BEYOND CHAPTER 08 · Exploring art fairs

How do biennials make art visible?

Why can an artwork without a price label still affect an artist’s market position?

In this chapter

At a biennial, your first encounter might be a performance, a transformed church, or a film that asks you to stay. Through selection, space and interpretation, the exhibition directs attention toward people and questions you may not have noticed before.

That attention has cultural power and may have commercial consequences. Art Value Lab approaches the biennial through connected questions: who gains entry, who covers the costs, who receives recognition, and what remains after the exhibition closes.

Identify what the exhibition does

A biennial usually follows a two-year cycle, while a triennial follows a three-year cycle; actual dates can shift with organisational or external circumstances. A museum may host the event, or it may spread across venues, streets and urban spaces. Recurrence creates opportunities to revisit questions and compare how successive editions interpret their moment.

An art fair usually centres on transactions between exhibiting galleries and buyers; a biennial’s principal public task is curating, presenting and discussing art. Both can feature talks, performances, sponsors and collectors, so their outward appearance can overlap. Ask instead: who selects the works, what brings them together, and are there explicit sales arrangements?

Venice: space distributes attention

Venice’s International Art Exhibition began in 1895, and its first foreign pavilion, Belgium’s, opened in 1907. To understand the model, distinguish the curator’s international exhibition, national presentations and collateral events. The Giardini gardens and Arsenale are major venues, alongside buildings elsewhere in the city: an exhibition map also maps institutional arrangements.

In a concentrated pavilion area, visitors can walk directly from one presentation to the next. An off-site project may require extra travel and planning, changing its chance of being encountered by accident. Yet a palace or church can supply a distinctive history and scale. Remoteness does not establish lesser quality, and centrality does not establish greater representativeness; notice how convenience helps shape visibility.

Curating changes the field of attention

Curating does more than assemble established masterpieces. In 2015, Okwui Enwezor’s All the World’s Futures brought live readings and public discussion into Venice’s exhibition. In 2022, Cecilia Alemani’s The Milk of Dreams included a majority of women and gender non-conforming artists while revisiting historical work. Such choices change who appears together and which questions receive sustained attention.

Adriano Pedrosa’s Foreigners Everywhere in 2024 foregrounded migration, diaspora, Indigenous and queer artists, and makers outside mainstream art institutions, alongside histories of modern art in the Global South. This does not make their experiences interchangeable. Compare two works placed under one theme: how do their materials, histories and positions differ? Curatorial categories should open inquiry rather than replace the works.

Global events can begin with a city

The São Paulo Biennial began in 1951, showing how a recurring large exhibition can connect a region’s art with wider networks. The course also raises Havana, Taipei, Sharjah and other cities. These are not miniature Venices: their histories, languages, public resources and artistic communities shape invitations and what international visitors encounter.

Another approach is the museum-based survey. The Whitney Biennial examines American art; the Hammer Museum’s Made in L.A., launched in 2012, focuses on the Los Angeles region. A local scope can support deeper engagement with studios and communities, but selection remains a judgement, not a complete census. When comparing editions, look beyond new names to practices and communities that remain absent.

Funding and markets beyond price labels

Large exhibitions pay for research, production, loans, transport, labour and venues. Governments, foundations, businesses, private supporters and artists’ galleries may support different components. Gallery funding can make a project possible while increasing a represented artist’s visibility. Assess the relationship through disclosure, independence of selection, and responsibility for the work after the exhibition.

Some exhibited or related works may later be sold; others already belong to museums or private collections, and some have no resalable object form. Do not assume that every biennial work will reach the market. Curated fair sections and collector activity around biennials show cultural and commercial overlap, while the events’ missions, contracts and accountability can still differ.

Several steps separate a credit from a price

An invitation can lead to criticism, scholarship, later exhibitions, representation or institutional acquisition. These outcomes can increase understanding and buyer interest. Yet an exhibition credit establishes selection for a particular show; it does not guarantee every work’s quality, price or future demand. Careers develop through years of practice and many supporting relationships.

Suppose an artist’s auction prices rise after a biennial. Check whether the later works were rarer, larger or better documented, and whether a retrospective or gallery expansion occurred at the same time. Include unsold works. Looking only at the highest sale can attribute a change with several causes to one exhibition. Visibility is a pathway worth investigating; price causation requires further evidence.

When the work is an ongoing encounter

The course’s examples of Allora & Calzadilla, Tino Sehgal and Sun & Sea remind us that biennials can present works made through bodies, sound, time and audiences. Such projects may use shifts, repeated performances or scheduled appearances. A photograph captures a moment without necessarily conveying waiting, fatigue, changing sound, or your relationship with other visitors.

Adjust your viewing method: establish how the work begins, how long it lasts, and whether participation requires consent. Behind the scenes, consider rehearsal, pay, rest, accessibility and recording permissions. Even without a permanent object, labour and care have real costs. When assessing scale, immersion or spectacle, ask how the work was made possible fairly and reliably.

What remains for the city?

Biennials can support tourism, employment and exchange, but attendance is not the same as a net local benefit. Consider public subsidies, venue and transport costs, working conditions, and effects on residents. Short-term crowds and lasting cultural capacity are different outcomes: a busy opening may leave no stable education team, workspace or accessible archive.

Environmental assessment also needs a defined scope. Flights, freight, energy and disposable exhibition structures can all contribute. Longer runs, shared shipments, reused materials or more local production are options to compare, not automatically effective slogans. After the show, asking which knowledge, relationships or public resources remain usable can reveal more than asking how spectacular the event was.

Your turn to investigate

Which clue would you check first?

Fictional exercise: a gallery says, “This artist has just entered a biennial, so buying now guarantees appreciation.” Which response best supports a sound judgement?

Choose a clue to see what it can tell you.

READING COMPANION

A few useful terms

Biennial: An exhibition format usually recurring every two years; the term describes its cycle rather than guaranteeing unchanging dates.
Triennial: An exhibition usually recurring every three years, rather than three times within one year.
National pavilion: A presentation or venue organised through a national participation structure, distinct from the curator’s international exhibition.
Curatorial framework: The questions or viewpoint connecting selection, interpretation and spatial arrangement, shaping how works are read together.
Site-specific work: A work closely related to a location’s architecture, society or history, whose meaning may change when moved.
Cultural visibility: The opportunity for works or artists to be encountered by audiences, media, researchers and institutions; it cannot be directly converted into a price.
Durational performance: Performance in which extended time, repetition or sustained bodily activity helps constitute the experience.
Cultural legacy: Knowledge, capacities, relationships and resources still usable after an event, evaluated separately from short-term publicity.

Explore primary and secondary markets

YOUR TURN

Which three kinds of evidence would you use to assess a biennial’s lasting local value?

Consider another way to think about it

You might examine residents’ participation and return visits, continuing work or collaborations for art workers, and education or research resources accessible after closing. State what is missing, such as the needs of non-attendees. Separating crowds, artist visibility and public capacity produces a clearer judgement than one attendance figure.

TAKE THIS THOUGHT WITH YOU

Biennials change who is seen through curating, space and resources. Understanding their value means tracing how attention is created and who benefits or bears costs after the event.

Reading notes & references

Written by Art Value Lab from the complete supplied bilingual Art Biennials course text, with historical and curatorial details checked against organisers’ records. The 2015, 2022 and 2024 editions are historical cases. Lecture claims about attendance, prices and urban benefits are not treated as current statistics or causal proof. The exercise is fictional.

Connect the ideas

Continue into people, works and research.