Ann Huber-Sigwart

Biennale Momentum: Shift of references in cultural representation
and its reception over the last two decades within perennial exhibitions.

This thesis investigates the relation between the inception of large perennial exhibitions and their reception in a local as well as a global context. Over the last twenty-five years, exhibition making or the 'exposition' of art has witnessed a phenomenal change under the influence of international exhibitions such as biennials. The large international recurring art exhibition has become the model to show contemporary art, as well as to promote nations or cities. Yet, this global phenomenon raises new problematic issues in relation to the presentation of art and culture within a contemporary context. So far little attention has been given to the underlying problematic, whereby the biennale model seems to have become the exhibition model by default in a global context. However, what does it mean and who are the actors within this development towards a homogenised view of the modern or contemporary art world? The two landmark exhibitions, 'Magiciens de la Terre' and 'The other story', have initiated a process described as 'transcultural curating' over the last decades. In its initial state, this new approach towards a pluralist production of art around the globe allowed curators to apprehend a larger variety of works. Yet, this eventually seems to lead to a new unsettling parameter in the cross-cultural context of exhibition making, whereby cultural politics are reduced to a global capitalist expansion model. The historical frame of the discussion introduces the notion of a shift of discourse within exhibition making leading from modernity towards a homogeneous globalart world. From a theoretical point of view, the research considers a selection of large perennial exhibitions such as the last four Documenta exhibitions in Kassel as well as the various attempts at the Venice Biennale to question the classical approach of exhibition making over the last two decades. This will lead to open up the field to the more recent initiatives in Asia, keeping in mind the relation to older biennales outside of the Western model such as Sao Paulo and Havana or Istanbul. The main argument investigates the large perennial exhibitions, independently of their location, within the realm of western thought and to analyse whether it has been possible to make a claim for another discourse, be it political or cultural. Is pluralism a sham as Hall Foster claimed in 1985? Or has the notion of 'otherness' been swallowed by the frenzy of the global whereby the market economy has flattened out the possibility of 'différance' or heterogeneity?

​

Sub project C
Heir to the Hybrid Moment: from Tradition to Modernity in Non-Western Visual Arts