The Istanbul Biennial is one of the largest and most important art events in the Middle East. Every two years more than 150 international artists are exhibited all over the city, selected by a globally renowned star curator. Thousands of visitors from all over the world flock to Istanbul for each edition, and the city has become one of the top 10 exhibition destinations for the global art elite. The Biennial is also indispensable for both tourism and the economy, as it is financed almost exclusively with sponsorship money from large corporations in Turkey. The last twenty years of the Istanbul Biennial are extremely well documented and scientifically reviewed, but very, very few things are known about the founding period of the Biennial, and the Biennial Foundation IKSV publishes little information about the first years of the Biennial. For example, neither in Europe nor in North America is a publicly accessible version of the catalogues of the first two Biennial editions available. The official archive of the Biennial Foundation also contains almost no documents or records from the founding years. In the scientific literature, this period is usually only briefly and broadly described and does not contain any in-depth details. Based on private and previously unpublished archive material, I will present the early history of the Istanbul Biennial and show that the Biennial was by no means planned as a global super exhibition. On the contrary, in the first editions the Biennial was surprisingly critical of capitalism and globalization. Rather, the aim was to create a transnational network of the local art scene and to open new exhibition venues in Istanbul. But with the fifth edition at the latest of the Istanbul Biennial, these principles were thrown overboard for a higher international representation. The split between the local art scene and the global art elite was repeatedly reflected in major artist protests and boycotts that have been taking place against the Biennial organization since 2007. With my paper, I want to show that the Biennial Foundation deliberately conceals its early history in order to distance itself from political and ideological positions that could endanger the financial success of the event.