Reviewing recent publications on large-scale manifestations (including Caroline A. Jones, The Global Work of Art: World’s Fair, Biennials, and the Aesthetics of Experience ; Panos Kompatsiaris, The Politics of Contemporary Art Biennials: Spectacles of Critique, Theory and Art ; The documenta 14 Reader et Daybook), this article discusses biennials as objects of theoretical study and their relation to the history of artworks.