The Prospect New Orleans art triennial in October has been postponed to next year. So has the Liverpool Biennial. São Paulo’s Bienal is delayed by at least a month. The Dakar Biennale has yet to set new dates. Front International, in Cleveland, has decided to skip 2021 altogether and return in 2022.
The coronavirus crisis has thrown into question the post-pandemic future of contemporary art biennials (and their cousins, triennials and quadrennials). Of an estimated such 43 exhibitions in 2020, some 20 have been postponed so far, according to a tally by the Biennial Foundation, with further changes near certain. The Biennale of Sydney opened in March for a three-month run — and had to close after 10 days.
The Yokohama municipal authorities are eager not to postpone the Triennale’s opening on July 3, though the region is currently under a state of emergency. The 2011 edition, soon after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, was well attended, playing a possibly therapeutic role. “They feel that when people have been through an intense experience, where anxieties around mortality and what life means become foregrounded, people turn to art,” said Monica Narula of Raqs Media Collective, the Delhi-based group that is curating this year’s program.
