Biennial Manifesto

Author(s): Hans Ulrich Obrist

Source: Log, No. 20, Curating Architecture (Fall 2010), pp. 45-48
Published by: Anyone Corporation
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Hans Ulrich 0 brist
Biennial Manifesto
A
twentj-first-centurj
biennial mil utilize calculated
uncertainty
and conscious
incompleteness
to
produce
a
catalyst
for invigorating
change
whilst
alwajs
producing
the harvest
of
the
quiet
eye.
-
Cedric Price
A for ARCHIPELAGO
For the
literary
critic Edouard
Glissant,
biennials can either
be like
continents,
rock solid and
imposing,
or like
archipel-
agos, welcoming
and
sheltering.
In Glissanti words: "The
idea of a nonlinear time
[is]
implicit
in this idea . . . the co-
existence of several time zones would of course allow for a
great variety
of different contact zones as well." The biennial
as a
reciprocal
contact zone can mediate between museum
and
city.
New biennials should invent new exhibition formats.
The current
multiplication
of biennials means that rather
than
copying
the formats of other
biennials,
the
challenge
is
to
provide
new
spaces
and new
temporalities.
It is
urgent
to
generate
a situation that is
receptive
to
interesting,
more
complex spaces combining
the
large
and the
small,
the old
and the
new,
acceleration and
deceleration,
noise and silence.
According
to
Glissant,
biennials
today
need to
provide
new
spaces
and new
temporalities
in order to achieve what he
calls a mondialit : a difference
enhancing
the
global dialogue.
B for BRIDGE
One
great potential
of the
biennial/triennial
is as a
catalyst
for different
layers
of
input
in the
city.
The
multiplication
of
these events can be seen
positively
in terms of the
multiplica-
tion of centers. The
quest
for the absolute center that domi-
nated most of the 20th
century
has
opened up
to a
polyphony
of centers in the 21st. Biennials are
making
an
important
con-
tribution to this.
They
can also form a
bridge
between the local
and the
global. By
definition,
a
bridge
has two
ends,
and as the
artist
Huang Yong Ping recently pointed
out:
"Normally
we
think a
person
should have
only
one
standpoint,
but when
you
become a
bridge you
have to have two." This
bridge
is
always
dangerous,
but for
Yong Ping
the idea of the
bridge
creates
the
possibility
of
opening up something
new.
By resorting
to
the notion of
chance,
one can
gain
access to
enlightenment.
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C FOR CRITICAL MASS
Often the biennial
triggers
a
dynamic energy
field that radiates
throughout
a
city.
This works
particularly
well when all the exhibition
spaces
and institutions in a
city participate
in a
joint
effort to form a critical mass. Biennials and other
large-scale
exhibitions can also
trigger
many self-organized
side events in a
city,
such as warehouse
exhibitions,
student
shows,
and
counter-shows. One
great potential
for a biennial is that
very
often it becomes a
spark
or
catalyst
in the local scene.
D for DEATH OF THE BIENNIAL
In his
paper presented
at the
inaugural
conference of the Yokohama Triennale in
2007,
Daniel
Birnbaum
compares
the eventual exhaustion of the format of the biennial with the death of the
novel. This does not mean that no more biennials will take
place;
on the
contrary,
we are
facing
a situation where there are more than 100 biennials and triennials worldwide. But Birnbaum
wonders if as a form for
experimentation
and innovation the biennial will
play
out its role. His
paper
concludes with
hope:
a new start is
likely
to take
place beyond
the
European
continent.
E for TONNE-MOI!
In a now
legendary exchange, Sergei Diaghilev challenged Jean
Cocteau to
surprise
him. His
"Etonnez-moi!" will
always
be
important
for biennials. To
encourage
the
unexpected,
the
curatorial
position
should be
open
to
surprise.
F for FUTURE
Biennials are a
continuously
articulated
struggle
between the
past,
the
present,
and the future.
This is a vision of
history
under
perennial negotiation. Working through past
biennial
gestures,
of
course,
is
hardly
novel.
What, then,
of the future of the biennial? We should
