Just as Paris' arcades seemed to be marginal to the scholarly attention in Walter Benjamin's times, art biennials only begin to receive a more central place in social scientific research together with a larger cultural-turn in urban and metropolitan studies. Mapping in their intermittent geography configurations of relations that stretch from local to global scale, these events offer a possibility to raise a question on the conditions of their possibility, the beginning of which is coterminous with the rise of modernity itself. Universal expositions, art museums and commercial warehouses all contribute to the special institutional lineage that lets an aesthetic perspective on the conditions of possibility of modernity in its present form arise. One answer to whether it is possible or not to make for other cities, or even for contemporary Paris, counterpart studies to Benjamin's Passagen-Werk may be Harvard Project on the City that advocates for a similar methodology for accumulation of knowledge through fragments and impressions. This approach appears to follow the post-structural call for intensive science that develops novel and complex conceptual instruments for the processes that cause cities to take the form they do. Charged with theoretical nostalgia for many places, art biennials style themselves as intensive events that no aspiring metropolitan city can fail to stage.

As the international stage of art biennials gets ever denser with participants, it is the theoretical research on modernity, aesthetic and experience that their comparative research allows to conduct. However tentative the process of learning from Benjamin's Passagen-Werk can be, its pairing with the contemporary developments in European philosophy and sociology does promise to create a secondary layer of scholarship on the urban importance of art biennials. Jacques Ranciere's discussion of the distribution of the visible, for instance, brings the connections between sociology and philosophy to bear upon the aesthetic practices. Mario Perniola connects contemporary art to contemporary experience and philosophy while drawing attention to their interrelations. Manuel DeLanda continues in the steps of the path-breaking post-structural works of Gille Deleuze and Felix Guattari. Connections between these strands of European contemporary thought can be sought with German sociological theory of the classical period, such as that of Georg Simmel, Siegfried Kracauer and Max Weber. These foundations should allow a specifically urban writing to arise that would provide an account of art biennials adequate to their theoretical bearing on the contemporary understanding of modernity, aesthetics and experience.

My scholarly mission I see as consisting in exploration of how contemporary theoretical developments apply to art biennials as paradigmatic events of the present moment. On the urban level, where art biennials take place, more than just issues of visibility, representation and discourse is at stake. Not all cities are privileged yet to have an art biennial of their own. Not everywhere the importance of cultural sector is equally recognized. Not in every country the basic rights and liberties that make free expression possible are recognized. The process of globalization of art biennials while far from being uncontroversial is an important cultural development that needs a resonance that goes beyond press reviews and video clips. Only thus will art biennials be able to play roles that are instrumental to the discussion of urban rights, collective reconciliation, and global civil society. To pull art biennials out of their ephemeral status of time-limited events, it is necessary to do both their in-depth studies and international comparisons among them. Few frameworks fit this task better than a start of scholarly career as a post-doctoral fellow. Additionally on-line publishing, blog platforms and international organizations make exchange of ideas, up-to-date reporting and global collaboration possible as never before.

From Ephemeral and Virtual Status of Art Biennials to A Global and Local Institutionalization

It appears that this off-European positioning does help to be more aware of the importance that European culture has for the potential to bring the hidden meanings of urban space to be articulated with a powerful effect. Urban development takes many guises. Some of them are destructuve when examined with standards in mind that are not always made publicly aware of. Many losing battles are fought to prevent that from happening. However, it is a sensitization to the potential collective benefit that respect for historical, social and cultural entitlements that inhere in urban space can bring that highly mediatized events hold a promise for. Distanced and close to manifold discourses, art biennials are an increasingly globalized form in which global culture becomes ephemerally welded with urban space. But to take art biennials to a stage where they would become global institutions as well is an ambitious but hopefully achievable aim that research on them may want to achieve. In bringing artworks, curators and artists for a short-term enagagement with a particular city from the state of the art of contemporary artistic discourse and practice, the support thrown behind art biennial can go a step further in helping the impact of these particular art biennials be endowed with a staying power that possibly only follow-up studies can lend.

