The Biennial: The Practice of Selection in a Global Art World

Abstract

This article will address two criticisms associated with large-scale art exhibitions known as biennials. According to the first thesis, these exhibitions contribute to the formation of a homogeneous global art world by over-representing exhibits by the same artists. According to the second thesis, artworks from the Western hemisphere are overrepresented compared to artworks from the rest of the world. These theses were evaluated based on a large database (>20,000 entries) including the relevant information from artists who had exhibited at four large biennials (1981-2011): Documenta, Havana Biennial, Istanbul Biennial, and Gwangju Biennale. The first thesis was rejected as 85% of the artists in the entire sample were shown to have participated in only one exhibition. The second thesis was rejected as well, as the analysis revealed that it was artists from non-Western rather than Western origin that had the greater share of exhibitions across all biennials. In fact, even a weaker version of the second thesis—that the proportion of Western artists at non-Western exhibitions was higher than the proportion of non-Western artists at Western exhibitions—was not supported. These results shed some light and invite further empirical research on the practice of selection in a global art world.