[Commlist] Call for book chapters: Routledge Companion to Art Biennials

Communication and Media Studies scholars and members of the list with an 
interest in visual arts, politics, curation and adjacent subjects are 
welcome to consider sending their abstracts to the Routledge Companion 
to Art Biennials


*Call for book chapters: Routledge Companion to Art Biennials*


Editors: Nanne Buurman and Panos Kompatsiaris

We invite abstracts for chapters of previously unpublished work to be 
included in the Routledge Companion to Art Biennials, which is under 
contract and is expected to be published in 2025.

Art biennials are periodic manifestations of large-scale, international, 
and group art shows that take place every two or more years in a certain 
city or location. Drawing on the legacies of historical exhibitions of 
this kind, including the Venice Biennale (founded in 1895), São Paulo 
Art Biennial (founded in 1951), and documenta (founded in 1955), the art 
biennial has become a format that not only addresses but also shapes 
publics around the world. Varying in scope, scale and budget, biennials 
can be found on all continents and in over 100 countries, serving a 
variety of cultural, social, political and economic functions. Since the 
1990s, art biennials have therefore been the subject, not just of art 
history but of interdisciplinary study touching upon a plethora of 
aspects, including the histories of exhibition-making, the dynamics of 
creative labor, and the creation of new urbanities in the context of 
capitalist globalization. As an emerging field in the process of 
institutionalization, biennial studies draw on art historical, 
anthropological, sociological, political-economic and curatorial 
approaches to explore the cultural, political, and economic implications 
of biennials. The Companion aims at producing a comprehensive account of 
biennials in their complexity and ambiguity, grouping together writers 
from diverse disciplinary, geographical, and professional backgrounds 
and stages of their careers. Overall, the volume aims to become a key 
reference point in biennial studies, presenting the current state of 
research in the field, as well as opening up transdisciplinary and 
transnational horizons for future biennial research.

We are looking for proposals related to, but not limited to, the 
following topics and keywords:

histories of individual biennials or clusters of biennales in specific 
regions; fields of biennial production, publication and distribution; 
cultural networks, foundations and associations; biennales and museums; 
medialities, formats, forms and displays; (post)digital conditions; 
historiographies and epistemologies, theories and methods of biennale 
research; stories, gossip, and speculations; socio-political contexts 
and functions; cultural politics and biennial policy; (im)possibilities 
of representation; (post)socialist conditions; (post)nationalism, 
(post)fascism, neoliberalism; gentrification and the urban space; 
cosmopolitanism and nomadism; glocal audiences; (post)colonial 
conditions; posthumanism; ecology and sustainability; exoticization and 
discrimination; identity politics; restitution, repair, and reflexivity; 
curatorial discourses and practices; new curatorships; publics and 
outreach; (post)curatorial conditions; artists-as-curators, 
curators-as-artists; collectivity and collaboration; making of publics; 
subjectivation, education, professionalization; paracuratorial aspects; 
biennial professionals and stakeholders (i.e. educators, guides, guards, 
art handlers, press officers, lenders, shippers); geo- and biopolitical 
dimensions; conflicts, frictions and potentialities; subversion, 
resistance, and queering; institutional and infrastructural critique; 
alternative models; (de)centering and (de)materialization; curatorial 
ethics and responsibilities; power relations; labour conditions; 
privatization, socialization and funding; gender, race, class 
dimensions; racism, antisemitism, classism, trans- and homophobia; 
privilege; biennales in times of crises; war and pandemics; the end or 
futures of biennials.

Please send an abstract of up to 400 words, including references, as 
well as a 150-word biography to (companionab /at/ proton.me) by January 31, 
2024. Contributors will be notified by the end of February. The 
completed chapters of up to 5000 words should be submitted by July 15, 2024.

Contact email: (companionab /at/ proton.me)
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