Exhibition and institutional histories

APTART 1982–84

A collective of artists, a gallery and a movement, APTART was a series of self-organised ‘anti-shows’ that took place in a private apartment and outdoor spaces in Moscow between 1982 and 1984. These covert and anarchic actions, which soon came into conflict with the Soviet authorities, represent a collective attempt to rethink the politics of exhibition-making and the practice of making public in the absence of a public sphere.

The 24th Bienal de São Paolo, 1998

The 1998 Bienal de São Paulo remade art history from a Brazilian perspective, and presented a new model for exhibition-making in the era of post-colonial globalisation. The show employed the Brazilian notion of anthropophagy as both concept and method, encouraging ‘contamination’ and ‘cannibalisation’ of the canon, alongside an expanded understanding of its pedagogic function for the integration of art, culture and political history.

FESTAC ’77: The 2nd World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture

Early in 1977, thousands of artists, writers, musicians, activists and scholars from Africa and the black diaspora assembled in Lagos for FESTAC ’77, the 2nd World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture. With a radically ambitious agenda underwritten by Nigeria’s newfound oil wealth, FESTAC ’77 would unfold as a complex, glorious and excessive culmination of a half-century of transatlantic and pan-Africanist cultural-political gatherings.

The Third Havana Biennial 1989

The third edition of the Bienal de La Habana extended the global territory of contemporary art and redefined the biennial model.

Art Exhibitions in Shanghai in 2000

Shanghai’s ‘exhibition frenzy’ in 2000 presented conflicting positions at a transitional moment for ‘global’ contemporary art. Landmark artist-led initiatives, public interventions and commercial initiatives took place alongside the state-led Shanghai Biennale, then in its third edition, raising questions on modernity, contemporaneity, nationalism, internationalism and globalism, and wider changes in the art field.

Independent Art Festivals in Chiang Mai 1992–98

Founded on an ethos of friendship, and emerging amidst a regional constellation of artists’ initiatives and independent spaces, the series of festivals known as Chiang Mai Social Installation staged contemporary art within everyday city life. From temples and cemeteries to libraries, the town square, and even a dental clinic, these artist-led interventions present a self-funded, anarchic alternative to Southeast Asia’s subsequently expanding biennial culture while also marking the emergence of a wider contemporary moment.