New Social and Political Developments

Abstract

As the most important exhibitions created after the Biennale di Venezia — São Paulo, Sydney, Havana and Istanbul — clearly demonstrate, political aspirations (of the city, the nation, even the curators) influenced not only the idea of the biennial but also each edition. One thing the four biennials had in common was the hope placed in them that these art shows could break a country’s cultural isolation. While the exhibitions alone could not bring about such sweeping change, biennials were actually able to overcome “subjective isolation.” These events conveyed the impression that a worldwide network exists by promising that national art is part of the latest trends and most recent thinking — a factor that has become even more important in the second phase of the biennials when humanity seems to be growing together to a “world community”.