Platform for (un)Solicited Research and Advice

As an artist I am an active part of the art world. I am just starting my art practice, and the art world in which I am working is mostly within the Netherlands. As an artist one tries to strive to make ones ideas knowledgeable within a wide audience. So for me working in a local context is a starting point; participating in the context of a biennial could be a goal. It is of course not a goal in itself. The main goal for me as an artist is to become more specific in my ideas. But art doesn’t exist if it has no audience, so in that sense art needs a platform. Locally, nationwide or internationally.

Internationally and commercially seen, a biennial is a perfect place to display ones work. New connections can be made and ideas are developing. Participating artists and cities will get international attention. Cities or regions can point out local problems and artist can respond on that. So it works two ways.

For me, as an artist, the charm of a biennial is the integration of the international art scene in a local setting. Integrating in a setting of, for instance a, a city is more interesting to me than strolling around in another white cube. So context and content are important and need to be examined. I also visit a biennial in order to see an overview of the current ideas of artists from all over the world. But with the amount of biennials shifting upwards, the question rises: where to go? Until recently I only knew about the bigger ones (Venice, Istanbul, Documenta) and like everybody who’s interested in contemporary art I went there to check out what was happening in the international art world. Now I’m aware of the amount of biennials, I suddenly find the idea of a small biennial in the middle of nowhere very appealing. The other thing I am dealing, with, concerning today’s mega exhibitions, is that they are too big to get grip on. Unless one has the time to see everything and study all backgrounds. But for that there’s no time enough, because in a way we are all products of capitalism. We are on the move and trying to keep up with the pace of our own society.

To me biennials are a bit ambiguous, because it is a by all means product of capitalism. It is about selling and market value(s). It is about getting bigger. But the positive side of it is that capital also creates new dialogues, new ideas and new possibilities. So the best thing to act as an artist is probably to use this fact and respond on it. Commenting the system from within the system; a strategy that also can be used concerning the system of a biennial. (Examples of criticizing the biennial phenomenon are The Sixth Caribbean Biennial and the Emergency Biennial). I would like to suggest to the biennial audience in general: spread out and go visit smaller biennials. Find out what is happening there but do not tell anybody you’re going because in no time the smaller ones will become bigger ones.