emphasize
that
visions of the future across almost all
phenomena
(a)
evolve over time and
b)
proliferate.
The future of the biennial
is,
in other
words,
both varied and
plural.
I for IN-BETWEEN
The biennial is an occasion on which to create new
alliances;
it is about
going beyond city-
branding strategies, leading
to collaboration and new
dialogues.
In the context of the
Lyon
Biennial,
Stephanie
Moisdon and I aim to create a
dialogue
with the
city
(the
"Resonance"
program
will involve more than 80 events around
Lyon)
as well as with the wider
region,
and to
instigate
new
partnerships.
Thus "Tres Bienn"
joins
the
Istanbul, Athens,
and
Lyon
biennials to
develop
intercultural
exchanges.
New alliances are
particularly important
at a
moment when we no
longer
have
any
identifiable
ideological, generational,
or
stylistic
move-
ments,
which once created international links.
M for MEMORY
The situation of a biennial is
complex.
When we
try
to work out how to deal with this com-
plexity,
it is
important
not to reduce our reflections to one
single
model,
but to
study
several
different
ones,
both historical and
contemporary,
which take an
experimental approach
to
this
complexity.
At this moment of intense innovation within the field of
contemporary
art
-
a moment
during
which this
very
field has entered the
public
consciousness as
arguably
never
before
-
it is vital that biennials
proceed intelligently
and that we act not
only
with an aware-
ness of what our
contemporaries
within the field of art are
undertaking,
but also with an
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understanding
of what has come before and what is
being
undertaken in
disciplines parallel
to our own.
N FOR NEW GEOGRAPHIES
The French historian Fernand Braudel
explains
that in the
longue
dure there can be seismic
shifts,
like that in the 16th
century
when the
paradigm
shifted from the Mediterranean to the
Atlantic. We are
living through
a
period
in which the center of
gravity
is
transferring
to new
worlds. The second half of the 20th
century
was
very
much a time of the
"Westkunst,"
to
quote
from the title of
Kasper Knig's
and Laszlo Glozer's exhibition. The
early
21st
century
is
seeing
a
polyphony
of centers and above all the rise of new centers in
China, India,
and the Middle
East. Since the
'90s,
biennials have contributed
considerably
to this new
cartography
of art.
O FOR ONGOING
What
happens
between biennials is
very important.
If a biennial takes
place
in a
city
and then
nothing happens
for two
years
until the next biennial comes
along,
the
danger
is that it will
be like a firework in a desert.
Ideally
a biennial should be a
permanent process,
an
ongoing
organic activity.
Most biennials are
organized
in short time frames and the
operation
for
organizing
them becomes
increasingly
reduced. Curators need to resist this and find a more
reasonable framework within which to work.
Changing
the format and
creating
interim
events so that the firework becomes an
ongoing
flame
might
be
very helpful
in
overcoming
this
problem.
The biennial as a
project
could build
up through sedimentary
levels,
rather than
being
seen as a tabula rasa that starts afresh
every
two
years
and
negates
its own
history.
There
should also be more consideration of what
happens
between the
big
events of the biennial. In
most
cases,
the
opening
will attract a lot of
visitors,
but
shortly
afterward,
it is as if the off
button had been
pushed.
What we
hope
to see is the
ongoing
flame
being relayed
from one
party
to the
next,
rather than a one-time event in the name of cultural tourism that contributes
little to the local art scene. Instead of a
sprint,
we
opt
for the
long-distance running
model.
The
goal
is for a biennial that is sustainable and can foster local
development by building
a
long-term laboratory
that will accumulate
important
archival materials. Biennials can have
a life of their own as a
self-evolving entity.
R FOR RULES OF THE GAME
Biennials should invent new rules of the
game,
new
practices,
and new
ways
of
doing things.
My
first "eureka moment" in terms of
