Here’s the ultimate guide to biennales and art festivals in 2023. We’ve curated a list of those that we think are worth attending – make sure that you don’t miss them!
Singapore Biennale
16th October 2022 – 19th March 2023
The Singapore Biennale presents and reflects on the breadth of artistic practices in Singapore and its region within a global context and ‘fosters a deep engagement with artists, arts organisations, and the international arts community’. The Biennale runs for four months and has a public engagement and education programme that is helping to cultivate local engagement with contemporary art.
Islamic Arts Biennale
23rd January – 23rd April 2023
The inaugural Islamic Arts Biennale 2023 is held at Hajj Terminal, the historically significant gateway to the two holiest cities, Makkah and Madinah, for Muslims across the world. The Biennale will ‘inspire and captivate’ through a showcase of Islamic artistry spanning over four centuries of history.
Spectators can engage with the artists and curators through site-specific installations and public programmes while touring the cultural and heritage sites of Hajj Terminal. The biennale aspires to become a ‘global reference and repository for thought-provoking dialogue, and a nexus for exchanging practices and innovative research around tangible and intangible traditions of arts and culture from the Islamic World’.
Sharjah Biennial
7th February – 11th June 2023
Founded in 1993, the Sharjah Biennial has grown from a traditional and regionally focused exhibition into the internationally recognised event it has become today. The exhibition takes place in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, crossing the emirate to sites in and around the city and in Kalba on the Gulf of Oman. Exhibition sites are in a range of venues, including the Sharjah Art Foundation Art Spaces and the nearby traditional buildings and courtyards of the Arts and Heritage areas.
Gwangju Biennale
7th April – 9th July 2023
For the part two decades, the Gwangju Biennale has emerged as ‘a network for international cultural exchanges and a platform for the visual arts, while producing discourses on contemporary art. Located in the South West of the Korean peninsula, Gwangju has long been known for its historical tradition of art and culture.
The Gwangju Biennale has contributed to the rapid emergence of Korean contemporary art on the international stage in recent years. This has, in turn, led to the Gwangju Biennale being recognised as an important driving force behind art world innovations and trends.
Liverpool Biennale
10th June – 17th September 2023
Founded in 1998, Liverpool Biennial presents the UK biennial of contemporary art. Taking place every two years across the city’s public spaces, galleries and historic buildings, the Biennial commissions artists to make and present work in the context of Liverpool’s city and surrounding area. The festival is underpinned by a year-round programme of research, education, residencies, projects and commissions.
The Liverpool Biennial also works towards ambitious educational objectives through a programme of activities developed within the context of the work we commission. The biennial plays a key role in the ongoing development of Liverpool as a place for artists to learn, live and work, and engage in discourse-based activity with peers locally, nationally and internationally.
Helsinki Biennial
12th June – 18th September 2023
The Helsinki Biennial mainly consists of major site-specific commissions by leading international artists. With a sustainable approach to exhibition making, the biennial ‘embodies Helsinki’s ambitious, cultural vision’.
Rooted in the significance of its maritime location, the biennial’s exhibition takes place on the former military island of Vallisaari. Situated only a 15 minute ferry ride from the city centre, Vallisaari opened to the public for the first time in 2016. A landscape defined by its history and remarkable level of biodiversity, the biennial reflects on this context to address ongoing public debate around the evolving relationship between humanity and nature.
The Helsinki Biennial will also have a presence on the mainland in HAM, and in the form of events organised in collaboration with the city’s arts organisations, museums and galleries.
SACO Contemporary Art Festival
22nd June – 15th September 2023
SACO Contemporary Art Festival is held annually in the Antofagasta region, in the north of Chile. Its objective is to ‘establish a permanent nucleus of reflection, criticism and dialogue through the work, in the territory marked by the in-existence of institutions dedicated to pursuing these ends’.
SACO Contemporary Art Festival has a rich history of creating participatory and community based work that shines a light on the territory which makes this festival possible.
Eva International
31st August – 29th October 2023
EVA International is Ireland’s Biennial of Contemporary Art. EVA leads in the commissioning and curating of contemporary art by Irish and international artists, culminating in a bi-annual programme of artistic encounters, exhibitions, and education projects, that take place across venues in Limerick city and beyond.
In 2017, EVA celebrated its 40 year anniversary. What began as an artist-led initiative to show works by contemporary artists, ‘to provide the public with an opportunity to visit and experience an exhibition not normally available in the [Limerick] region’, has since become ‘Ireland’s Biennial’ and a major fixture on the cultural calendar, in Ireland and internationally.
Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts
15th September – 14th January 2024
The Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts, founded in 1955 – the same year as Documenta in Kassel – enjoys a long and uninterrupted tradition. In an international context, it established itself as an event that, in the post-war decades, has managed to present art in “global” terms – regularly hosting artists from both sides of the Iron Curtain and, very early on, transcending the Eurocentric viewpoint by showing art works from the Third World, in particular from the non-aligned countries.
The Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts has been an inspiration and support to Slovene artists, bringing them closer to what was happening internationally and introducing them to new contemporary art currents. In the 1990s, the global and local political changes, as well as new cultural and technological developments, meant the Biennial had to rethink its role and find new ways of working. The Biennial has started going beyond the boundaries of the printmaking medium and today includes various modes of artistic expression.
Göteborg Biennial
16th September – 19th November 2023
Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art – GIBCA – started in 2001 and is the largest Biennial for Contemporary Art in Sweden. ‘Swedish and international artists are invited to present existing as well as newly produced site-specific artworks where the local spirit of Gothenburg and of West of Sweden play a notable part’. Gothenburg is a city with a history of harbour culture. The city has a dynamic history where both established and self-organized communities make an impact. As a platform for the international contemporary art scene, the biennial aims to be an important junction between local, national and international art practitioners.
Information is taken from the website of each individual biennale.
