The Shanghai and Gwangju Biennales (original) (raw)

Catalogue of the 7th Beijing Biennale 2017

THE SILK ROAD AND WORLD CIVILIZATIONS. THE ALBUM OF THE SEVENTH BEIJING INTERNATIONAL ART BIENNALE, CHINA 2017, 2017

CONTENTS 13 / The Works of China 205 / The Works of Foreign Countries 331 / The Special Exhibition of Contemporary Art of Georgia 351 / The Special Exhibition of Contemporary Art of Greece 375 / The Special Exhibition of Contemporary Art of Indonesia 393 / The Special Exhibition of Contemporary Art of Mongolia 417 / The Tour of Art from Tintoretto to Lilanga 427 / The Special Exhibition of Donated Artworks from Previous Beijing Biennales 455 / Participating Artists' Resumes 515 / Index 525 / Acknowledgements

Inside out of the biennale (Annual Meeting of The International Art Market Studies Association 2017)

* This is a conference paper for the 2017 meeting of The International Art Market Studies Association (July 2017, London, United Kingdom) This paper addresses the social economy created by 2016 Shanghai Biennale that ran from November 12, 2016 to March 12 2017. With the selection of the Indian curator/artist group Raqs Media Collective as the chief curator, the 11th Shanghai Biennale was structured around the idea to launch “the possibilities of South-South dialogue within the current scenario of a highly interconnected world.” Such an agenda has defined the selection of art works and artists presented in the Biennale – as works of video art, socially engaged multi-media installations, and performing arts being the highlights of the three-month-long show. Many events were convened around the city – including the 51 Personae Project, a collaboration launched with the local group Dinghaiqiao Mutual Aid Society.

Some Asian Artists at the 2001 Venice Biennale

2003

I went to the Venice Biennale for the first time this year expecting to see some kind of acceptance of the huge range of modernist art now produced and exhibited in many Asian countries. Instead I found myself in a peculiar set of time warps, ones constructed by, for example, the peculiar historical architecture of Venice and the history of its Biennale, and also by the vagaries of the European art curatorial practice which in part had chosen the works.

Beyond Exile: China at Venice Biennale

1999

1999 ‘Beyond Exile’ for the catalogue Modern Chinese Art Foundation, Provincie Bestuur van Oost-Vlaanderen, Belgium, ISBN 90-76686-02- This essay will make some general comments on the art situation in China before observations about works in the exhibition. Chinese art at the end of the century stands at something of a turning point. After the hysteria with which so much interesting experimental art was received at the Venice Biennale in 1999 it would appear the Euramerican art world is still reluctant to accept it no longer has-if it ever had-any exclusive rights over modernity. But if this external reception still retains an unshakably atavistic core, what can be said of the situation in China itself?

Curating “Chineseness” - Translating China in the 45th Venice Biennale

2015

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Chinese artists began to leave China, emigrating to the West to some of the world’s most established cultural hubs including the cities of Paris, Berlin and New York. This provided the opportunity for self-reflection, individual and collaborative reflective experiences on their identity, home country, origin, history, society, politics, and in turn, developed a new globalised Chinese artistic and curatorial practice that negotiated, to them, unknown Western paradigms and the canons of Western-centric art historical discourse. They were responsible for building a new “transcultural” Chinese art history that was to change the way in which Chinese art was translated. All translations are subject to applied, different socio-historic contexts where ‘a heritage often produces a spectacle of essentialist national identity’ (Coombes 1992: 488), which in this paper is termed as international exoticism and “Chineseness” in the eyes of the West. This exoticism is part of what is known as the “disappearing world” phenomenon, where the West is seen to fear the over immersion, thus loss, of its own culture and heritage, and so looks beyond its own locality for a new fragile exoticism, a world yet unpresented through ‘difference’ (Coombes 1992: 491) - in this case China. Whilst it may seem to be stating the obvious, curators should try to act objectively and not get swayed by this exoticism or concept of “tradition”. As Coombes states, ‘…the cultural object can never be an empty vessel waiting to be filled with meaning, but rather is a repository replete with meanings that are never imminent but always contingent.’ (Coombes 1992: 489) This paper will examine, as a case study, the representation of China as part of the renowned and longest-standing international art festival, the Venice Biennale (45th Venice Biennale entitled Cardinal Points of the Arts, Venice, Italy (14 June – 10 October 1993)) - a noteworthy moment in the translation of contemporary Chinese art on the international art stage. Entitled Passagio a Oriente (Passage to the East), this exhibition of purely avant-garde painting was presented through a survey exhibition using the curatorial strategies of international exoticism and “Chineseness”, curated by Achille Bonito Oliva with Helena Kontova with consultation from Li Xianting and Francesca Dal Lago. Through analysing the collaborative curatorial process employed here, and critical public opinion, I will aim to question, is this case study when Chinese art became contemporary and global within the international art world? Can curators recognise the cultural, political and economic infrastructures inherent in the artist’s artworks or objects on a local level, in China, before it is “transculturally” translated in the West? Or are we heading towards operating as a catch-all category where diverse artworks are grouped together for cultural plurality (Maharaj 1994:29)? Will this produce homogenized curatorial consequences? Does the acknowledgement of dialectic and cultural differences/nuances always mean that it will be translated as “foreign” or Chinese? Or is assimilation and adaptation needed as part of the curatorial strategy? Ultimately, can we escape a “Chineseness” of contemporary Chinese art? Coombes, Annie (1992) ‘Inventing the ‘Postcolonial’: Hybridity and Constituency in Contemporary Curating’. In Donald Preziosi, (Ed.) (1998) The Art of Art History: A Critical Anthology (pp. 486-497). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Maharaj, Sarat (1994) ‘Perfidious Fidelity: The Untranslatability of the Other’. In Jean Fisher (Ed.) Global Visions: towards a new internationalism in the visual arts (pp. 28-35), London: Kala Press in association with The Institute of International Visual Arts.

A review of the 2019 Singapore Biennale

CoBo Social, 2019

From the outset, "Every Step in the Right Direction," the title of the sixth edition of the Singapore Biennale, impulses a positive energy. Featuring 77 artists and art collectives, it takes place this year in 11 different venues across the city and aims at highlighting the transformative power of art, seen as a potent agent of change. Patrick Flores, its artistic director and chief curator, places it under the umbrella of Salud Algabre (1894-1979), a Filipino woman who fought against American colonialism and defended the rights of the peasants all her life. As a woman coming from a lower-class population, her long, yet unabated, struggle embodies the potency of all emancipatory projects against any normalized yet exclusive established order. The Biennale is far from being straightforward political, though. Rather, "Every Step in the Right Direction" focuses rather on local, almost humble, artistic initiatives that contribute to imperceptible but tangible changes. The general impression is a collection of micro narratives which, when added, bring forth renewed perceptions of the social, cultural and political transformations associated with today's globalization and modernity. This multiplicity expands also our conception of Southeast Asia as a region usually defined from a narrow geopolitical perspective. Instead, Flores aims at reimagining the region from an ethical and geo-poetic dimension, favoring a more relational and open approach. The curatorial team comprising of Flores and six curators hailing from different backgrounds and locales around Southeast Asia and Asia, facilitates this diversity.