The Venice Biennale is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of its kind. The main exhibition held in Castello, in the halls of the Arsenale and Biennale Gardens, alternates between art and architecture. The other events hosted by the Foundation—spanning theatre, music, and dance—are held annually in various parts of Venice, whereas the Venice Film Festival takes place at the Lido.
In the art world, a Biennale, Italian for "biennial" or "every other year", is a large-scale international contemporary art exhibition. The term was popularised by the Venice Biennale, which was first held in 1895, but the concept of such a large scale, and intentionally international event goes back to at least the 1851 Great Exhibition in London.
Istanbul Contemporary Art Museum (iS.CaM) is an independent, artist run museum established in Istanbul in 1997. It is the oldest contemporary art museum in Istanbul. iS.CaM an alternative art organisation that develops, evolves and collaborates with other institutions and networks. One of its tenets is that art and education should go together hand in hand. In terms of the Internet it is pioneering, including the establishment of the Web Biennial, a Biennial entirely on the Internet. The founder is conceptual artist Genco Gulan and the chief curator is Dr. Marcus Graf. It collaborates with Galata Perform in many projects.
The Völklingen Ironworks is a former blast-furnace complex located in the German town of Völklingen, Saarland. Pig iron production occurred at the site from 1882 through 1986. As one of the only intact ironworks surviving from the 19th and early-20th centuries in Europe and North America, it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994 because of its exceptional preservation and its testimony to ferrous metallurgy and the Industrial Revolution. In addition, the site is an anchor point of the European Route of Industrial Heritage (ERIH).
The Taipei Fine Arts Museum is a museum in Zhongshan District, Taipei, Taiwan. It is in the Taipei Expo Park. The museum first opened on August 8, 1983, at the former site of the United States Taiwan Defense Command. It was the first museum in Taiwan built for contemporary art exhibitions. The architecture is a local interpretation of the Japanese Metabolist Movement, and the building was designed by architect Kao Er-Pan.
The Herzliya Biennial of Contemporary Art was an art biennial event held in the city of Herzliya, Israel.
The Nanjing Biennale is a contemporary art exhibition held every two years in the city of Nanjing, in Jiangsu province in China. On October 28, 2010. it opened for the first time as an international event, co-hosted by Jiangsu Provincial Art Museum and Endless Contemporary Art Space. The curatorial team of the 2010 edition consisted of Zhu Tong, museum director and curator at Nanjing 4Cube Museum of Contemporary Art, Won-il Rhee and Eleonora Battiston. The theme of the 2010 biennial at Jiangsu Provincial Art Museum was "And_Writers".
The Vladivostok Biennale of Visual Arts is an international festival of contemporary and modern visual art, held every two years in Vladivostok, Russia. The first Biennale was held in April, 1998 in Vladivostok. Then there was presented theatre art only, but after that first Biennale there were made a decision to move beyond the theatre Biennale and turn it into Biennale of visual arts. The founder and organizer of the Vladivostok Biennale is Vladivostok city's administration of Primorsky Krai. An event is sought to rapprochement of Russian and Asia-Pacific region's culture.
The Berlin Biennale is a contemporary art exhibition, which has been held at various locations in Berlin, Germany, every two to three years since 1998. The curator or curators choose the artists who will participate. After the event became established, annual themes were introduced. The Biennale is now underwritten by the German government through the Kulturstiftung des Bundes and is the second most important contemporary arts event in the country, after documenta. The Berlin Biennale was co-founded on 26 March 1996 by Klaus Biesenbach and a group of collectors as well as patrons of art. Biesenbach is also the founding director of KW Institute for Contemporary Art and currently serves as Director of MoMA PS1 and Chief Curator at Large at MoMA.
The Athens Biennale is an international cultural event held every two years at various locations in Athens, consisting of a large-scale exhibition and a diverse programme of side events, such as performances, workshops, lectures etc. It is one of the largest international art events of contemporary culture in Greece and it has been acknowledged as one of the most significant and innovative cultural initiatives in Europe by the European Cultural Foundation.
