Reading Suggestion: “Inclusion and Exclusion in the Art World: A Sociological Account of Biennial Artists and Audiences” – Christian Morgner

The article we want to share with you this week is a welcome piece of scholarly research into biennials from what feels like a refreshingly external perspective. Published in the issue June 2020 issue #46 of OnCurating by Christian Morgner, lecturer in Culture and Communication at the University of Leicester, “Inclusion and Exclusion in the Art World: A Sociological Account of Biennial Artists and Audiences” poses some very relevant questions on how to approach the topic of audience analysis for art biennials.

His approach, combining a theoretical re-framing of what we mean by audience when we talk about Biennials and a quantitative data relating to biennials globally (Gwangju, Istanbul and Havana just to name a few), argues that biennials form a democratic platform of cultural and political exchange by deploying the arguments and theoretical frameworks of Judith Butler and Jürgen Habermas.

Certainly the premises of the article, that “the notion of democracy is often associated with biennials and can be seen to inform a foundation myth” might be a problematic ones for those scholars arguing for the biennial model (or biennalisation rather) being a force of homologation reinforcing a western centric art system. However, Morgner’s article brings a number of reasoned arguments against this view, starting from the so-called “biennial artist” idea. In the past decade a number of biennial scholars have argued for an emergence of a specific profile of artist built entirely around the biennial model, basically claiming that the re-appearance of the same artists in all biennials is a sign of homologation and lack of democracy in the model. In this argument, through an analysis of a relatively small set of biennials (and this might still be a problem), such claim appears to be rather baseless with a recurring rate ranging between 22% in the case of Documenta and 4% for the Gwanjiu Biennial.

The article then goes on undermining another key argument used to depict biennials as “hegemonic machines”: the presence mainly of western/northern artists. Here too the data from the biennials taken into consideration seems to suggest a much stronger focus on the wider region of a biennial rather than a predominance of so-called western artists.

But Morgner in his writing goes further than just undermining these critiques, his maybe more interesting and convincing argument could be very useful to redefine the way audiences are accounted for, moving away from a quantitative and often too driven by a consumerist approach to culture, merely interested in an always increasing number of visitors. In order to do so, the researcher first goes about re-framing the role of biennials in relation to museums, arguing that their main purpose is to foster a debate and dialogue on currently relevant themes, and not to present an art historical narrative of the works presented, which remains prerogative of the museums.

Specifically about the audience and their relation to the experience of biennials the article moves away from Pierre Bourdieu’s reading of the appreciation of art as something emerging from education and ultimately linked to class (I am simplifying for the sake of argument). Instead biennials, by bringing together an often conflicting variety of arguments on a specific theme, form a testing ground for the thoughts of the visitors, stimulating their understanding of an idea/topic and enriching a wider debate on these.

In a field which would deserve much more attention by disciplines such as sociology, anthropology or ethnography this article brings about at least some convincing arguments which we hope will be expanded in further scholarly research.

Christian Morgner is lecturer at the University of Leicester focusing his research on a comprehensive theory of culture at the intersection of sociology, communication and cultural studies.  He has previously held a position of Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Hitotsubaschi University, Japan and as Research Affiliate at the University of Cambgridge among others.

Full article can be viewed at the following link:
https://www.on-curating.org/issue-46-reader/inclusion-and-exclusion-in-the-art-world.html#.X2pG25Mzblw