Routledge Companion to Art Biennials

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 FiguresList of ContributorsAcknowledgements1. Art Biennials: An IntroductionPanos Kompatsiaris PART I: HISTORIES AND SHIFTS2. Art is not an Innocent Field: Reflection on the borders of the Venice Biennal. Vittoria Martini3. Turning the Biennale into the BBC: The Reform of the Venice Biennale in the Post-War Period (1945–1973)Elisa Bassetto4. Defining Geographies Through International Art Exhibitions in Cold War Divided Europe (1955-1959)Matteo Bertelé5. An informal offensive: the battle of abstract art in the 5th São Paulo Biennial in 1959Ana Avelar and Marcella Imparato6. The 1st Quito Biennial: isolation and power struggles in the Ecuadorian modern art scene during the late sixtiesAnamaría Garzón Mantilla7. Redefining the biennial aims and model: Venice and São Paulo in a shared debate after the outbreak of the crisis (1968-1969)Anita OrzesPART II: NATION AND POLICY8. Exhibiting the nation: framing post-Empire British identity at the Venice Art BiennaleClaudia Di Tosto9. Art and politics during the cold war: Spain at the São Paulo biennialGenoveva Tusell10. The Biennial experience in Mexico: from a nationalist effort to contemporary globalismMarco Polo Juarez Cruz11. Between Cultural Diplomacy and Propaganda: Unveiling Saudi Arabia's National Participation at the Venice BiennalesAnastasia Shanaah12. “Maybe a Biennial Would Come to Town”: Non-Istanbulite Biennials in TurkeyErdem ÇolakPART III: THE BURGEONING FORMAT13. Early-Boom Biennials in a Pacified WorldPaloma Checa-Gismero14. Late Soviet Tallinn Print Triennial: International in Form, Regional in ContentKädi Talvoja15. Japanese Biennials and Triennials as Art Festivals Embracing Chiiki āto: A Case Study of Setouchi TriennaleMengfei Pan16. Biennials of the Arab World: Trans-Arabism as an Attempt at Emancipation from Nationalist HegemonyRiccardo Legena17. From Lagoon to Coast: A Critical Analysis of Venice and Dakar Biennials' Organizational Structures and Curatorial Exchanges.Amarildo Ajasse18. The Johannesburg Biennales: Chasing a fleeing ShadowTabea Maria BrinkmannPART IV: FORMATS AND INFRASTRUCTURES19. The Celebrated International Curator: A Key Figure for the Art BiennialGuillaume Sirois & Samuel Bonneville20. And every two years, we do it all again…Reflecting on the discursivity and archives of biennialsGabriela Saenger Silva21. Assembling assemblies or how public programs do matter in large-scale exhibitions: The case of the Parliament of Bodies during documenta 14Jasmin Kolkwitz22. Periodical Mania and Agricultural Models of Publishing in Art BiennialsCamilla Salvaneschi23. World-Making as a Matter of Scales: A Conversation on the 13th Taipei BiennialTing Tsou and Barbara LutzPART V: ACTIVISM AND COUNTER-BIENNIALS24. Istanbul Biennial and the Contested Cultural Sphere in TurkeyTijen Tunali25. Cohabitations between biennials and commoning The case of Athens Biennale 5-6, OMONOIA (2015-2017)Sevie Tsampalla26. Entangled biennials as tactical (trans)instituting: Connecting art ecosystems to make new worlds thriveChiara De Cesari, Yazan Khalili & Eszter Szakács (IMAGINART)27. #00Bienal de La Habana: From "Biennials of Resistance" to Biennial ResistivityAmy Bruce28. Biennials of Resistance – A View from Kosovo and Some Questions Left UnansweredGiulia Menegale29. The First Bienal do Mercosul: Re-Writing the History of Art from the MarginsCamilla QuerinPART VI: PUBLIC SPHERES30. Documenta, Democracy & the Crisis of LiberalismSarah E. James31. The “global” in biennial discourseKerstin Winking32. Trauma, Memory, and Art: Preserving the Spirit of Gwangju through the BiennaleRaymond Rohne33. Syrcas at Africus: On Maud Sulter, the Johannesburg Biennale and Cultural ExtravaganceNomusa Makhubu and Lucy Steeds34. An Elephant under the Microscope. The case of the Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art (RIBOCA)Sebastian Mühl and Mara TraumanePART VII: IDENTITY AND POWER35. From Transition to Extraction: Manifesta’s Nomadic Exhibitions in the Post-socialist Balkans Dimitra Gkitsa36. First Class Experience? Art Biennials and ClassismAlessa K. Paluch37. Magiciens de la Terre: A Biennial That Never HappenedVesna Madžoski38. A national pavilion “everywhere”: The female italian pavilion at the 1999 Venice Art BiennaleGreta Boldorini39. The Politics of Local and Global in Biennials. The Case Study of Manifesta and its 12th EditionGiulia Pollicita40. Complicit Cartographies: The Global Biennial Cycle and the Syrian Refugee Crisis, 2015-2018Eileen P. McKiernan GonzálezPART VIII: EPISTEMOLOGY AND THEORY41. Documenta fifteen: continuities and ruptures in the epistemic impasse of an art biennialGiulia Bellinetti42. The Sociology of Art Biennials and Globalization: Biennials as Symptom, Driving Force, World EventAleksandra Barjaktarević and Paul Buckermann43. Biennials as administrative hubs of contemporaneityClarissa Ricci44. ‘Out of thin air’: Technology, Liberation, and Absent Labour in New Materialist Biennial Exhibitions of Contemporary ArtNatassa Philimonos45. The Art Biennial as a Hyper ObjectZoran Poposki46. The exhibition that no one will ever see: the rise (and fall?) of the mega-exhibition formatBill Balaskas