TOSCANA
At the Lyon Biennale, Art and the Economy Share a Room
The 18th edition gathers 120 artists from 42 countries under a title about dreaming — and about what dreams cost
Costanza Bardi512 wordsEdition №121Sunday, 20 September 2026 — Edition № 121
The Lyon Biennale has opened its 18th edition under the title 'Passer d'un rêve à l'autre' — 'From One Dream to Another' — bringing together 120 artists from 42 countries, according to Le Monde. The French daily describes the exhibition as one in which art and the economy converse with one another, a framing that places money, labour and value inside the gallery rather than outside it.
The show runs until 13 December. Le Monde presents it as a major contemporary art fair rather than a regional survey, and the scale — more than a hundred artists, more than forty countries — supports that reading.
The Biennale's theme is worth noting from Florence. Tuscany's own cultural economy rests on a different proposition: that art is heritage, and heritage is a product to be conserved and sold, season after season, to visitors who arrive expecting the past.