Issue #149 Unsettled Ghosts in Ex-Africa: Okwui Enwezor’s Second International Biennial of Contemporary Art Seville

Unsettled Ghosts in Ex-Africa: Okwui Enwezor’s Second International Biennial of Contemporary Art Seville

Jason Waite

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Alfredo Jaar, Geography = War, 2006. From 2nd Seville International Biennial of Contemporary Art. Courtesy of the artist and Fundación Biacs.

Issue #149
November 2024










Notes
1

The first BIASC was curated by Harold Szeemann in 2004. Enwezor’s second edition was in 2006. Peter Weibel, Wonil Rhee, and Marie-Ange Brayer curated the third BIASC in 2008. The latter opened three weeks after the trading firm Lehman Brother’s announced its sudden bankruptcy, which would spark a global recession whose economic effects would bring an end to such extravagant cultural spending, including the BIASC itself.

2

Alfredo Sanchez Monteseirin, “Forward,” in The Unhomely: Phantom Scenes in Global Society—2nd International Biennial of Contemporary Art of Seville, ed. Okwui Enwezor (Fundacion BIASC, 2006), 9.

3

Harald Szeemann: with through because towards despite—Catalogue of all Exhibitions 1957–2005, ed. Tobia Bezzola and Roman Kurzmeyer (Springer, 2007), 563–69.

4

Carlos Jimenez, “The Joy of My Dreams: First Seville Contemporary Art Biennial,” Art Nexus 3, no. 55 (January–March 2005): 104.

5

Documenta and Museum Friedericianum Veranstaltungs-GmbH, Documenta 11 Platform 5: Exhibition Short Guide (Hate Cantz Verlang, 2002), 70.

6

Okwui Enwezor, “The Unhomely: Phantom Scenes in Global Society,” in The Unhomely, 16.

7

See, for example, Ángela Molina, “El aurífero sevillano,” El Pais, November 4, 2006 .

8

Although uncredited, the term “unhomely” likely came from postcolonial theorist Homi Bhabha’s essay “The World and Home,” Social Text, no. 31/32 (1992). Many thanks to Serubiri Moses for the reference.

9

Enwezor, “The Unhomely,” 15.

10

Jason Farago, “Okwui Enwezor, Curator Who Remapped the Art Work, Dies at 55,” New York Times, March 18, 2019 .

11

Adrian Pedrosa, “Introduction: 60th Venice Biennale,” January 31, 2024 .