EXHIBITIONS

At the turn of the century, a group of conceptual photography and video works emerged in China, expressing artists’ beautiful longings and utopian visions for globalization and the potential changes it could bring. Around the same time, due to the popularity of computers and the Internet, artists gradually began to use new photography and video technologies, especially Photoshop software, which greatly expanded their understanding and practice of photography, video, and images. These exhibits are part of it. They are not only a portrayal of the collective emotions of this special historical moment, but also an important witness to the revolution of technological media.
Twenty years later, photography and imaging technology have undergone multiple iterations and replacements, and globalization has entered a historical stage. Looking back at these conceptual works with “rough” technology yet strong characteristics of the times, we are certainly impressed by the profound impact of technological media on contemporary art. However, the long-lost “optimistic” mood and “comedic” feeling seem to be more worthy of our contemplation and reflection.

The first Ennova Art Biennale will be held from October 27th, 2024 to April 30th, 2025 in Langfang, located in the center of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. The Biennale is hosted by Ennova Art Museum, with internationally renowned curator and art critic Fumio Nanjo as the chief curator. The curatorial research team consists of scholars such as Miwa Kutsuna, Andrea Del Guercio, Hatanaka Minoru, and Qilan Shen.

With the theme “Multiple Future : a new visions of our life,” the biennale delves deeply into the essence of contemporary art and the infinite boundaries of human creativity, in order to break through the traditional modes of thinking and to face the multiple challenges faced by contemporary humanity.

The exhibition is divided into four chapters, the first focusing on sound as a special immaterial material, the second on creativity beyond borders, the third on the possibilities of environmental sustainability, and the fourth on exploring a post-human world.

The 1st Ennova Art Biennale brings together the wonderful works of nearly 100 artists (groups) and will be one of the most internationally influential contemporary art events in China.

(Text creidt: Ennova Art Museum)

ShanghART WB Central announce the opening of the exhibition “Growth in Motion” on 29 September 2024. The exhibition brings together works from 27 artists/groups represented by ShanghART, showcasing a “momentum” look that indicates the fundamental creative will of life, to explore the stream of vitality in the artists’ spirit, constantly overcoming the tendency towards materialization and bursting upwards with life force.

Henri Bergson’s life-philosophy sees life as a tendency, driven and developed by the vital impetus, with which humans have broken free from “torpor” and “instinct”, evolving towards “intelligence”. From the perspective of life to interpret creation, artists’ vital impetus and creative will share a wondrously interconnected core – a mysterious impulse, beyond the rational understanding, that guides pure growth and creation. The works in the exhibition are undoubtedly the material traces left by the inner impulses as they advance into the outer world. It is this impetus that allows art to transcend torpor, instinct, and intelligence, thereby unleashing infinite possibilities.

The exhibition invites internationally renowned Chinese and French artists to participate, to explore together the similarities and differences between the arts of the two countries in the context of globalization and their origins, and to witness the “harmony and difference” between eastern elegance and French romanticism. The form of the works on display involves intertext in media, painting, photography, sculpture, devices, multimedia, new media, sound and other artistic fields, which present both interwoven chronological indices and contextual migrations of the time, but also how artists perceive the outside world, and how they choose to live in reality.

The academic organization of the exhibition revolves around three axes: The first is based on mutual learning between Chinese and French art in the artistic creation of Chinese masters who studied in France in the 20th century, represented by artists like Xu Beihong, Lin Fengmian at the beginning of the century, then Wu Guanzhong before and after the establishment of the new China, then Huang Yongping, Yang Jiechang, Shen Yuan and the young artists currently active between China and France; The second is based on the perspective of “French” artists and cultural workers, through French artists and cultural workers living in China, and Chinese artists and cultural workers living in France, to present mutual reflections and aspirations; And the third takes the Sichuan institute of fine arts and its achievements in teaching since the 20th century as an index, because the art institutes since the 20th century constitute a field of practice where Chinese and western cultures are inspired and mixed, and in the era of mutual learning of cultures, artists and cultural workers interact, in teaching and practice, Art is becoming international and constantly intertwined to produce a multitude of contemporary aspects.

START MUSEUM is pleased to present “Frontier — Inaugural Exhibition Season 3” on August 18, 2024. The exhibition, titled “Frontier” aims to explore themes related to the openness of art, freedom, and the various boundaries in creative practices.

