The art biennial as a global phenomenon. Open 16

Not only is there a boom in international art biennials, but they are also increasingly deployed for developing and marketing cities and regions. In order to compensate for this, political issues are more and more often put on the agenda. Can biennials really represent an alternative political voice? This extra anniversary issue of Open contains a number of lectures delivered at the debate on this issue in October 2008 in connection with the first Brussels Biennial. Together with supplementary texts, a ‘reader’ has been created in which the biennial as a global phenomenon is analysed and approached not only in terms of an art theoretical discourse or curatorial practice, but also on the basis of more sociological and politico-philosophical points of view.