The Mykonos Bienniale is held every odd year at the start of the summer on the Greek island of Mykonos, originally created by Lydia Venieri.
The Jerusalem Biennale is a contemporary art event which has taken place biannually since 2013. Exhibits are held in different historical and modern locations around Jerusalem, with a focus on where the contemporary art world and the Jewish world of content intersect. The Biennale is a stage for professional artists whose work references Jewish thought, spirit, tradition or experience, to exhibit their work in Jerusalem. The Jerusalem Biennale is a member of the Biennial Foundation, together with more than a 100 Biennales from around the world.
The Angolan pavilion, representing the nation of Angola, has participated in the Venice Biennale since 2013. As one of the biennial international art exhibition's national pavilions, Angola mounts a show in a Venetian palazzo outside Venice's Giardini. The first Angolan pavilion, which featured the photography of Edson Chagas, became the first African national pavilion to receive the biennial's top prize, the Golden Lion for best national pavilion. Chagas displayed poster-sized photographs of resituated, abandoned objects and weathered architecture in the Angolan capital of Luanda. Reviewers praised the interplay between the photographed subject matter and the Italian Renaissance artwork that adorned the hosting palazzo's walls. The 2015 Biennale hosted a group show of five Angolan artists on themes of intergenerational dialogue.
The worldwide enthusiasm for art biennials, triennials and other –ennial events rose during the 1990s and is continuing whereas this kind of exhibition format is not a new trend. Indeed, the Venice Biennale was founded in 1895, followed in 1896 by Carnegie International, the Bienal de São Paulo in 1951, Kassel's Documenta in 1955 and the Biennale of Sydney in 1973, just to name the firsts, mostly driven by capitalist-philanthropic spirit.
The Canadian pavilion houses Canada's national representation during the Venice Biennale arts festivals.
Ghana Freedom was a Ghanaian art exhibition at the 2019 Venice Biennale, an international contemporary art biennial in which countries represent themselves through self-organizing national pavilions. The country's debut pavilion, also known as the Ghana pavilion, was highly anticipated and named a highlight of the overall Biennale by multiple journalists. The six participating artists—Felicia Abban, John Akomfrah, El Anatsui, Selasi Awusi Sosu, Ibrahim Mahama, and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye—represented a range of artist age, gender, locations, and prestige, selected by curator Nana Oforiatta Ayim. The show paired young and old artists across sculpture, filmmaking, and portraiture, and emphasized common threads across postcolonial Ghanaian culture in both its current inhabitants and the diaspora. Almost all of the art was commissioned specifically for the pavilion. Architect David Adjaye designed the pavilion with rusty red walls of imported soil to reflect the cylindrical, earthen dwellings of the Gurunsi within the Biennale's Arsenale exhibition space. The project was supported by the Ghana Ministry of Tourism and advised by former Biennale curator Okwui Enwezor. After the show's run, May–November 2019, works from the exhibition were set to display in Accra, Ghana's capital.
The Jerusalem Biennale, is a biennale taking place in Jerusalem, Israel, every odd year since 2013. As stated on the Biennial Foundation's website, "is a platform for professional curators and artists to present contemporary works that relate, in one way or another, to the Jewish world of content. Every two years, a growing community of artists, art lovers, collectors, writers, researchers, and social activists gather in Jerusalem to celebrate Contemporary Jewish Art and to enjoy a variety of exhibitions, projects, site-specific installations and events under this conceptual framework."
Kyiv Biennial is an international contemporary art biennale, held every two years in Kyiv, Ukraine. First edition of the event was held in 2015. Since its beginning Kyiv Biennial is organized by the Visual Culture Research Center.
The 59th Venice Biennale is an international contemporary art exhibition held between April and November 2022. The Venice Biennale takes place biennially in Venice, Italy. Artistic director Cecilia Alemani curated its central exhibition.
The 60th Venice Biennale is an upcoming international contemporary art exhibition to be held in 2024. The Venice Biennale takes place every two years in Venice, Italy. Artistic director Adriano Pedrosa will curate its central exhibition, Foreigners Everywhere.
