In the face of the remarkable glut of biennials that attends the current evolution of globalization in art, a number of questions still remain unanswered: To what degree does the biennial act as a force of transnational gentrification, creating a market of elite consumer goods and rarified experience in far-flung places (often playing on earlier avant-garde tropes of exoticism) in order to tender the ground for the subsequent onslaught of corporate imperialism? How might the biennial function as a vehicle for a city’s self-promotion—as a quick fix to generate marketable uniqueness through cultural

When first appearing in 1992, inSite—a biennial artistic event that engages the border area between San Diego and Tijuana through a series of specially commissioned and site-specific works and exhibitions—caused barely a ripple, being underreported and underdiscussed. But within two short years it had the support of the Centro Cultural Tijuana (CeCuT) and has steadily gained in funding and prestige with each subsequent installment. While the sprawling nature of the project has necessarily made for patchy affairs on occasion, inSite has also delivered such memorable moments as the Trojan horse