Seminar. Contemporary Art: The World Picture

The World Picture investigates the global turn in contemporary art with a focus on international mega-exhibitions as a form of worldmaking. Case studies of key exhibitions and debates within the broader history, ranging from 19th century worlds fairs and the earliest biennales to the explosion of recurring mega-exhibitions in the 1990s and recent traveling biennales. How do such exhibitions both reproduce and resist the economic and political logic of globalization? What are the particular urgencies of constructing or negating a world picture from the perspective of "the global south"? Field trip to Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy.