Bergen Biennial Conference

17th - 20th of September

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.

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.

Program

Bergen Biennial Conference: 17th of September - 20th of September 2009. Brief summary of conference program. For details on lectures, dialogues and workshops please read the daily program.

Thursday 17th of September: OFFICIAL OPENING

Opening of the conference and the Arquivo Histórico Wanda Svevo of the Fundacáo Bienal de Sáo Paolo at Bergen Kunsthall.

Friday 18th of September: HISTORY

The opening day of the conference will lay the foundations for subsequent discussions by focusing on the history and origins of biennials and other perennial international exhibitions, from early World's Fairs and the Venice Biennial, as well as such others as the São Paolo, Havana Biennials and Documenta to the 1990's biennial boom that saw the rise of the Manifesta, Berlin, Istanbul, Gwangju, Mercosul, and Dak'Art Biennials, among many others. Discussions will closely consider the historical events and socio-economic, geopolitical contexts that made these recurrent exhibitions possible or even necessary and urgent. This day will also address the ambitions and forms that these exhibitions and the art they show have taken over the years.

Saturday 19th of September: PRACTICE

The second day will focus on practice, elaborating on the different types of biennials today, looking at their functioning, developments and evolution over time. This day will be the occasion to reflect collectively about the biennial as a historically new type of art institution, reading the variety of benefits and limitations of such large-scale art events against the grain of their resulting exhibitions. Questions will be raised such as: Do biennials foster different or more interesting art exhibitions and more inventive curatorial practices? How does the biennial differentiate itself from and/or depend on other art world structures?

Sunday 20th of September: FUTURE

In a time when post-modernity has come to an end and an era of alter-modernity has been announced, is the perennial exhibition still relevant? Taking up the query that some biennials are themselves asking of late about the potentials and limits of the format, this day focuses on the future. Reflecting on the responsibility and the role of the curator, the recent tendency towards new discursive models for biennials will be discussed, as well as the consequences of these changing exhibition structures for artists, curators and the public. Why is ‘yet another biennial' seen as redundant, while new museums or art centers usually are welcomed within a community? The discussions and thoughts of the previous days will come together and the possibilities for new curatorial paradigms as well as the idea for a biennial in Bergen will be assessed.

Invited participants in the conference will include a wide range of international scholars, artists, curators, writers and critics.