ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the endeavour by turning to the theoretical repertoire associated with the new biennial’s form and content. The turn to discursive exhibitionary formats in global art circuits, as art critic Mick Wilson comments, stands as an arena where relationships between practitioners, institutions and audiences become reframed and reformulated. Designating a certain ‘mode of address’ regarding its format, purpose and objective, the discursive exhibition bears traits that are omnipresent in all contemporary biennials, involving interdisciplinary educational events and expectations for social intervention. The professionalisation of the curator as a legitimate job description lies on the requirement to hypostasise the increasing complexity of the modern world and link the accelerated partiality of experience in a unifying narrative. The qualities of curatorship meets in the new biennial become clearer by looking at the big differences in the two documental exhibitions that took place in the 1990s.