Research Report

During the academic year 2008-2009, I have received an individual research grant at the Center for German Studies, applied for an international reintegration grant within the FP7 framework of the Marie Curie International Reintegration Call, and became a member of the Israeli local team of the European Magazine Cafe Babel. Additionally, I took an active part in the academic life of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and the Konrad Adenauer Center at Mishkenot Sha'ananim. Numerous cultural events taking place at the Mount Scopus campus of the Hebrew University, Goethe Institute of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem Cinematheque created a background for my initiative to contribute to a blog of the CafeBabel website that has wide European and international readership. Currently I am working on a working paper for the Center for German Studies series that takes Berlin Biennale as a subject of theoretical and analytical reflection into its focus. As planned, the second year of my post-doctorate at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem will be dedicated to expanding the scope of my research in comparative direction.

As a primary supervisor of my post-doctoral research, Dr, Jeanette Malkin of the Theatre Department of the Hebrew University held regular meetings with me and was in contact over e-mail during the past academic year. As a secondary co-supervisor, Prof. Christian Kohlross of the Department of the German Language and Literature of the Hebrew University has been available for my inquiries over e-mail and in person at numerous occasions. Abroad, I have re-established contact with Prof. Wolfgang Kaschuba from the Georg Simmel Center for Metropolitan Studies of the Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany, where he is a director of an Ethnology Institute. He extended me an invitation for a research stay. As well, Prof. Richard Münch from the Sociology Department of the Otto-Friendrich University of bamberg, Germany, has confirmed his willingness to support my future application for joint research. In addition, I have come into contact with Prof. Mario Perniola from the Department of Philosophical Research of the Tor Vergata University of Rome, Itality, given his centrality for my current research. I plan future research collaboration with all of the above scholars.

For example, for my application for the Marie Curie International Reintegration Grant I had received preliminary agreements for future research projects on art biennials in Germany, Italy and Israel from Prof. Wolfgang Kaschuba, Prof. Mario Perniola and Dr. Jeanette Malkin. Even though the results of the application process for this grant will become known only during July, 2009, it has helped me to apply for Polonsky Post-Doctoral Fellowship at Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, which has not been successful, and for a reseach grant at the same institute. My resume also reflects the publication as e-books of my doctoral dissertation and examination papers at GRIN Publishers in Munich, Germany. Their innovative approach to publication distribution over the internet and across bookstores suited my needs, especially since I made a shift in my research approach from a stress on sociological theory towards cultural studies, as my work on independent research project reflects.

Not least because it does not contradict the framework of my current post-doctoral position, I have successfully applied for a month-long summer school of German language at Bauhaus Academy of the Weimar University in Weimar, Germany. My application has won support from the German Academic Exchange Service (Deutscher Akedemischer Austausch Dienst (DAAF)) that provided scholarship for expenses attendant to my attendance of the summer school in August, 2009. My stay within the framework of Bauhaus Academy in Weimar will allow me to access its universitity and city library with their extensive holdings of classical and contemporary literature on sociology, cultural and metropolitan studies. As well, during my research and study stay in Weimar I will have an occasion to visit Prof. Wolfgang Kaschuba from Berlin and Prof, Richard Münch from Bamberg, Germany, for coordination of research plans. Not least, I will also have an opportunity to forge contacts with scholars from the Weimar University that has a prominent position in cultural and media studies in Germany.

In the context of my research efforts, I became a member of the Israeli local team of the European Magazine Cafe Babel on whose website I began contributing on the topics of European culture and urban space beyond the EU. Currently, my contributions take form of blog posts on cultural events and art exhibitions in Jerusalem. After its reorganization, the Cafe Babel magazine will be accepting articles for regular publication from our local team in Israel. As an award-winning network and internet project, the European Magazine Cafe Babel connects cities, organizations and indivividuals into a border-crossing conversation, which is not insignificantly connected to my academic research. In my research on art biennials, internet initiatives and new media play a significant role not only as means to archive these event but also as a larger approach to the changing relations between metropolitan centers and global culture. Both theoretical developments and institutional innovation play equal role in shedding light on art biennials as a phenomenon that continues to spread and grow in its geographical scope and media resonance.

In my research, I match the theoretical clues I derive from Mario Perniola theorization of aesthetics, modernity and experience with the documentation that pertains to art curators' statements, publicity materials and scholarly commentary, with the aim of reducing the factual compexity of even one art biennial, such as Berlin biennale. Standing on the intersection of cultural, urban and metropolitan studies, research on art biennials follows in the wake of their international adoption by cities around the world in the process of their increasing culturalization in the 1990s. At the Center for German Studies of the Hebrew University I have an opportunity to facilitary a direct access to European research on this topic by improving my command of German langauge. My informal attendance of advanced courses of German under the instruction of Ms. Anette Dressel, DAAD guest lecturer, at the Hebrew University has greatly helped me to receive official certification of my advanced level of knowledge of German language, as is evidenced by OnDaF.de test ceritificate.