This exhibition will feature works by 32 prominent domestic and international artists, including Luc Tuymans, Cai Guoqiang, Nam June Paik, Tracey Emin, Gordon Matta-Clark, Wu Shanzhuan, Liu Xiaodong, Matthew Barney, Yu Hong, Li Yongbin, Seth Price, Xu Zhen, Tomás Saraceno, Duan Jianyu, Nabuqi, Chen Tianzhuo, among others. The selected works span from the 1970s to the present, highlighting breakthroughs in creation, concepts, materials, ideology, societal norms, and the liberation from the constraints of individual identity politics. The exhibition also emphasizes the limitless openness and challenges to the boundaries of individual artistic freedom.

START MUSEUM inaugurates itself with a series of four consecutive exhibitions as its declarative launch. Through a more diverse and open-ended discourse, the museum strives to present its identity and value as an independent research institution. Furthermore, by transcending the constraints of reality, the museum adopts an independent and exploratory historiographical perspective to seek out new dimensions and frontiers of individuality and freedom in art.

This exhibition, following “START” and “Thus Spoke the Moment,” marks another significant exhibition research project by the museum.It also serves as the third chapter of the START MUSEUM’s four-season inaugural exhibition series.

ShanghART Gallery announce the opening of the special project “10 Years – ShanghART West Bund 2015-2024” on 1 June at ShanghART West Bund Bldg 8. Space. The project features more than 60 works by 53 artists, spanning the mediums of painting, photography, sculpture, installation, and video, which are selected from each of the exhibitions and projects that have taken place in ShanghART West Bund space over the past decade since its opening in 2015, as “physical evidence” to “witness” the history of the space. Moreover, the project encompasses a chronology of nearly 100 major exhibitions held at the West Bund space and elsewhere around the globe in which ShanghART artists have participated over the past decade. It also includes more than 40 volumes of related publications and representative visual materials.

Sorry, this entry is only available in 中文.

In the era of the anthropocene, change stands as the sole constant. There is an undeniably human aspect to our desire for stability in our surroundings.When faced with external forces threatening to disrupt the status quo, we are driven to question and yearn for a return to familiar realities.

Shifting Sands Still, delves into the diverse approaches artists employ to navigate environmental changes. From preserving fleeting spaces to constructing new ones, they navigate the delicate balance between nature and urbanisation. Yet, amidst this group of artists, there is a shared longing for betterment.

The experience of ‘新村’ (New Villages), characterised by the modernization process involving the demolition and displacement of low-income neighbourhoods, has been a significant influence on the work of many artists. Birdhead captures the vanishing aspects of their childhood town through spontaneous, impulsive snapshots, while Liu Weijian and Chen Wei chase scenes from an abandoned city relegated to memories, through paint and elaborately staged photographs. Wang Youshen finds himself ensnared in a tragic cycle of eviction due to gentrification, his fragmentary documentation reflecting the short-lived nature of his tenancies. These artists underscore the significance of memory in shaping a space’s identity and the erasure that accompanies urbanisation. Robert Zhao offers a reprieve from anthropocentrism by highlighting the non-human casualties of urbanisation. A discarded garbage bin amidst a jungle transforms into the core of a burgeoning ecosystem, serving as a vital water source for its new inhabitants. Contrasted against this is a colony of displaced bats in a foreign land, their original habitat disrupted by deforestation. The human drive to mould the world to fit our desires emerges as both a destructive force and a minor obstacle that nature will inevitably overcome. Xu Zhen explores the concept of space-making on a more abstract level. He challenges the notion of spirituality as an inherent quality anchored to physical location, by asserting our ability to consecrate mass-produced spaces. If the loss of spatial identity is inevitable, could these unconventional paths offer salvation?

In response to the overarching project My boss told me to not do exhibitions, this exhibition centers around a principle that recalls of the nature of the project: inertia – albeit with a little wordplay.

The meaning of the term covers both a state of immobility and that of a superior force acting on the stagnation or mobility of a body. Transaction of Hollows, a performance by Melati Suryodarmo, embodies, among other things, the ins and outs of this term. A motionless arrow is suddenly propelled by the force of the artist towards a white wall, as are, to a certain extent, the works of art hanging on the picture rails. This is a new exhibition entitled ‘Inartia’, featuring works by Chen Xiaoyun, Chen Wei, Liang Shaoji, Melati Suryodarmo, Tang Maohong, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and Xu Zhen®.

Sometimes they are objects that have ceased to function under the effect of time or force, like the lamppost photographed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul or the camera with its broken focus staged by Xu Zhen®; sometimes they are elements – captured by Chen Wei – which, by force of circumstance, have been transformed into something else, such as candles that have become wax again, boots onto which marine elements have been grafted – as if they had remained motionless in a marsh for too long, or metal chains covered in silk. Interpretation is free, but in the last work, by Liang Shaoji, can we not see the work of silkworms on man’s industrial past and/or present?

