The 2005 Lyon Biennial is an exhibition that takes into consideration the stages of its conception and proposes complementary themes interlinked by the concept of temporality, which has provided our common thread.

Addressing time was a way for us to draw up an inventory of the 1990s, when art began to function as a sort of editing bay on which artists could reconstruct  everyday reality. They have tweaked the tempo at which forms change –pausing, looping, delaying, synchronising, slowing down and speeding up. For the artists of the '90s, time is more a building material than a mere medium, and controlling the duration and the time protocols of exhibition has, like the controlling of space, become a major aesthetic issue.

This biennial seeks to reaffirm that a work of art is first and foremost an event before being a monument or a simple testimony; and that aesthetics are also a matter of energy. Eschewing the current temptation of a return to the traditional categories of painting and sculpture (and video), we wanted to stress the fact that art is an experience that engages the Spectator.

Nicolas Bourriaud & Jérôme Sans, curators

Visit the website of the 8th Biennale de Lyon