A dialogue between Biennials and Urban Space: a study on Berlin Biennials 1998-2020

Abstract

This final thesis wants to be a study on the proliferation of biennials, both victims and contributors of a globalized culture, taking Berlin Biennials as a case study. The focus will be on how this particular exhibition format built a relationship with the urban space through the employment of pre-existing venues, determining the city as an artistic platform. To contextualize the study, the history of Biennials will be reviewed starting from Venice and drawing attention on two examples: the Biennial of São Paulo, which tried to establish a new artistic center, and Documenta in Kassel, which tried to renew the image of a destroyed city. After the fall of the Wall, the decline of the Western hegemony favored the arise of new economies and artistic centers fostering an internationalization of the art. If after 1989, with the phenomenon of “biennalization”, the main reasons for establishing a Biennial remained the same of the three mentioned above, what changed is the engine determined by a global tourism, huge quantity and speed of information and economic interests. The urban space in which the Biennale is inscribed gained a growing importance since it helped to promote and reinvent a city and started to be seen as an addition to the development of a cultural global tourism. The last chapter, focusing on Berlin Biennials from 1998 to 2020, wants to be an investigation on the deep connection between the Biennale exhibition format and the city, mapping its evolution in time and space.