biennials

The Routledge Companion to Art Biennials assembles forty-six chapters that explore art biennials as expanded sites of artistic display, cultural policy, economic value, soft power, urban development and political struggle. The volume traces biennials from their 19th-century origins to their explosive post-Cold War growth, critically engaging with debates on globalization, institutional critique, identity, inclusion and resistance. Structured in eight parts, it maps biennial histories from Venice to São Paulo and beyond, alongside their geopolitical and institutional entanglements. Bringing together contributors from diverse disciplinary backgrounds, the volume offers a comprehensive account of art biennials in their complexity and ambiguity, while outlining the main orientations and state of research in the field of biennial studies. The volume will appeal to scholars and students in art history, museum and curatorial studies, as well as cultural geography, cultural sociology, critical theory, public sphere studies, media and communication studies, postcolonial theory, anthropology and cultural and creative industries, making it essential for examining contemporary art and visual culture's institutional ecosystems.

Panos Kompatsiaris is an associate professor of media cultures at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE University). He holds a PhD in art theory from the University of Edinburgh (2015). His most recent monograph is Curation in the Age of Platform Capitalism (2024). He is the founder of Lacuna: Journal of Theory, Culture and Events.

List of Figures List of Contributors Acknowledgements 1. Art Biennials: An Introduction Panos Kompatsiaris PART I: HISTORIES AND SHIFTS 2. Art is not an Innocent Field: Reflection on the borders of the Venice Biennal. Vittoria Martini 3. Turning the Biennale into the BBC: The Reform of the Venice Biennale in the Post-War Period (1945-1973) Elisa Bassetto 4. Defining Geographies Through International Art Exhibitions in Cold War Divided Europe (1955-1959) Matteo Bertelé 5. An informal offensive: the battle of abstract art in the 5th São Paulo Biennial in 1959 Ana Avelar and Marcella Imparato 6. The 1st Quito Biennial: isolation and power struggles in the Ecuadorian modern art scene during the late sixties Anamaría Garzón Mantilla 7. Redefining the biennial aims and model: Venice and São Paulo in a shared debate after the outbreak of the crisis (1968-1969) Anita Orzes PART II: NATION AND POLICY 8. Exhibiting the nation: framing post-Empire British identity at the Venice Art Biennale Claudia Di Tosto 9. Art and politics during the cold war: Spain at the São Paulo biennial Genoveva Tusell 10. The Biennial experience in Mexico: from a nationalist effort to contemporary globalism Marco Polo Juarez Cruz 11. Between Cultural Diplomacy and Propaganda: Unveiling Saudi Arabia's National Participation at the Venice Biennales Anastasia Shanaah 12. "Maybe a Biennial Would Come to Town": Non-Istanbulite Biennials in Turkey Erdem Çolak PART III: THE BURGEONING FORMAT 13. Early-Boom Biennials in a Pacified World Paloma Checa-Gismero 14. Late Soviet Tallinn Print Triennial: International in Form, Regional in Content Kädi Talvoja 15. Japanese Biennials and Triennials as Art Festivals Embracing Chiiki ato: A Case Study of Setouchi Triennale Mengfei Pan 16. Biennials of the Arab World: Trans-Arabism as an Attempt at Emancipation from Nationalist Hegemony Riccardo Legena 17. From Lagoon to Coast: A Critical Analysis of Venice and Dakar Biennials' Organizational Structures and Curatorial Exchanges. Amarildo Ajasse 18. The Johannesburg Biennales: Chasing a fleeing Shadow Tabea Maria Brinkmann PART IV: FORMATS AND INFRASTRUCTURES 19. The Celebrated International Curator: A Key Figure for the Art Biennial Guillaume Sirois & Samuel Bonneville 20. And every two years, we do it all again...Reflecting on the discursivity and archives of biennials Gabriela Saenger Silva 21. Assembling assemblies or how public programs do matter in large-scale exhibitions: The case of the Parliament of Bodies during documenta 14 Jasmin Kolkwitz 22. Periodical Mania and Agricultural Models of Publishing in Art Biennials Camilla Salvaneschi 23. World-Making as a Matter of Scales: A Conversation on the 13th Taipei Biennial Ting Tsou and Barbara Lutz PART V: ACTIVISM AND COUNTER-BIENNIALS 24. Istanbul Biennial and the Contested Cultural Sphere in Turkey Tijen Tunali 25. Cohabitations between biennials and commoning The case of Athens Biennale 5-6, OMONOIA (2015-2017) Sevie Tsampalla 26. Entangled biennials as tactical (trans)instituting: Connecting art ecosystems to make new worlds thrive Chiara De Cesari, Yazan Khalili & Eszter Szakács (IMAGINART) 27. #00Bienal de La Habana: From "Biennials of Resistance" to Biennial Resistivity Amy Bruce 28. Biennials of Resistance - A View from Kosovo and Some Questions Left Unanswered Giulia Menegale 29. The First Bienal do Mercosul: Re-Writing the History of Art from the Margins Camilla Querin PART VI: PUBLIC SPHERES 30. Documenta, Democracy & the Crisis of Liberalism Sarah E. James 31. The "global" in biennial discourse Kerstin Winking 32. Trauma, Memory, and Art: Preserving the Spirit of Gwangju through the Biennale Raymond Rohne 33. Syrcas at Africus: On Maud Sulter, the Johannesburg Biennale and Cultural Extravagance Nomusa Makhubu and Lucy Steeds 34. An Elephant under the Microscope. The case of the Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art (RIBOCA) Sebastian Mühl and Mara Traumane PART VII: IDENTITY AND POWER 35. From Transition to Extraction: Manifesta's Nomadic Exhibitions in the Post-socialist Balkans Dimitra Gkitsa 36. First Class Experience? Art Biennials and Classism Alessa K. Paluch 37. Magiciens de la Terre: A Biennial That Never Happened Vesna Madzoski 38. A national pavilion "everywhere": The female italian pavilion at the 1999 Venice Art Biennale Greta Boldorini 39. The Politics of Local and Global in Biennials. The Case Study of Manifesta and its 12th Edition Giulia Pollicita 40. Complicit Cartographies: The Global Biennial Cycle and the Syrian Refugee Crisis, 2015-2018 Eileen P. McKiernan González PART VIII: EPISTEMOLOGY AND THEORY 41. Documenta fifteen: continuities and ruptures in the epistemic impasse of an art biennial Giulia Bellinetti 42. The Sociology of Art Biennials and Globalization: Biennials as Symptom, Driving Force, World Event Aleksandra Barjaktarevic and Paul Buckermann 43. Biennials as administrative hubs of contemporaneity Clarissa Ricci 44. 'Out of thin air': Technology, Liberation, and Absent Labour in New Materialist Biennial Exhibitions of Contemporary Art Natassa Philimonos 45. The Art Biennial as a Hyper Object Zoran Poposki 46. The exhibition that no one will ever see: the rise (and fall?) of the mega-exhibition format Bill Balaskas