"Contemporary Art Biennials in Europe examines five urban situations in diverse parts of Europe. Roughly tracing a central horizontal strip from the western to the eastern edges of the continent, the events and cities covered are the Folkestone Triennial, UK, Münster Sculpture Projects, Germany, the Venice Biennale, Italy, Belgrade's Mikser Festival, Serbia and the Istanbul Biennial, Turkey. Whybrow establishes how public artworks operate in these contexts as part of a complex prescribed by the format of the biennial event. This means drawing out the extent to which biennial events seek to engage with the complexity of the city in question, in a manner that takes into account local socio-cultural ecologies, while also positioning the event itself within a globalist art world perspective. The book also considers how sited installations - which are very varied in form, as a reflection of a new, eclectic urban aesthetic - tell a particular story of a city, while the regional diversity of these selected cities and events in turn tells a composite story of European difference at a moment of high tension, centring on matters of migration, political populism and uncertainty around the future form of the European Union"--

Through its examination of five quite different art events in cities across Europe, Contemporary Art Biennials in Europe offers a compelling exploration of how public art takes place in the modern city. Roughly tracing a central horizontal trajectory from the western to the eastern edges of the continent, Nicolas Whybrow considers the Folkestone Triennial in the UK, Sculpture Projects Münster in Germany, the Venice Biennale in Italy, Belgrade's Mikser Festival in Serbia and the Istanbul Biennial in Turkey. Writing within the context of a thirty-year international 'biennial boom', Whybrow interrogates the extent to which biennial events and their artworks seek to engage with the socio-cultural and political complexity of cities, in particular the work that is involved in this relationship. With its focus on Europe, he also tells a composite story of continental difference at a moment of high tension, centering on issues of migration, political populism and uncertainty around the future form of the European Union.

Reflections from curators, historians, philosophers, anthropologists, architects, and writers on the cultural and political conditions of European exhibition practice since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Text by Mark Gordon.

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 Méditerranée 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

Documents significant and pioneering exhibitions that took place between 1962 and 2002.