curating
was as a
teenager
when I met Fischli & Weiss
in
1985.
They
sent me to see
Alighiero
Boetti in Rome and soon afterward I met Christian
Boltanski in Paris. These conversations freed me
up
in terms of
curating.
I started to think
about exhibitions and biennials that were unlike
anything
I had
thought
about before.
They
taught
me the
importance
of
experimentation,
that there was not one
prescriptive way
of
doing
biennials.
They
also
taught
me that we
only
remember exhibitions that invent new rules
of the
game.
A model for the invention of new rules of the
game
is
Oulipo,
a
literary group
that functions like a
permanent
research
laboratory
for innovation.
S for SELF-ORGANIZATION
In
large-scale
shows,
we should
explore
ideas of
self-organization
that
reject
the
"top-down
master
plan."
A model for this
approach
can be found in urbanism as
practiced by
Yona
Friedman,
Cedric
Price,
Team
X,
or Oskar Hansen with his
visionary "open
form." All of
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them
questioned
the idea of the "master
plan"
in the
'50s
and tried to build in moments of self-
organization
and even
"bottom-up" organization. Applied
to the
biennial,
this
might
mean,
for
example,
exhibitions within the exhibitions that are
temporary
autonomous zones.
T FOR TRANSNATIONAL
The
question
of transnational exhibitions seems to be one of the
key
issues
running
from the
'90s
through
to the
present.
In
opposing
what he called the "irreversible"
aspects
of
global-
ization
-
uniformity, homogeneity
-
Etienne Balibar once described to me the need for artists
and exhibitions to become
nomadic,
physically
and
mentally traveling
across borders. He
described how
going beyond
national boundaries would allow
languages
and cultures to
spill
out in all
directions,
to broaden the horizon of
translating capacities.
In this
way,
Balibar
said,
"Exhibitions would be borderlines themselves."
U FOR UNBUILT ROADS
For
every planned
biennial that is carried
out,
hundreds of other
projects
around the world
remain unrealized and invisible to the
public.
Unlike unrealized architectural models and
projects
submitted for
competitions,
which are
frequently published
and
discussed,
public
endeavors in the visual arts that are
planned
but not carried out
ordinarily
remain unnoticed
or little known. I see these unrealized
projects
as the most
important unreported
stories in the
art world. As the
philosopher
Henri
Bergson
showed,
realization is
only
one
possibility
that
is surrounded
by many
others. There are
many amazing
unrealized
projects
out there:
forgot-
ten
projects,
misunderstood
projects,
lost
projects,
desk-drawer
projects, poetic Utopian
dream
projects,
unrealizable
projects, partially
realized
projects,
censored
projects,
and so on. It seems
urgent
to remember these roads in an active and
dynamic, unnostalgic way, transforming
some
of them into
propositions
or
possibilities
for the future.
W for WAYS BEYOND THE BIENNIAL
We can learn from Alexander Dorner's
visionary
book The
Way beyond
'Ar : The Work
of
Herbert
Bayer
that biennials of the 21st
century
should:

be in a state of
permanent
transformation

oscillate between
object
and
process

be
capable
of
multiple
identities

be an active and fearless
pioneer

promote
a relative
(not absolute)
truth

be based on a
dynamic concept
of art
history

be "elastic"
-
flexible
displays
within an
adaptable building

build
bridges
between artists and a
variety
of scientific
disciplines:
"We cannot understand
the forces which are effective in the visual
production
of
today
if we don't examine other
fields of life."
All
quotations
are
from
Hans Ulrich Obriss Interviews
Project,
which to date includes
2,000
hours
of filmed
and transcribed conversations. This
piece
was
first published
in Flash
Art, February
2009 1
Hans Ulrich Obrist is codirector of exhibitions and programs and director of international
projects
at
the Serpentine
Gallery, London,
and former curator at the Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.
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