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As four of the world’s most preeminent biennials/triennials are on the cusp of opening right here in the Far East, LEAP dedicates its August issue to the notion of the biennial. However, rather than a collection of reviews of biennials, this cover feature is composed as a set of allegories for an imaginary biennal. “Allegory for a Biennale” does not attempt to answer any of the questions raised by mega-exhibitions, but to dismantle them. Wang Jiahao designs the ultimate museum machine; Einar Engström employs narrative to magnify the logical flaws of pushing the boundaries of art to its extremes; Lightstalker illuminates the multi-dimensional gazes between traditional Chinese fiction and Western painting; and Jacob Dreyer introduces the conceptual grandeur of the ideal that so often sidles up to art—the image, power, and capital. Meanwhile, the feature also includes two actual art events—one an exhibition on the margins that define Hong Kong history and identity, the other a project on those that define Mainland modernization and urbanization. Finally, recapitulating these explorations of art’s existence in zones of creative and political instability, artist Larissa Sansour presents a renewed imagination of the Palestinian state in her work “Nation Estate.” In the accompanying mini-feature “The Soul of Wit,” Yang Zi investigates the role of comedy in four studies of Chinese contemporary art, and Feng Qing pens a treatise on the philosophy of humor; and artist Lin Ke stretches dry humor to its limits in “Seven Humorous Poems.”