This year marks the 18th Lyon Biennale – the first was held in 1991. Since then, the event has grown to become one of the most prominent in the world, featuring 120 artists this year from 42 countries. The Biennale has changed venues many times. The three main locations this year are the former technical center of SNCF [French National Railway Company] known as Les Grandes Locos, the former Musée des tissus, and the Musée d'art contemporain (MAC), along with numerous other installations across the Lyon metropolitan area, the largest of which occupies the Institut d'art contemporain de Villeurbanne (Lyon metropolitan area). The budget stands at €8 million, with €1 million raised from private and public partners, both French and international. Their support allowed organizers, at the end of August, to confirm the participation of 45 artists whose presence had not been announced until all necessary funding was secured. One might see this as a Biennale shaped by crisis.

This context is reflected in the theme chosen by this edition's curator, Catherine Nichols, appointed by Isabelle Bertolotti, the Biennale's artistic director. Nichols has placed this edition under the banner of the economy – a term encompassing industrial production, international trade, monetary exchanges, and the determination of value, among other topics. The art market, curiously, is barely mentioned. Other equally complex issues are also addressed, as the relationship between art and the economy has been the subject of much historical and analytical work in recent years.