biennale

Biennale is Italian for "biennial" or "every other year" and can be used to describe any event that happens every two years. It is most commonly used within the art world to describe large-scale international contemporary art exhibitions, stemming from the use of the phrase for the Venice Biennale, which was first held in 1895. The phrase has since been used for other artistic events, such as the "Biennale de Paris", or even as a portmanteau as with Berlinale (for the Berlin International Film Festival) and Viennale (for Vienna's international film festival). "Biennale" is therefore used as a general term for other recurrent international events (such as triennials, Documenta, Skulptur Projekte Münster).