From Roman Feria to Global Art Fair / From Olympia Festival to Neo-Liberal Biennial: On the ‘Biennialization’ of Art Fairs and the ‘Fairization’ of Biennials.

by Paco Barragán

From Roman Feria to Global Art Fair, From Olympia Festival to Neo-liberal On the ‘Biennialization’ of Art Fairs and the ‘Fairization’ of Biennials constitutes an essential and much needed book with relevant historical, social, economic and art historical information about the genealogy of art fairs and biennials from ancient Greece and Rome to contemporaneity. Paco Barragán’s ambitious and profound research sheds new light on the origins and typologies of both art fairs and biennials and the contradictory phenomena of the ‘biennialization’ of art fairs and the ‘fairization’ of biennials in the twenty-first century. The book is further complemented with a series of charts and timelines that provide clear, easy access to the information and Pablo Helguera’s artoons function as a kind of poignant and witty ‘New Institutionalism.’ With a humoristic, down to earth style, Paco Barragán challenges the reader, offering a wide array of sources and proposing an essential historical perspective on two of today’s most relevant and most controversial art platforms.

456 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 5, 2020