Learn more about participating in the People’s Biennial, which will be presented at iMOCA during the summer of 2017.

Coffee and donuts will be served. 

Curator Jens Hoffmann and artist Harrell Fletcher founded the People’s Biennial in 2010 as a nomadic exhibition that examines the work of artists who operate outside the sanctioned mainstream art world. As such it recognizes a wide array of artistic expression present in many communities across the United States and questions the often exclusionary and insular process of selecting art that often turns the spaces where art is exhibited into privileged havens seemingly detached from the realities of everyday life. The People’s Biennial proposes an alternative to the standard contemporary art biennial, which mostly focuses on art from a few select cities and from a small pool of artists. 

After the People’s Biennial 2010-12 (Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery, Haverford College; Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem; Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art/ the Dahl Arts Center, Rapid City; Portland Institute for Contemporary Art) and the People’s Biennial 2014 (Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit) it is coming to the Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art in 2017. Hoffmann will present the ideas behind the People’s Biennial, elaborate on the previous two editions in 2010-12 and 2014 and explain their approach to organizing the exhibition in Indianapolis. 

Jens Hoffmann has been Deputy Director at The Jewish Museum, New York since 2013. Formerly, he was Director of the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco (2007-2012.) He was previously Director of Exhibitions and Chief Curator at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London (2003-2007.) Hoffmann was an associate professor at the California College of the Arts, San Francisco, a guest professor at the Nuova Accademia de Belle Arti, Milan, and a faculty member at Goldsmiths College, University of London. He has organized more than 60 exhibition internationally including the 12th Istanbul Biennial (2011) and the 9th Shanghai Biennial (2012).