Department of Cultural Affairs

The biennial format originated with La Biennale di Venezia in 1895 at a time of economic decline in Venice. The city government sought to attract tourism and international attention by launching a “major international art exhibition held every two years.” From the outset, at the basis of the biennial was clearly the national pavilion, positioning the exhibition as a platform combining culture, diplomacy, and urban marketing. Over time, the concept of the biennial evolved into a widely adopted exhibition model defined by a fixed cycle, international participation, curatorial authorship, and functions tied to cultural diplomacy and city branding. From the mid-twentieth century onward, similar platforms emerged around the world, including the Bienal de São Paulo (1951), the Biennale of Sydney, the Biennale de Lyon, and the Taipei Biennial.

Biennials provide a platform for cross-border exchange and experimental practice at the forefront of contemporary art. They present emerging artistic trends and offer artists space to realize large-scale and experimental works, from installation and interdisciplinary projects to moving-image and socially engaged practice. Curators use the exhibition as a narrative framework to address pressing issues of the time, such as colonialism, environmental crisis, globalization, and identity politics. From an urban and economic perspective, biennials can function as engines of cultural revitalization and as core strategies for cultural regeneration. They also operate within the sphere of cultural geopolitics, articulating political positions and questions of identity. On a broader cultural level, they become arenas in which globalization and local specificity intersect, and where global art networks and power relations are negotiated.

Alongside the biennial, another exhibition model is the “triennial.” Often research driven and locally grounded, triennials tend to be positioned as platforms for in-depth study or urban laboratories. The Yokohama Triennale, for example, brings together urban regeneration and port area cultural planning, with an emphasis on long-term cultural development and visions for the city’s future. Structurally more flexible, triennials often center on municipal governments or art museums and tend to emphasize local research and site-based inquiry.

Founded in 1998, the Taipei Biennial was among the earliest exhibitions in Asia to align with the international biennial network. Museum-led rather than festival-oriented, and strongly thematic in approach, it has become one of East Asia’s most “discourse-driven” biennials. During its formative years from 1998 to 2004, the exhibition moved from local concerns toward an international framework. The inaugural edition, Site of Desire, curated by Fumio Nanjo in 1998, explored Taiwanese social culture and body politics. In 2000, The Sky is the Limit, curated by Jérôme Sans and Wen-jui Hsu, expanded its international scope. In 2002, Great Theatre of the World, curated by Bartomeu Marí and Jason Wang, further solidified its global outlook. Fumio Nanjo’s work as curator was crucial to the biennial’s development, introducing major international artists and global themes, and transforming the event from a Taiwan-focused exhibition into a fully international biennial platform.

Between 2004 and 2010, the curatorial system became more institutionalized, the themes more clearly defined, which defined the distinctive character of the Taipei Biennial.

The 2004 edition, Do You Believe in Reality?, curated by Barbara Vanderlinden and Amy Cheng, adopted the vocabulary of the international biennial and focused on questions of “reality and post truth.” The 2008 edition, curated by Vasif Kortun and Wen-jui Hsu, examined the “city, modernity, and global capital,” signaling the biennial’s shift toward a “critical narrative of the global city,” adding to the global discourse.

From 2010 to 2016, the Taipei Biennial reached a peak in international recognition and engaged more deeply with global biennial theory. The 2010 edition, curated by Tirdad Zolghadr and Hong-john Lin, placed Taipei within the broader frameworks of “globalization, politics, and postcolonial discourse,” emphasizing “Asia as method” and providing critical reflection on the exhibitionary mechanisms of the biennial itself. This edition firmly navigated Taipei into the core circle of international biennials. In 2012, Modern Monsters / Death and Life of Fiction, curated by Anselm Franke, explored the darker intersections of civilization, science, and ethics. The 2014 edition, The Great Acceleration, curated by Nicolas Bourriaud, examined cultural conditions in a post-internet and post-globalization era. In 2016, Gestures and Archives of the Present, Genealogies of the Future, curated by Corinne Diserens, foregrounded field research, music, and action-based inquiry.

Since 2018, the Taipei Biennial has responded to what some describe as a “post-biennial era.” In 2018, Post Nature: A Museum as an Ecosystem, curated by Mali Wu and Francesco Manacorda, collaborated with interdisciplinary experts to address planetary systems and ecological crisis. The 2020 edition, You and I Don’t Live on the Same Planet, curated by Bruno Latour and Martin Guinard, drew on Latour’s concept of “terrestrial politics” and incorporated philosophy, Anthropocene science, and geopolitics, becoming one of the most discussed post-Anthropocene biennials in the world. In 2023, Small World, curated by Freya Chou, Brian Kuan Wood, and Reem Shadid, returned to micro-social perspectives. Today, the Taipei Biennial is regarded as one of the most intellectually rigorous and issue-oriented biennials in the world.

From the perspective of institutional critique or post globalization discourse, however, the tension between global curatorial language and local context carries certain risks. A globally dominant discourse can overshadow local languages and narratives, and when exhibitions focus on highly abstract themes such as longing or desire, the narrative can become too diffuse for audiences to connect with in concrete ways, and may risk aestheticizing sorrow or displacement rather than fostering tangible social or political engagement. Moreover, an emphasis on globalization, diversity, and international curatorial vision can come at the expense of sustained engagement with local communities and histories. Without careful balance, the exhibition can become disconnected from local residents and audiences, and local specificity can gradually fade.