This innovative new history examines in-depth how the growing popularity of large-scale international survey exhibitions, or 'biennials', has influenced global contemporary art since the 1950s.

• Provides a comprehensive global history of biennialization from the rise of the European star-curator in the 1970s to the emergence of mega-exhibitions in Asia in the 1990s
• Introduces a global array of case studies to illustrate the trajectory of biennials and their growing influence on artistic expression, from the Biennale de la Mediterranee in Alexandria, Egypt in 1955, the second Havana Biennial of 1986, New York's Whitney Biennial in 1993, and the 2002 Documenta11 in Kassel, to the Gwangju Biennale of 2014
• Explores the evolving curatorial approaches to biennials, including analysis of the roles of sponsors, philanthropists and biennial directors and their re-shaping of the contemporary art scene
• Uses the history of biennials as a means of illustrating and inciting further discussions of globalization in contemporary art

About the Author

Charles Green is Professor of Contemporary Art at the University of Melbourne. He is the author of The Third Hand: Artist Collaborations from Conceptualism to Postmodernism (2001) and Peripheral Vision: Contemporary Australian Art 1970-94 (1995) and co-author of Framing Conflict: War, Peace and Aftermath (2014, with L. Brown and J. Cattapan). As Adjunct Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the National Gallery of Victoria he co-curated Fieldwork: Australian Art 1968-2002 (2002), world rush_4 artists (2003), 2004: Australian Visual Culture Now (ACMI/NGVA, 2004), and 2006: Contemporary Commonwealth (ACMI/NGVA, 2006). Green is also an artist working in collaboration with Lyndell Brown since 1989.

Anthony Gardner is Associate Professor in Contemporary Art History and Theory at the Ruskin School of Art at the University of Oxford. He is the author of Politically Unbecoming: Postsocialist Art Against Democracy (2015), the editor of Mapping South: Journeys in South-South Cultural Relations (2013) and a co-editor of the journal ArtMargins.

Reviews

"Biennials, Triennials and Documenta is an excellent introduction to the history of the globalization of biennials or biennalization. Green and Gardner cover all major biennial-type events and their constellations that emerged on the five continents: Documenta, Manifesta, Tirana, and Venice Biennales, among others, in Europe; in South America, the Sao Paulo Bienal and Bienal de La Habana; the Johannesburg Biennale in Africa; the Biennale of Sydney and Asia-Pacific Triennial, among others, in Australia; and Gwangju, Shanghai, and Istanbul Biennials in Asia." - H-Net: Humanities and Social Science Reviews Online, July 2019

Book Information
ISBN 9781444336641
Author Anthony Gardner
Format Hardback
Page Count 304
Imprint Wiley-Blackwell
Publisher John Wiley and Sons Ltd
Weight(grams) 617g
Dimensions(mm) 236mm * 160mm * 20mm