Biennale Cuvée Linz 2009

See the best of the world’s biennales in one show

Contemporary art aficionados who could not travel around the globe last year to attend some of the world’s most famous biennales, here is your chance. See the best of it all in one big show in Linz, Austria, Europe’s capital of culture for 2009! From February 27 to May 15, the OK in Linz (Offenes Kulturhaus OÖ) presents Biennale Cuvée, a selection of artistic projects from the most important international biennials. This is the third time that OK runs the show which offers visitors an insight into the international art world and an opportunity for a condensed experience of contemporary art. Don’t miss this opportunity…

Next to art fairs, today "biennials" are the most important international format for contemporary art exhibitions. Less commercially oriented than art fairs, they are a stage both for “big names” and for young up-and-coming artists, for whom this is perhaps their first chance to present their work on the international stage. They define who is going to be in the spotlight, they identify trends and they even create them. Their greatest merit lies in arousing a great deal of attention for contemporary art in a public that is not confined to the regulars on the art fair circuit.

Especially for cities like Taipei, Singapore, Yokohama or Gwangju, they also provide an opportunity to present themselves to a "western" international audience and to strengthen ties to the geographically remote European art scene. The OK Biennale Cuvée presents a selection from the most interesting biennials of 2008 with an emphasis on the Asian biennials in the selection. In addition to an exhibition in the OK itself, various locations and sites in the city of Linz will also be opened to present the most interesting projects by some 40 artists from over 25 countries!

The selected projects are assigned their respective locations based on their own content and the architecture of the venues. There is a series of lectures and a comprehensive art mediation programme to make this ambitious artistic cuvée from the world’s best artistic vineyards fully accessible to all our visitors.

The idea and the concept of the event are Martin Sturm’s and Manray Hsu’s, while Rainer Jessl is head of the project.