During my post-doctorate, I take full advantage of opportunities to attend numerous academic conferences, guest lectures, workshops and research seminars taking place in Jerusalem. Among the latter is the research seminar on "Collective Identities" that Prof. Shmuel N. Eisenstadt directs at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute in which I have been participating this academic year. At the Center for German Studies I have attended a workshop "Artists at Work - The New Berlin: Redefining Memorials in Contemporary Germany" given by visiting Prof. Renata Stih and Dr. Frieder Schnock. Additionally I attended a series of lectures by visiting Prof. Heidemarie Uhl from the University of Vienna, Austria, on "Memorie in Europe since 1945: Transformations of Memory, Representations of Rememberance". During the visit of DAAD delegation to the Hebrew University, I attended the lecture by Dr. Christian Bode on "New Developments in Higher Education in Europe and Germany".

Among the more interesting conferences I have attended is "1989-2009: Taking Stock of East-West EUnification" Conference taking place in June 14-15, 2009, at Mishkenot Sha'ananim that was organized by the Centers for German and Austrian Studies of the Hebrew University. As intellectually invigorating was the Conference on "Paul, the Apostle of Exception: His 2000th Annivessary and Renaissance Today" taking place at the Hebrew University and Van Leer Institute in June 5-6, 2009. Attendance of the "Ottoman Roots of Contemporary Realities: the Middle East and the Balkans Compared" Conference has made me alert to possibilities and pitfalls of comparative approach as it took place in January 18-20 at the Hebrew University and Konrad Adenauer Center. As enriching were the series of lectures organized by the Research Seminars on Cultural Studies and the Jerusalem Seminar in the History of Political Thought taking place at the Hebrew University.

Urban Space and Aesthetic Pleasure

As art biennials increasingly become a global phenomenon, the connection that they represent between urban space and aesthetic pleasure warrants attention in comparative light of two among the newer wave of bi-annual art events: Berlin Art Biennale and Jerusalem Art Focus. Both these events start their operation in mid-1990s, run through their fifth edition, and engage urban space across divisions and connections. Both for Germany and Israel, 1989 serves as a cut-off point in their national history as a significant part of their population has memory of living in the Soviet block countries. In the 1990s they have esperienced liberation, mobility and integration in the framework of democratic Germany and Israel respectively. Both Berlin art biennial and Jerusalem art focus represent differently positioned responses to globalization of economy, society, politics and culture. Economic operation across the globe took increasing recourse to networks. Tourist, investor and labor flows became more mobile. Regional and global summits increasingly integrated into political decision-making. Cultural production, media distribution and communication channels received growing global exposure. Both Berlin and Jerusalem have their Western and Eastern parts that have significant histories of autonomy. Different lines of historical connection and rupture that traverse the urban spaces of Berlin and Jerusalem provide rich source of historical comparison of how art events focus these multiple lines of perspective on their locations.

In this paper I argue that contemporary cities find art biennials among their more paradigmatic spaces that define contemporary philosophical understanding of urban modernity. For this reason I attempt to draw the lines of connection between Italian contemporary philosophy, as represented by Mario Perniola, and German classical social and cultural theory, as represented by Georg Simmel, Walter Benjamin, and Siegfried Kracauer. This interdisciplinary paper orients itself to the discussions taking place in theorization of space and sociology of cities. As opposed to Benjamin's seeing in Paris a capital of the nineteenth century, and there are voices that maintain it is a capital of the twentieth century as well, I explore the possibility of thinking paradigmatic cities and sites of modernity in plural. In this case, Berlin and Jerusalem figure in my discussion of alternative modernities in the context of the connections between urban spaces and global culture that these cities establish through art biennials. In their contemporary, globalized form, art biennials are a new phenomenon that breaks with assumptions of aesthetic expertise and restricted access, as the exclusivity of Venice biennale or Kassel documenta implies for each of their participating countries. This opens an opportunity to consider the relations between urban space and aesthetic pleasure in their comparatively particular and theoretically general aspects respectively.

