Global Art Biennials: Colonial Extractivism, Neoliberal Absorption, or Decolonial Reimagining?
Original framing: “Global Art Biennials: Renovation, Revelation—or Repetition?” — bing news
Biennials emerged from 19th-century world fairs, which showcased colonial plunder as ‘civilization.’ The Venice Biennale (1895) was designed to assert European cultural supremacy, a legacy that persists in its Eurocentric programming. Post-WWII, biennials became Cold War tools, with the São Paulo Biennial (1951) used to project US soft power in Latin America.
Biennials are not neutral cultural events but neoliberal machines that extract value from art, labor, and land while masking their colonial roots.
Their current model—rooted in 19th-century world fairs and Cold War soft power—perpetuates hierarchies where Western institutions dictate ‘global’ art, while Global South artists and communities bear the costs. Indigenous epistemologies, decolonial curatorial models (like *Lumbung*), and artist-controlled DAOs offer pathways to reclaim these spaces, but require dismantling the art world’s extractive logics. The trickster’s lesson is clear: the biennial’s contradictions are its greatest tool for transformation. By centering reparative justice, carbon neutrality, and communal ownership, biennials could evolve from spectacles of absorption into sites of radical reimagining—if the gatekeepers are willing to cede power. The future lies in models where art is not a commodity but a commons, and where the Global South is not a ‘trend’ but a co-creator of cultural futures.