Welcome to the world's smallest art fair – on a disappearing speck of sand

The art at the Biennale de la Biche off Guadeloupe is set to disappear into the sea, thereby mirroring the futility and emptiness of elite events like Venice Biennale

Art in the 21st century is a floating world of curators and collectors, gallerists and critics, that generates a constant fleeting excitement without leaving much behind to impress future generations. It is a closed circuit of mutually fascinated Instagram stars exchanging the glamour of art for the lubricant of money; a school of digital sharks who need an unceasing diet of the new to keep them alive in the ocean of information; a party whose guests are scared to leave in case they are forgotten. Or, to put it another way, it is defined by biennales, those festivals of new art that can briefly attract a very engaged and very affluent audience to any location on Earth.

Biennales don’t create much of permanent value, and the art they promote rarely speaks to an audience beyond the self-defining art elite. But they seem very important at the time, to everyone involved. This year sees the big one, the Venice Biennale, back for its 57th instalment. It also sees a very little one, whose Lilliputian ambitions cast a surreal Swiftian light on the lunacy of the art world circuit that will also include Documenta 14 as well as the usual run of art fairs from Basel to, er, Basel Miami Beach.

Maess Anand (@maess_drawings) with work of Lapo Simeoni (@laposimeoni) #iletlabiche #ilet #island #biennaledelabiche #biennale #laposimeoni #graffiti #graffitiart #guadalupe #artcontemporain #culturegram #curating #hello #instamuseum #ilovemyjob #wystawa #sea #exhibition #exposition

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