Whereas museums and art histories have long sought to imagine the national, large-scale international art exhibitions such as biennials are, for the most part, resolutely anchored in the more localised world of the city. Their funding, impetus, name and purpose often derive from their host cities, which seek to draw global attention to particular metropolitan contexts, often for the purposes of civic boosterism. This is the most well-known argument about biennials – that, in their branding of cities as “destination zones” for contemporary art, biennials are little more than handmaidens to neoliberal globalisation.
Professor Gardner will approach biennials from a slightly different angle, however, for this presumed globality of biennials should be better understood as forms of the trans-local rather than the transnational, the global or the international per se. These translocal connections have a long history, as do biennials. The talk will mainly be concerned with tracing these histories.
Register: RSVP required, register HERE.
Venue: The Substation Theatre, 45 Armenian Street
When: 13 Jan 2017, 12noon - 2pm
By: The Substation
