The São Paulo Art Biennial was founded in 1951 and has been held every two years since. It is the second oldest art biennial in the world after the Venice Biennale, which serves as its role model.

São Paulo is the most populous city in Brazil and the capital of the state of São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as an alpha global city, São Paulo is the most populous city outside of Asia and the world's 20th-largest city proper by population. Additionally, São Paulo is the largest Portuguese-speaking city in the world. It exerts strong international influences in commerce, finance, arts, and entertainment. The city's name honors the Apostle, Saint Paul of Tarsus. The city's metropolitan area, the Greater São Paulo, ranks as the most populous in Brazil and the 12th-most-populous on Earth. The process of conurbation between the metropolitan areas around the Greater São Paulo created the São Paulo Macrometropolis, a megalopolis with more than 30 million inhabitants, one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world.