An 'other' stop on the global art trail: 2nd Johannesburg Biennale
The recent boom in Biennales and mega-exhibitions especially outside the center of the Western art metropolis made 1997 an exceptionally busy year for the jet-setting art-trailer, in addition to the well-established and handsomely financed purveyors of contemporary art in the West, there are the less highly profiled biennales which are gaining importance in giving a truly global perspective of current trends and preoccupations in visual art and culture. Documenta X, The Munster Sculpture Project and the Venice Biennale were joined in 1997 by the Havana, Kwangju, Istanbul and the Johannesburg biennales, not to omit the smaller. Eastern European ones such as in Slovenia that are proliferating.