Exploring the international biennial

A conversation about the concept of the international biennial is to be led by high-profile art curator Franklin Sirmans this afternoon. 

His lecture — The International Biennial — is a precursor to the opening of the Biennial at the Bermuda National Gallery this evening.

Sirmans, who was a juror for a previous BNG Biennial in Bermuda, is the current Curator of Contemporary Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Artistic Director for the Biennial — Prospect 3 New Orleans which opens on October 23. 

He will also, more specifically, talk about the inspiration and influences surrounding this show.

Speaking to the Bermuda Sun, Sirmans said: “I will use the Prospect show I’m working on now as an example of the international biennial and I’ll show images from the artists that will be involved in that project. 

“When I started working in New York after school my international purview was somewhat limited… I never knew anything about a biennial per se as an exhibition platform. Then I moved to Milan from ‘96 to ‘98 and ‘97 was a particularly useful and important year in which to consider these types of exhibition. At the end of ‘96 there was an exhibition called Inclusion Exclusion in Graz, Austria, at a big event they call Steirischer Herbst.

“That show sort of flimsily put together a big international exhibition — that was about globalism in the name of globalism. In ‘97 we saw more refined takes on that topic and the embrace of globalism in a really broad sense that was seen most visibly and discussed most intellectually and popularly around the biennial exhibition. So that year you had not only the big Euro exhibitions like Venice, Documenta, the Skulptur Projekte in Münster but you also had biennials in Istanbul, in Guangzhou, Johannesburg and even Ljubljana which had very, very different strategies and artists and they were opening things up in a discussion that I thought was not really being addressed so well by these big historical shows. 

“I have been affected greatly by that time and that experience. I hope that that allows us to have some sort of dialogue on these types of exhibitions.”

Sirmans will go on to discuss how the foundation of the biennial rests upon several disparate products of art. He said: “From my experience looking at those older exhibitions — the idea is that the local space in which you are doing the exhibition is just as important as anything. Secondarily, to have a conversation internationally is what the exhibition aspired to do and it aspires to tell that story of the moment of the last two or three years — this is what they set out to do and will successfully do hopefully. 

“That’s the historical foundation. Hopefully every artist in the show somehow touches upon some of those ideas in very different ways and not all of them super visible.”

“These shows are always different you are trying to do something very specific and you are trying to recognise what is good but set it aside from the prior ones.”

Sirmans said since his time in Bermuda as a juror, he always keeps the island in mind.

Asked about his opinion on the Bermuda Biennial in 2009, Sirmans said: “I had a great time and met a lot of wonderful artists. It is still a very, very small place and the work is reflective of that — so much of the work becomes reflective of its geography so it’s no mistake that they are referring to geography in their biennial (through the theme of A View From the Edge).” 

There will be a reception at 12pm followed by the lecture at 12:30pm. Entry is $10 for members/$20 for non-members. The Biennial opens at BNG at 5pm this evening.