A tour of babel: Exhibitions and fairs in a shape-shifting art world

20 August 2010In his address to the Melbourne Art Fair, internationally renowned curator and art critic Robert Storr looks at the growth of exhibitions and art fairs and their impact.

Where once there were only two biennials – Venice and Sao Paulo – there are now well over one hundred. Where once there were only a handful of art fairs, now there are dozens. And where once there were international styles, now there are global markets. Can sense be made of art and can ideas really be exchanged amidst this proliferation or have we entered into a period when scanning has replaced seeing, keeping track has replaced paying attention, and information has replaced meaning?

Robert Storr is Dean of the Yale School of Art. He was Artistic Director of the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007, and Curator and Senior Curator in the Department of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, from 1990 to 2002.

Presented by the Monash Museum of Art and the Melbourne Art Foundation at Fitzroy Town Hall, Aug 2010

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