THE ZERO BUDGET BIENNIAL
05 Sep - 30 Oct 2009
Curated by Joana Fiduccia and Chris Sharp
The Zero Budget Biennial is the biennial to end all biennials as we know them. In an art world beleaguered by both biennials and economic hardship, the Zero Budget Biennial offers a solution, a viable alternative, a way out. This exhibition reverses the usual terms and general impact of biennials. Where biennials often trade in a specific set of political and social themes, from globalism to post-Wall discourse, the Zero Budget Biennial will remain steadfastly un-programmatic. Where most biennials perpetuate a particular genre one might call biennial art in the service of illustrating dominant biennial themes, the Zero Budget Biennial will privilege idiosyncrasy.
Where other biennials promote tourism, boost local economies and generate cultural capital, the Zero Budget Biennial will leave little or no carbon footprint, probably make no one any richer and generate a cultural capital of questionable marketability. Where most biennials bark (change), the Zero Budget Biennial will actually bite. For it intends to breach the closed circuit of biennial discourses, artworks and economies by proposing a new model for these post-budget times. A patently unprofitable show in a commercial space, this biennial blithely blurs the boundaries between the so-called 'sacred' non-commercial domain of the biennial and the 'profane' one of the gallery. To the injury of this unorthodox context can be added the insult of a human-sized, anti-spectacular art, contra biennial conventions. An amalgam of hyperbole and humility, bombast and intimacy, chest-beating outrage and methodical joy, The Zero Budget Biennial seeks to challenge more than a few assumptions, and it will do so with barely a dime.
The Zero Budget Biennial features 34 international and local artists, in addition to a performance program, and a screening program selected by a group of international curators and curatorial collectives. The sole prerequisite for participation is that no artist or curator may have had prior biennial experience. The Biennial will be inaugurated this September at Galerie Carlos Cardenas and Galerie schleicher+lange in Paris and might be coming to a city near you.
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS (at galerie schleicher+lange): Davide Balula, Vanessa Billy, Simon Dybbroe Møller, Jeff Feld, Anouk Kruithof, Lamarche-Ovize, Jochen Lempert, Cécile Meynier, Sally Osborn, Marlo Pascual, Jérôme Saint-Loubert Bié, Simone Schardt & Wolf Schmelter, Anna Strand, Hayley Tompkins.
Further artists (at Galerie Carlos Cardenas): Michael Baers, Sara Barker, Agnieszka Brzezanska, Justin Lieberman, Ruth Root and Will Yackulic.
The Zero Budget Biennial is the biennial to end all biennials as we know them. In an art world beleaguered by both biennials and economic hardship, the Zero Budget Biennial offers a solution, a viable alternative, a way out. This exhibition reverses the usual terms and general impact of biennials. Where biennials often trade in a specific set of political and social themes, from globalism to post-Wall discourse, the Zero Budget Biennial will remain steadfastly un-programmatic. Where most biennials perpetuate a particular genre one might call biennial art in the service of illustrating dominant biennial themes, the Zero Budget Biennial will privilege idiosyncrasy.
Where other biennials promote tourism, boost local economies and generate cultural capital, the Zero Budget Biennial will leave little or no carbon footprint, probably make no one any richer and generate a cultural capital of questionable marketability. Where most biennials bark (change), the Zero Budget Biennial will actually bite. For it intends to breach the closed circuit of biennial discourses, artworks and economies by proposing a new model for these post-budget times. A patently unprofitable show in a commercial space, this biennial blithely blurs the boundaries between the so-called 'sacred' non-commercial domain of the biennial and the 'profane' one of the gallery. To the injury of this unorthodox context can be added the insult of a human-sized, anti-spectacular art, contra biennial conventions. An amalgam of hyperbole and humility, bombast and intimacy, chest-beating outrage and methodical joy, The Zero Budget Biennial seeks to challenge more than a few assumptions, and it will do so with barely a dime.
The Zero Budget Biennial features 34 international and local artists, in addition to a performance program, and a screening program selected by a group of international curators and curatorial collectives. The sole prerequisite for participation is that no artist or curator may have had prior biennial experience. The Biennial will be inaugurated this September at Galerie Carlos Cardenas and Galerie schleicher+lange in Paris and might be coming to a city near you.
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS (at galerie schleicher+lange): Davide Balula, Vanessa Billy, Simon Dybbroe Møller, Jeff Feld, Anouk Kruithof, Lamarche-Ovize, Jochen Lempert, Cécile Meynier, Sally Osborn, Marlo Pascual, Jérôme Saint-Loubert Bié, Simone Schardt & Wolf Schmelter, Anna Strand, Hayley Tompkins.
Further artists (at Galerie Carlos Cardenas): Michael Baers, Sara Barker, Agnieszka Brzezanska, Justin Lieberman, Ruth Root and Will Yackulic.