The Istanbul Biennial is overly self-important, desperately dry and suffers from all the usual problems of the biennial form – what possible relevance can it have, asks Dany Louise.
Art biennials are peculiar beasts, coming in many shapes and sizes and driven by a multitude of agendas. The Istanbul Biennial was initiated in 1987, at the time only the sixth biennial in the entire world (it’s estimated that there is now somewhere around 200).
It was an era before digital communications, when international travelling curators and critics were an elite group, and a new biennial of art was a big thing. As such, the Istanbul Biennial quickly garnered praise and status, enhanced by its exotic location on the frontier between Europe and Asia, in what was then still a modernising country.
Privately financed by global corporations then and now, the 14th edition, called Saltwater, draws to a close this Sunday after nine weeks. Curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev (curator, Documenta 13), Saltwater has continued the character of the previous three biennials in being aloof from the city’s inhabitants – it is intellectual, desperately dry and suffers from all the problems of the biennial form. Baggy in format and overly self-important in its rhetoric, it is supercilious in any meaningful engagement with contemporary issues and politics... Keep reading on a-n
Art biennials are peculiar beasts, coming in many shapes and sizes and driven by a multitude of agendas. The Istanbul Biennial was initiated in 1987, at the time only the sixth biennial in the entire world (it’s estimated that there is now somewhere around 200).
It was an era before digital communications, when international travelling curators and critics were an elite group, and a new biennial of art was a big thing. As such, the Istanbul Biennial quickly garnered praise and status, enhanced by its exotic location on the frontier between Europe and Asia, in what was then still a modernising country.
Privately financed by global corporations then and now, the 14th edition, called Saltwater, draws to a close this Sunday after nine weeks. Curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev (curator, Documenta 13), Saltwater has continued the character of the previous three biennials in being aloof from the city’s inhabitants – it is intellectual, desperately dry and suffers from all the problems of the biennial form. Baggy in format and overly self-important in its rhetoric, it is supercilious in any meaningful engagement with contemporary issues and politics... Keep reading on a-n