or a country) on the map both of the art world and of financial investors, attracted by the tourism engendered by the event. To legitimize an art biennial at the international level requires most of the time the invitation of an international curator as artistic director. For example, the Benin Biennial, which was initially conceived in 2010 as a local event to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the independence of the country, appointed a renowned curator, Abdellah Karroum, for the next edition (2012) in order to change its status of a local event into an international one. The organizers of the Marrakech Biennale also knew it well when they appended the “biennial” label on what was at first a local event (The Arts in Marrakech Festival) in order to reach a wider audience without losing the local one, notably by keeping the use of three languages (Arabic, French and English). Art biennials in Africa are important exponents of the increasing internationalization of contemporary African artists.18 But one of the pitfalls of this kind of event is the risk of becoming an exotic storefront for Western art critics and curators.19 Therefore, a real curatorial work has to be done to escape the submission to Western diktat. At the same time, by changing the traditional trajectories of the art world, those biennials force Western institutions to renew themselves, for example by appointing Okwui Enwezor to Documenta11 (2001-2002) or, more recently, to the 56th Venice Biennale's (2015) artistic direction. Enwezor is the first and, so far the only, African and Black person to have directed Documenta or the Venice Biennale. See also Addis Foto Fest World Festival of Black Arts References Art biennials Art festivals in Africa