Biennale, Italian for "biennial" or "every other year", is any event that happens every two years. It is most commonly used within the art world to describe large-scale international contemporary art exhibitions. As such the term was popularised by Venice Biennale, which was first held in 1895. Since the 1990s, the terms "biennale" and "biennial" have been interchangeably used in a more generic way - to signify a large-scale international survey show of contemporary art that recurs at regular intervals but not necessarily biannual. The phrase has also been used for other artistic events, such as the "Biennale de Paris", "Kochi-Muziris Biennale", Berlinale and Viennale.
The Istanbul Biennial is a contemporary art exhibition that has been held biennially in Istanbul, Turkey, since 1987. The Biennial has been organised by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV) since its inception.
Sislej Xhafa is an Kosovar contemporary artist, based in New York.
Basak Senova is an art curator, writer and designer from Istanbul, Turkey. She lives and works in Vienna since 2017.
Vasif Kortun is a curator, writer and educator in the field of contemporary art, its institutions, and exhibition practices. Kortun served as the founding director of several international institutions, including SALT, Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center, Proje4L, and the Museum of the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College. In 2006, he received the Award for Curatorial Excellence from the Center for Curatorial Studies for his "experimental approach and openness to new ideas to challenge the contemporary art world and push its parameters beyond national or international, local or global developments." Kortun has written extensively on contemporary art and visual culture in Turkey for publications and periodicals internationally. He currently lives in Ayvalık, a seaside town on the northwestern Aegean coast of Turkey.
The SantralIstanbul, opened in 2007, is an arts and cultural complex located at the upper end of Golden Horn in the Eyüp district of Istanbul, Turkey. The center, consisting of an energy museum, an amphitheater, concert halls and a public library, is situated within the Silahtarağa campus of Istanbul Bilgi University that was formerly the first power station of the Ottoman Empire.
Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin studied aesthetics, philosophy of art, and sociology in Ankara and Paris. Part of the first generation of Turkish artists considered to be globally active and nationally influential, Alptekin is considered one of the most significant figures in the established contemporary art scene of Istanbul.
Hakan Topal is an artist living and working in Brooklyn, New York. He was the co-founder with Guven Incirlioglu of xurban collective (2000–12), and is known for his research-based conceptual art practice. He is an Associate Professor of New Media and Art+Design at Purchase College, SUNY.
Dan Cameron is an American contemporary art curator. He has served as senior curator for Next Wave Visual Art at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), an annual exhibition of emerging Brooklyn-based artists since 2002. He is also a member of the graduate faculty of School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York, where he teaches the MFA symposium each spring for second-year students. Cameron may or not still be a member of the National Artist Advisory Committee for the Hermitage Artist Retreat in Florida, but does not sit on the board of Trustees for Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Colorado.
The KW Institute for Contemporary Art is a contemporary art institution located in Auguststraße 69 in Berlin-Mitte, Germany. Klaus Biesenbach was the founding director of KW; the current director is Krist Gruijthuijsen.
Klaus Biesenbach is a European American curator and the museum director. He is the Director of the Neue Nationalgalerie, with Berggruen Museum and Scharf-Gerstenberg Collection, as well as the Berlin Museum of Modern Art under construction, Museum des 20. Jahrhunderts.
Paolo Canevari is an Italian contemporary artist. He lives and works in New York City. Canevari presents highly recognizable, commonplace symbols in order to comment on such concept as religion, the urban myths of happiness or the major principles behind creation and destruction.
Francesco Vezzoli is an Italian artist and filmmaker.
Füsun Onur is a Turkish artist, based in Istanbul. She uses everyday materials in her painting and sculpture to reflect on space, time, rhythm and form.
Ala Younis is a research-based artist and curator, based in Amman. Younis initiates journeys in archives and narratives, and reinterprets collective experiences that have collapsed into personal ones. Through research, she builds collections of objects, images, information, narratives, and notes on why/how people tell their stories. Her practice is based on found material, and on creating materials when they cannot be found or when they do not exist.
Defne Ayas is a curator, educator, and publisher in the field of contemporary art and its institutions. Ayas directed and advised many institutions and collaborative platforms across the world, including in China, South Korea, United States, Netherlands, Russia, Lithuania and Italy. She is known for conceiving exhibition and biennale formats within diverse geographies, in each instance composing interdisciplinary frameworks that provide historical anchoring and engagement with local conditions. Until June 2021, Ayas was the Artistic Director of 2021 Gwangju Biennale, together with Natasha Ginwala.
Ayşe Erkmen is a visual artist recognized as the "one of the foremost Turkish artists." She is living and working in Berlin and in Istanbul.
The national pavilions host each participant nation's official representation during the Venice Biennale, an international art biennial exhibition held in Venice, Italy. Some countries own pavilion buildings in the Giardini della Biennale while others rent buildings throughout the city, but each country controls its own selection process and production costs.
Fatoş Üstek, born 1980 in Ankara, is a London-based independent Turkish curator and writer, working internationally with large scale organizations, biennials and festivals, as well as commissioning in the public realm. In 2008 she received her MA in Contemporary Art Theory from Goldsmiths College London, after completing her BA in Mathematics at Bogazici University in Istanbul.
Işıl Eğrikavuk is a Turkish-born international performance artist and academic based in Berlin, Germany. She received her MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and a Ph.D. in Communication from Istanbul Bilgi University, Istanbul, Turkey. Her work utilizes storytelling, journalism and dialogue-based practices and examines critical themes including protest, feminism, identity politics, nature, and universal interconnectedness. These works take the form of temporary and permanent installations, interactive events and performances, photographic and video documentation, and text-based work.
