Books by Rafal Niemojewski
Biennials: The Exhibitions We Love to Hate, 2021
Biennials: The Exhibitions We Love to Hate examines one of the most significant recent transitio... more Biennials: The Exhibitions We Love to Hate examines one of the most significant recent transitions in the contemporary-art world: the proliferation of large-scale international recurrent survey shows of contemporary art, commonly referred to as contemporary biennials. Since the mid-1980s biennials have been instrumental in shaping curating as an autonomous practice. They have also been responsible for substantially reconfiguring the art world and disrupting the existing value chain of the art market, which now relies on biennials as much as it does on major museums’ acquisitions and exhibitions.
Manifesta Journal, Jan 2006
Criterios, 2013
En diciembre de 2005 la Bienal de Venecia organizó un simposio interna-cional para celebrar su 11... more En diciembre de 2005 la Bienal de Venecia organizó un simposio interna-cional para celebrar su 110 aniversario y reflexionar sobre su futuro. El evento, titulado Donde los mundos del arte se encuentran: Modernidades múltiples y el salón global, fue programado y presentado por Robert Storr, director artístico de la edición de la Bienal correspondiente al año 2007. Aunque en el simposio se presentó mucha crítica constructiva sobre la estructura arcaica de la institución de Venecia, su misión y la demografía de su público, no se hizo ningún intento de analizar la posición de la Bienal de Venecia entre otras exposiciones de gran escala que tienen lugar hoy en diferentes partes del mundo. Ocurrió así tal vez porque su lugar ya había sido definido y establecido como central y hegemónico en el programa del simposio. Según Storr, la conferencia representó la contribución de la Bienal al discurso en expansión que rodea la proliferación y transformación de un fenómeno que ella en efecto creó (…) Otrora la Bienal de Venecia fue la única exposición de su
Biennial Reader, 2010
This anthology on the global biennial phenomenon includes seminal republished texts collected fro... more This anthology on the global biennial phenomenon includes seminal republished texts collected from around the world as well as newly com missioned contributions by the leading scholars, curators, critics, and thinkers of bien nials today. By tracing the genealogy of the perennial exhibition format (understood here as including not only biennials but also other recurrent exhibitions such as triennials and quinquennials) and by examining some of from the biennials in Venice and Johannesburg to those of Havana and-tic, theoretical, political, and other ambitions of such large-scale exhibition projects against the grain of their resulting exhibitions. Poised to be a vital resource, The Biennial Reader of these exhibitions and argues for a new history of art written through their analysis. In the process, this "reader" of essays explores perennial exhibitions and the global hegemonic shifts that made them possible as well as their impact on contemporary art, curating, culture, and art institutions.
Papers by Rafal Niemojewski
Manifesta, the first itinerant European Biennial for Contemporary Art, emerged in a post-wall, gl... more Manifesta, the first itinerant European Biennial for Contemporary Art, emerged in a post-wall, globalizing Europe. Founded in 1993, it organized traveling exhibitions aimed at providing a new framework for cultural exchange and collaboration between artists and curators from across the continent. The Manifesta Decade marks Manifesta's ten years of exhibits with original essays, unpublished images, and texts that not only document the different Manifesta exhibits but also examine the cultural, curatorial, and political terrain of the Europe from which they sprang. Including contributions from philosophers, historians, and anthropologists, interviews with architect Rem Koolhaas and historian Jacques Le Goff, and essays by such curators and writers as Okwui Enwezor, Boris Groys, Maria Hlavajova, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, the collection traces the cultural and political developments of Europe in the 1990s. It reflects the debates incited by exhibitions such as Magiciens de la Terre, Documenta, and After the Wall and explores the changing roles of curators and artists in the new geo-political context. The issues discussed include the effect of communism's collapse on Eastern Europe, the role of Biennials in the context of globalization, and the ephemerality of exhibitions versus the permanence of the museum. The book's second section traces the history of Manifesta, from its conceptual foundations and contributions to artistic practices of the 1990s to the relationship of a roving Biennial to themes of multiculturalism, migration and diaspora. At a moment when biennials continue to proliferate worldwide, The Manifesta Decade takes Manifesta as a case study to look critically at the landscape from which new exhibition paradigms have emerged. The book's 100 images, both color and black and white, include unpublished installation shots of each Manifesta exhibition. Copublished with Roomade, Brussels, in collaboration with the International Foundation Manifesta, Amsterdam.
KUNSTFORUM International, 2020
edited by Sabine Vogel
Book Reviews by Rafal Niemojewski
Cultural Politics, Volume 14, Issue 1, (Spring), 2018
In the recent ArtReview.com op-ed titled "The End of the Biennial?," J. J. Charlesworth (2017) ar... more In the recent ArtReview.com op-ed titled "The End of the Biennial?," J. J. Charlesworth (2017) argues that the ubiquitous format of "large international exhibition" of contemporary art is starting to show signs of fatigue. Analogously, one could argue that this kind of criticism-which became customary, if not fashionable-among Western art-world professionals around the turn of the century has by now become predictable, prosaic, and tired. 1 Scrutinizing the recent editions of documenta, Manifesta, and the Venice Biennale, Charlesworth points out-quite rightly so-the inherent contradiction between increasingly nonartistic agendas, such as social transformation or political engagement, and the systemic inability to fulfill such promises. According to Charlesworth, documenta's uncomfortable engagement with the austerity-hit capital city of Athens is the ultimate testament to the impotence of the biennial format, in relation to the real tensions of its host city. While his argument is somewhat confirmed with the unapologetically European selection of examples used to illustrate it, his statements are unjustifiably presented as universal. Charlesworth and many other biennial skeptics tend to ignore the fact that the most fertile ground for biennials-which have been continuously proliferating since the mid-1980s-is to be found outside Europe, and that the proliferation itself can be seen as a project of correcting and decentralizing the cartography of the art world inherited from modernity.
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Books by Rafal Niemojewski
Papers by Rafal Niemojewski
Book Reviews by Rafal Niemojewski