Bergen Biennial Conference

To Biennial or not to Biennial?

17 Sep 2009
20 Sep 2009

As scholars and curators have recently acknowledged, the history of exhibitions is both one of the most vital and, paradoxically, ignored narratives of our cultural history. And given the increasing role of biennials and other perennial exhibitions of contemporary art in contemporary culture, it seems all the more necessary to critically examine them today. The impetus to do so now comes in response to the Bergen City Council’s plans to establish a biennial for contemporary art in Bergen, Norway, for which the Bergen Kunsthall has taken up the task of organizing an international conference and think tank to study and discuss the status of the biennial as an exhibition model, and also to launch a debate concerning the plans for a biennial in Bergen.

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To Biennial or not to Biennial? - Bergen Biennial Conference .

With:
Ann Demeester, Sarat Maharaj, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Anri Sala

The biennial debate will never be the same

The Bergen Biennial Conference will bring together an international group of curators, critics, artists, and thinkers so as to benefit from their discussions of their findings, and create the occasion to reflect collectively about the practice and potential of biennials as institutions. Poised to be one of the most extensive examinations of the biennial phenomenon to date, the conference aims to identify and explore existing ‘biennial knowledge’ from different regions of the world and will be made up of three days of lectures as well as seminar style workshops with young and leading professionals in the field. It will be complemented with an extensive publication, The Biennial Reader, including existing seminal texts on biennials from around the world as well as newly commissioned texts.

With amongst others Ute Meta Bauer, Ann Demeester, Maria Hlavajova, Sarat Maharaj, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Nikos Papastergiadis, Anri Sala, Jan Verwoert and many more. See the full programme on the website.

From 17 - 20 september 2009 at the Bergen Kunsthall in Norway. Buy your ticket online at the Bergen Biennial Conference website.