Arts & International Affairs: 2.3: Autumn/Winter 2017 | Page 80

ARTS & INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
idea of the nation state”, the relationship of the Venice Biennale to the world of nation
states is different from that of the Havanna Biennial, for example. La Bienial de la Ha-
bana was born in the context of historical transformations associated with globalization
(Niemojewski 2010:99–100). Its stated departure from the frame of the nation state is
also reflected in its practices: For example, the artworks are displayed according to for-
mal criteria, not according to national origin. In the exhibition catalogue, the artists are
arranged in alphabetical order, not by nationality (Niemojewski 2010:96).
From International to Global
As the above examples show, some scholars continue to emphasize the importance of
nations and states in the politics of biennials. At the same time, it is increasingly common
to critically evaluate the national and international aspects of biennials and contempo-
rary art. This may involve, for example, foregrounding the idea that the biennial institu-
tion is “at its core, global” (Filipovic et al. 2010:22) or pointing out that art, by character,
is transnational or post-national.
Several scholars argue that the development of the biennial institution, and especially the
proliferation of biennials in different parts of the world, offers evidence of a move away
from the Westphalian imaginary toward a “unified, transnational institution of art” (Car-
roll 2007:138). In contrast to artistic exchange occurring across different art world insti-
tutions—such as Japanese theater and European theater—Carroll sees contemporary
art as an internally coherent practice with a shared language, tradition, and sense-making
strategies: conversational presuppositions, hermeneutical gambits, recurring themes,
and sense-making strategies. 6 At today’s biennials, Carroll argues, artworks deriving from
nominally different cultures, stand side by side, play related language-games and share
the same traditions of interpretation (Carroll 2007:141). According to Marian Pastor
Roces (2010 [2005]:55), this is not a new phenomenon. In fact, a spatial discourse of
the global was part of the universal expositions that can be treated as the predecessors
of the biennials. Both the Venice Biennale and the Expos had universal ambitions in the
sense of being tied to the idea of humanity’s progress.
Contemporary art biennials may also be argued to have an active role in creating alterna-
tive world orders. Boris Groys, for example, suggests that biennials have a specific role to
play in today’s world where capitalism operates globally, but there is no global political
project. In these conditions, biennials offer a terrain on which models for a new global
order can still be envisaged and imagined (Groys 2009:64–65). Working with the Kan-
tian idea of sensus communis, de Duve also sees biennials as a mechanism able to surpass
local specificities; there is potential for “aesthetic cosmopolitanism” in them. Esthetic
cosmopolitanism would be a form of cosmopolitanism that is founded esthetically, not
6
Carroll (2007:141) exemplifies this with the idea that urinating into the Tate Modern’s version of
Fountain, Yuan Cai and Jian Jun Xi may or may not have been aware of Pierre Pinoncelli urinating into
another version of Fountain in Nimes. However, both were able to make a gesture as they were tapping
into the tradition of Duchamp.
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