Art Biennials in Berlin and Jerusalem

Art biennials, especially in their internationalization, pit place and flows, global and local, permanent and ephemeral against each other. Apart from belonging to the same category of event, however loosely defined, the differences among art biennials bring both theoretical advantages, as one can learn most from variation within the same category of phenomena, and practical drawbacks, as their research risks to reinforce their incommensurability. However, it is their close relation to the universal expositions that makes art biennials productive cites for the theorization of modernity. This paper reaches back to German classics of social and cultural theory in order to tentatively chart the urban geographies of alternative modernities. It is also an attempt to theorize space as site of social, cultural, political and economic accumulation. However, here accumulation is approached philosophically (Perniola), rather sociologically (Munch) since the question of the end of modern capitalism (Schulze), similar to the theorization of the end of art, society and politics, understood as final arrival points of long histories of development, shifts the theoretical focus from time to space. The previous neglect of space (Foucault) justifies this present attempt at its theorization on the urban level, even though the spatial turn is not free from criticism (), as it itself has come of age as an intellectual fashion.

I borrow Perniola's philosophical categories of transit, ritual without myth and simulacrum to address the intellectual challenge of thinking of the arrival point of the processes of economic, social, cultural and political development. Endless development theoretically allows for growth that only quantitatively differs from its previous stages. In this sense it is linear since both its assumptions and measurements remain unchanged from one point in time to another. The histories of modern capitalism in Dickens' London and in contemporary Dubai expressed in qunatitiative terms plot on an upward line a chart of their accumulated economic capital might show. However, it is the factoring in of their urban space that lets the qualitative differences between these two processes of accumulation to come to light. Perniola theorizes the transitions from the same to the same as a source of radical difference. Linear growth as a transition from one point in time to another differing from each other only quantitatively lets their qualitative uniqueness remain the same. Nevertheless, the radical difference between the nineteenth and the twentienth, and even more so twenty-first, centuries suggests opening the discussion of the philosophical approach to social and cultural theories of modernity.

In this respect the German classical social and cultural theory, such as that of Georg Simmel, Walter Benjamin and Siegfried Kracauer, already is cognizant of the philosophical problem of grasping the radical difference that defines modernity. This point would call for a theorization of multiple modernities. However, there are grounds to conceive of moderntiy as a singular phenomenon allowing for local variation. In this regard, Benjamin spoke of Paris as a capital of the nineteenth century, which corresponds to a singular moment of modernity. Since in Benjamin's conception it is also a place, or more precisely a space of Parisian arcades, an alternative path to take appears to lead in the direction of alternative capitals of the nineteenth century. The same would hold for the contemporary period when different cities vie for their status as global or world cities. While their rankings () remain bound to a linear concepton of being sites of global modernity, a city can be more or less modern on any quantitatively organzied measurement or ranking scale, a different qualitative approach may be in order to the processes of economic, social, political and cultural accumulation that in their sum compose the project of modernity that defines each particular city. In this respect, art biennials in Berlin and Jerusalem provide theoretically privileged vantage points on what respective relation their respective urban spaces maintain with global culture. This approach limits the scope of this paper to the relations between urban modernity and modern culture since art biennials are expressions of both.

Potential and Quality of Lasting Professional Integration

Given the outstanding qualifications and high potential of Dr. Markin, his professional integration at the Center for German Studies of the European Forum of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem is expected to take place successfully. Over the course of four years of his planned work contract at the Center for German Studies, the career development of Dr. Markin will be promoted with regard to his chances of finding a tenure track position in Israel, his participation in the Europe-wide network of academic cooperation, and his experience as a researcher in the emerging fields of metropolitan studies and sociology of space. The Center for German Studies opens opportunities to accumulate valuable post-doctoral and research experience in the context of numerous frameworks that bring together graduate students, guest lecturers and intensive curricula into an environment that allows building an interdisciplinary profile in existing and new areas of research and instruction. Many experiemental courses, instruction frameworks and educational media are put into practice at the center. Moreover, international seminars that bring scholars from Europe to Jerusalem will constitute another layer of academic exchange and multidisciplinary dialogue that will speak especially directly to the scholarly objectives of the research project of Dr. Markin.

