Rethinking Biennials with Fatos Ustek and Defne Ayas
Fatos Ustek, Director of Liverpool Biennial was joined by Defne Ayas, Artistic Director of Gwangju Biennale to discuss Biennials.
The biennial model rose to prominence in the 1980’s and 1990’s and is characterised by two main features - artistic ‘contemporaneity’ and geo-political ‘globality’. Both of these are reliant on and encourage firstly, the display of ‘new’ work most often made specifically for the biennial and its locations, secondly as the audience is international so too the work seeks to negotiate between the regional, national and international; thirdly as distributed events across a city biennials have played to the international art-worlds thrall to the ‘experience’ economy convening and congregating; and fourthly the expectation of them to be local infra-structure builders tasked with delivering significant benefits to the local economy.
What is the meaning and significance of the biennial in the 21st century?
The 1990’s biennial was typically staged in derelict sites like abandoned warehouses or in historical locations alongside the institutions of their respective cities. They took risks, generated strong statements, many themed around larger than life concepts and collective interrogation. In a way they could be described as a packaged exhibition spectacle, and example of ‘festivalism’ at worst, however they are not quite the same; for many reasons the delivery is rarely perfect and they offer a more adventurous counter-form to the exhibition model. They can also dare to fail with humble proposals.
‘Although the art-world may feel exhausted by the insane proliferation of biennials and events and the broadcasting machines that are enabled with it, every biennial has its own context, relevance and unique voice. For example Sao Paulo and Havana are different than Istanbul which is like a chameleon changing it's character and register every 2 years, and Taipei is different again providing intellectual generative capacity. So much as they are these multi-all encompassing platforms, they should also be valued for their vulnerability. In a way they re-iterate the context in which they are born which for example in Taipei is a history of social-political-psychological stress.'
Alongside being reputation engines for the arts economy they are also important in the growth of cities, the visitor economy, the regeneration of places, place making - that anyway was the context for biennials that are older - but they are re-shaping to look at what is happening in the world. Art fairs have preceded the importance of biennials in the last 20 years; they have attracted more audiences, and have proved themselves to be agile systems that can reinvent themselves with curated sections or by having whole fairs curated.So today, even before the current crisis, we were looking at the future of the biennial format and how it will redeem its significance.
Gwangju Biennial
There is an expectation for grand spectacle, and a mandate to bring local audiences but also international prestige.The Gwangju Biennial operates within a highly capitalistic framework, public and state driven and seeks to honour the city’s protest movement through the prism of contemporary art - not necessary consensually.'
There is a stand-off between the government mechanism that wants to create consensual encounter - and on the other hand honouring and delivering about the Gwangju uprising - which is still relevant to the city's consciousness while connecting to the rest of the worlds solidarity movement. It’s about creating a space for reconciliation, reparation and generational encounters - connecting the dots between the movements of the 80’s and now. You are trying to connect local and international plus local to local. It is precarious and problematic, working in what is definitely a state organisation, and your agility is a little impeded because of that.'
Can the biennial still function as a place for that x-ray of the urgencies of society while capturing this bottom up energy, this resistant energy which is still so relevant to global politics?
In Liverpool having a continuous Director means you can build something for years to come, whereas in Gwangju only 2 years go into that social context ,so it is harder to see synergies and act on an alchemy of positions and ideas and assess the possibilities and how they will be received.
'Definitely Liverpool benefits from the ability to craft a long term strategy and voice.'
How Covid proof can a biennial concept be?‘
It's hard to be in control right now, you are following very different things - the science/ the mayor/ and then simple practical things like shipping. Reaching out to artists - supporting morale, confidence in the biennial and in production was our first action. How we are going to re-imagine institutions, protocols and mechanisms and harness what we are experiencing into practises and vocabularies in a meaningful way is a very important question for all of us.There are some mega psychological tunnels to go through, feminism has defaulted to the 1950’s, there are so many climate change issues, refugee crisis, solidarity movements shut down and on...'
How sustainable can a biennial be?
‘Biennials have experimented with forms that are now examples of sustainability, saying something about crisis and climate change. The Moscow biennial for example scrapped everything that makes exhibitions so expensive- crated air transport, production, insurance heavy production. But essentially biennials are not climate friendly infrastructures, we must do what we can to honour and try to change, but without being tokenistic.'
What will the new world for biennials look like?
The key strategies could be more collaboration, uniting forces - with institutions, between artists, thinking about initiatives exploring what commissioning means beyond just co-commissioning to give art and artists more visibility across continents, across contexts, and of course enabling more financial support. Biennials need to be more open, transparent, and inclusive and to think about what can biennials can do that institutions can’t. They are not facing the same threats and dangers that institutions are facing ie the threat of being closed down, income generation bought to zero, as biennials have a totally different structure and don't need to sell tickets. The Venice Biennale is a religious ritual of sorts - a gathering of tribes, for exchange, ecstasy, healing and celebration. The new biennial may embrace ancient shamanistic technologies, global indigenous vocabularies, utilise the processes of death and mourning, birth and rebirth - conceptually at least these are virus proof.
'We need to re-think our international crowd, they will still come but we need to necessitate deeper and more prolonged periods of engagement. One immediate effect is that the expanded local is more important - we need to look at audiences where people can travel by land rathe than flying and explore clustering effects for example Liverpool/ Manchester International /Glasgow International. In future it will not be blockbuster style openings that make the biennials attractive'The world we will arrive at will not be the same world we have left. No one is yet keen or confident to address the fear of change, the fear of not knowing or being able to adapt as fast as others. Many things could have been done differently in the past, but assessing what worked is another exercise - what are the denominators of the new world?
Will biennials become virtual or online experiences?
'The move online is not just because of Covid, but because of the right authoritarian turn of our countries; the political contexts in which we create exhibitions and that artists create work will move online. We, as a generation of curators, are not digital natives but a new generation of artists and theatre-makers more equipped and skilled. There is backlash to some of the 2D institutional programming happening online, the content isn’t engaging and exciting. We need to better understand the medium of the digital and might need a crash course in online presences and how we create experiences online.'