When it comes to the biennale circuit, the United States doesn’t quite stand up to the rest of the world. The Whitney Biennial presents a mandatory stop for all New York art-world cognoscenti, but there’s nothing to rival the large-scale, international exhibitions of Venice, Gwangju, or Kassel. (New Orleans’ Prospect Biennial gave it a go in 2008 but seemed to lose steam with Prospect.2 in 2011.) In an unconventional move, the newly announced Dallas Biennale, organized by local art museum Dallas Contemporary and opening March 29, is trying to make a virtue of its own obvious minor-ness. It's not entirely clear if the new event is meant as a sincere play at biennial-dom, as a kind of satire of biennials, or as both at once.
"The motto of Dallas is 'Think Big,' and when you go there it's actually true, it's all about excess," organizer and Dallas Contemporary adjunct curator Florence Ostende told ARTINFO. Her approach is to "slow down the pace and the craziness, and bring each artist an individual space to work." A press release says that the new Biennial "is not an exhibition reviving the encyclopaedic format of other grand international surveys, but a critique of them," adding that it "is intended to ignite larger intellectual discussions surrounding international biennales and their growing lack of intellectual clarity and international standardization." Texas art Web site Glasstire has already dubbed it the "Un-Biennial."
In practice, what Ostende's vision means is an event focusing on solo shows, spread across six different local venues and featuring a modest 19 international artists, including Swiss installation artist Sylvie Fleury, Mexican conceptualist Mario Garcia Torres, and Dallas artist Michael Corris. Claude Leveque, Morehshin Allahyari, and Charlotte Moth are also highlighted. Venues include Dallas Contemporary, the Nasher Sculpture Center, and the Goss-Michael Foundation (the Dallas art venue part owned by UK pop singer George Michael). Fleury’s guerrilla exhibition will take the form of window displays in the Neiman Marcus department store. Corris, echoing Ostende’s anti-biennial formulations, will contribute a piece based on a list of all the things biennales shouldn't do, originally created for the 2005 Venice Biennale.
So, will the Dallas Biennale be the latest stop for the international art traveller? The Magic Eight Ball says 'try again later.' "It might only happen once," Ostende said. "I'm not sure."