COURTESY IBA.
It’s summer, folks, and everyone seems to be on vacation, but here’s a little something that just came in across the wire, via Artforum: the recently created International Biennial Association, which held its first General Assembly last month in Berlin, announced its new leaders. Taking the job of president is Yongwoo Lee, the president of Gwangju Biennale Foundation, and the new vice presidents are Marieke van Hal, the founding director of the organization, and Bige Örer, who’s director of the Istanbul Biennial.
What is the International Biennial Association, you ask? The IBA, which has been in the works since 2012, is, according to the news release, “a not-for-profit association…created for the further development of biennials through the establishment of professional networking within the contemporary art world, allowing the exchange of curatorial, artistic and knowledge production through a horizontal distribution between biennials, triennials and other art-related disciplines around the world.”
Good to hear that international curators finally have a place within the contemporary art world to work on their professional networking.
The voting took place at Berlin’s Haus der Kulturen der Welt last month and, naturally, was hosted by the Berlin Biennale. The 300-plus attendees also selected a 19-member board. Its full roster follows below.
– Sheikha Hoor Al-Qasimi (President, Sharjah Biennial)
– Elke aus dem Moore (Head of Visual Arts Department, ifa, Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen)
– Donna De Salvo (Chief Curator and Deputy Director for Programs, Whitney Museum of American Art, Whitney Biennial)
– Margarita González (Vice Director, Wifredo Lam Contemporary Art Center, Havana Biennial
– Gabriele Horn (Director, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art)
– Hong-hee Kim (Director, Seoul Museum of Art, SeMA Biennale Media City Seoul)
– Helena Kontova (Director, Prague Biennale)
– Yongwoo Lee (President, Gwangju Biennale Foundation)
– Patrick Mudekereza (Director, Picha Art Center, Recontres Picha, Lubumbashi Biennale)
– Bige Örer (Director, Istanbul Biennial)
– Eriko Osaka (Director, Yokohama Triennale, Yokohama Museum)
– Mauro Petroni (Board of Orientation Committee in charge of the OFF commission of Biennale de l’Art Africain Contemporain de Dakar)
– Thierry Raspail (Artistic Director, Lyon Biennale and Director, Museum of Contemporary Art of Lyon)
– Alya Sebti (Artistic Director, Marrakech Biennale)
– Alia Swastika (International Relations, Jogja Biennale)
– Sally Tallant (Director, Liverpool Biennial)
– Tan Boon Hui (Group Director, Programmes, National Heritage Board, Singapore)
– Marieke van Hal (Founding Director, Biennial Foundation)
– Zhang Qing (Director, Research and Curatorial Department, National Art Museum, China. International Biennial Research Center, China)