The Paris Biennale is an institution that highlights, explores, activates, and initiates anything that can alter standard art and the concepts that define it. Through its values, operational methods, and mindset, the biennale has carved out a unique identity on the international art scene.
A Biennale in Real-Time
The Paris Biennale takes place every two years, but each edition lasts for two years, making it a biennale in real-time. This approach to time allows the biennale to remain continuously receptive to the temporalities of artists. Artists themselves set the dates for the unfolding of their practices or projects. An edition encompasses the dynamics that occur over these two years. Each new edition begins at the end of the previous one, evolving over time with associated practices throughout successive editions.
A Biennale in Real Places
The artists invited to the Paris Biennale choose their own venues and methods of presenting their work. The biennale adapts and moves to where the artists and artistic practices it identifies are taking place. The activities of the artists depend on the context in which they were born. Detaching artistic practice from its context would distort it. The biennale relocates to where the art happens. It seeks reciprocity with the activities that constitute it, aiming to question and modify social, economic, cultural, political, and ideological contexts.
Beyond the Exhibition
The Paris Biennale is no longer an exhibition. The biennale breaks away from the conventional idea that an exhibition is the sole method of presenting artistic activity. The artists with whom the biennale collaborates determine the ways in which their actions or projects are showcased, depending on the nature of their activities. The practices highlighted by the biennale dictate their own modes of existence. Its institutional status no longer focuses on promoting aesthetic values, but on experimenting with new interactions to bring forth different purposes for art beyond the artwork.
A Horizontal Institution
The Paris Biennale is built on a horizontal organization. Participating means becoming a partner, and as such, having decision-making power that influences the structure and spirit of the biennale. In this sense, artists potentially become part of the biennale’s organizational chart. They have the authority to determine the conditions under which their activities are presented by the biennale. By being adaptable, the Paris Biennale offers a broader experimental framework than that of a showcase, a distribution channel, or a legitimization platform for artistic practices. Through this horizontal approach, the biennale asserts itself as a learning organization.
A Critical Institution
Art cannot be considered a domain of consensus. For many years, the artist has lost their critical capacity in an art sector governed by centers of legitimacy over which they have no influence. The Paris Biennale positions itself as a critical mass composed of multiple initiatives that, without it, would disappear, remain isolated, or have no impact. By combining practices that escape established categories and by welcoming initiatives freed from the norms governing art, the Paris Biennale positions itself as a critical institution. It offers artists a space of freedom essential to the exercise of their profession.
A Natural Audience
The nature of an artistic practice determines its relationship with the outside world, its reception, and its audience. The practices activated or highlighted by the Paris Biennale differ from visual art. Its audience is one that, either voluntarily or by chance, interacts with activities not always perceived as artistic, sometimes becoming a determining element of them.
The Strategy of Water
Adopting the strategy of water means adapting to the environment. It is the situation itself that leads to the outcome. This strategy is necessary for negotiating different situations and contexts, but also for promoting art that defies classification.
Asymmetric Approaches
The Paris Biennale encourages practices rooted in artistic research and innovation. These practices engage with the unknown and allow action in unsuspected, unexpected, or even inadmissible places for art. Adopting asymmetric modes means pursuing new directions for art.