That Israel has joined the European Framework for Research and Development of the European Union opens plural opportunities for Israeli researchers to further their career on the international, rather than on national only, scale with much greater ease. A recognized leader in the sphere of exact sciences and applied research, Israel is yet to develop a critical mass of research initiatives in the social sciences and humanities. In contrast, Germany stands out in the number of research projects in sociology, anthropology and regional studies that from now on Israeli researchers too have an access to within the European researcher mobility framework. For many of these opportunities, a prior experience of holding Marie Curie Grants is a prerequisite. Thus, the reintegration of Dr. Markin at the Center for German Studies will represent his acquisition of experiences within a Europe-wide network of research centers and centers of excellence that will stand him in good stead in the future. His accumulation of research experience over the course of his work contract will open the doors for Dr. Markin to apply for many other research foundations both in Israel and in Europe that allow pursuing independent or university-affiliated research before a long term contract is obtained, such as that of German Research Society (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)) that conceives of its mission in increasingly international terms.

This will open to Dr. Markin avenues of participation in programs for post-doctoral students, such as DFG Emmy Noether Program, that support independent research programs that have a dimension of collaboration with German universities and research centers. From this perspective, Dr. Markin has high chances of realizing his potential for a research career in the areas of urban, cultural and policy studies, given that in Israel they only begin to develop as subjects of individual and collaborative research with the participation of the European Union and its member states. Dr. Markin's focus on German social theory and meteropolitan studies gives his career a head-start from the Center for German Studies.

Contribution to European Excellence and European Competitiveness

This research project contributes to European excellence and European competitiveness by recruiting Dr. Markin into European research network. Formal participation of Israel in the Framework Program for Research of the European Union will fall short of realizing its potential without researchers that are willing to trail-blaze unexpected directions of scholarly inquiry and are able to productively work with their Israeli, European and international colleagues. Dr. Markin's research project proposes to explore culture-driven strategies of urban development. As the imperative to diversify the sources of economic growth becomes prevalent internationally, the cities that are capable to successfully divert their resources away from industrial production and towards creative economy are going to be the next leading global cities. European excellence relies on combination of heterogeneous expertises across the European region. The addition of Israel into the European institutional framework only starts the process of cultural, social and economic collaboration across the respective centers of excellence. The Center for German Studies at the Euopean Forum of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem promises to be one such leading center for Israeli-German and Israeli-European cooperation in the emerging area of metropolitan studies.

The areas of overlap and synergy between regional, urban and cultural studies have their counterpart in the mutualy reinforcing effect that the strengthening of cooperation between Israel and EU can have. While the emphasis on linear economic growth has historically involved the logic of zero-sum game of international competition, when one country's gain is another's loss, as the rationale behind protectionist policies maintains, the stress on non-linear cultural development allows for the logic of positive sum relations to structure the economic and social development as is happening with open-source software, creative commons licensing, and open-access encyclopedias. This culture-driven economic development has a signficant urban component since Europe of centers of excellence is, in no small measure, Europe of creative cities where intensive interchange of textual, visual and audio information makes possible qualitative changes in product design, urban branding and inter-urban relations. As cultural advantage becomes decisive in determining competitive advantage not only of products, but also of cities, the importance for European economic competitiveness of diverse cultural competences cannot be overestimated.

As art biennials become multidisciplinary events that theorize, mediatize, and professionalize their existence, as art curators, contemporary artists and interdisciplinary scholars densely populate the international geography of numerous biennial exhibitions, the indirect effect of the interplay between these localized events and globalized networks translates into the competitive advantage of the cities that excel at hosting successful cultural meeting points. The success of Documenta exhibition, Kassel, Germany, and Berlin biennale not only has its counterpart in the growing international profile of German contemporary art but also positions Berlin and Germany as a center of cultural excellence and competitiveness. Likewise, the recent increase in visibility of Israeli contemporary art and cinema may not only be owed to the role that global cities, such as New York, have as launching pads for aspiring artists or filmmakers, but can be taken as a point of interdisciplinary reflection on the culture-oriented strategies of development that European cities can adopt from that best practices that more successful multicultural cities, such as Berlin and Tel-Aviv, apply.

An explicit focus on the relations between urban spaces and global culture that this research project proposes puts an analytically realist foundation for a productive discussion of various factors that determine excellence and competitiveness in the sphere of culture. The project will draw lessons from the best practices of organizing art biennials - those in Italy and Germany - while adding diversity to this theoretical sample by including Israel, and potentially other countries, such as Canada and Brazil, into the multidisciplinary discussion of the role that culture can play in urban development in Europe and elsewhere.