Each second year, those interested in the fine arts from all over the world feel attracted to the "Biennale di Venezia". Founded in 1895, it's the best-known and oldest biennial followed only 50 years later by the Sao Paulo Biennial. In modern times the leading format for internationalization, the number of new foundations has once more rapidly increased in the course of globalization since the eigthies. Biennials are in fact the only exhibition format in which the impact of globalization expresses itself in terms of arts. There is, though, little published information on the biennials of Sao Paulo, Habana, Istanbul, Sidney, or New Delhi, to name but the oldest. To which tradition do biennials belong and what's the importance of this format today? Which developments do they reflect, which ones do they initiate? Through the portraits of 22 selected biennials, the book seeks answers for these questions. Thanks to numerous illustrations and a list of the most important biennials founded, this book gives the first compact overview of this complex topic.