This inertia is also that of detachment, of the separation of body and soul, which by the force of things acts. Should we see Tang Maohong’s pastel as a brain at rest? Or a brain in care? Reincarnated? Whatever the case, reflexive wandering can also be that of discovery, off the beaten track: Melati Suryodarmo’s nocturnal escapades, where the sleepwalker has only to follow the red line, and chance finds – the work of Serendipity. All in an elusive state that resonates with Chen Xiaoyun’s photograph Simple Peace without Explanation.

Curated by Zélie Chabert and put together with the help of Tian Lim and Joshua Kon.
This is the second exhibition under My boss told me to not do exhibitions.

In 2015, as part of the “Light Source” series, Xu Zhen reinterpreted the work of the artist Cornelis de Baellieur(1607-1671) titled “Intérieur d’une galerie de tableaux et d’objets d’art.” Every detail of the scene was preserved, with exotic objects displayed in a lavish interior space-shells, sculptures,and ornaments, while the walls were adorned with painting of still life,mythological and portraits. This artist followed the tradition of “art cabinet” genre established by Jan Brueghel the Elder and others in the Flemish region, making choices in the painting style.”Intérieur d’une galerie de tableaux et d’objets d’art.” seems to carry the legacy of the late Pieter Bruegel the Elder- in order to make the objects in the painting appear lively, there is a degree of deformation in the painted content, implying ahierarchy.However, fromthe result of the painting, it is evident that this artistic transformation does not stem from meticulous observation of reality, the artist’s goal is merely to complete a task. Comparatively, Xu Zhen’s reinterpretation is more vibrant, he overall lowers the brightness of the painting, making the peculiar
light source at the lower center of the composition stand out glaringly.

Xu Zhen froze the scene at the moment when a camera flash encroaches upon the painting. Using flash when taking photos is often considered damaging to oil paintings and is strictly prohibited in many occasions. The light invades from outside the artwork, yet seems as if it is reflected from within,reaching the audience. Nevertheless, the audience, or the general public who have entered the age of image with their smartphones or cameras, have forged a new relationship with art. Classical art offered “aura” ‘evoking palpitations and dizziness in the audience of its time. Nowdays, audience yearn for this kind ofdizziness, nurturing fantasies, while the traditional “aura of spirituality” gradually fades away, leaving behind records of visual experiences with physical light. How do we distinguish which of them still carry the remnants of the “aura,” and whether the “aura” is necessary in the context of contemporary Chinese art, serves as the starting point for the exhibition “You Spin Me Round like a Record.’

2023 marks Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art the 20th anniversary. Being the first public contemporary art museum founded by government in Mainland of China,Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art was also an important participant and promoter of con- temporary art in China in its infancy, and has thereafter experienced a major wave of de- velopment in the entire museum industry . In this overall background, we find the key word iteration that can sum up this changing times and the history of the museum itself. lteration not only emphasizes a Chinese phrase in its original sense of change and repeti- tion which means four seasons change, but also as a computer term for constant change.

The Noto Peninsula juts out into the Sea of Japan from central Honshu. Suzu is positioned at its very tip, surrounded by the sea on three sides. Suzu has a history as a “leading edge” location once open to the Sea of Japan, and features a rich culture including festivals and food. If you alter your perspective, even inconvenient remote land can become a “leading edge” location that opens up the future. This idea is the starting point. The Oku-Noto Triennale has attracted support from artists in Japan and abroad, who visit and express works rooted in this land of Suzu. This fall, the third Oku-Noto Triennale will begin. Contemporary art created through collaboration by artists, citizens and supporters will reverberate with the natural features of Oku-Noto, creating an experience of time and space that will stimulate the five senses.

BY ART MATTERS is proud to announce the fifth season exhibition Motion Is Action – 35 Years of Chinese Media Art, which will take place from September 22, 2023, to February 25, 2024. This groundbreaking exhibition marks the first retrospective presentation of Chinese contemporary art history from a Chinese perspective. By examining the development and transformations in Chinese media art, the exhibition aims to explore the significant role of media expansion in the evolution of contemporary art, brought about by the information age. Through this exploration, the exhibition examines a series of thought-provoking issues, including scene reconstruction, the manipulation of time and space, perceptual misalignment, the creation of new artistic languages, and reflections on social and cultural contexts.

This exhibition brings together 79 representative works by 72 artists and groups from different generations. The works encompass a variety of media, including video, installations, performance art, interactive pieces, games, and digital art. The exhibition not only reflects on the early practices of video art but also delves into the cutting-edge exploration of emerging media and art forms such as artificial intelligence and space art.

The artworks are connected in chronological order and revolve around the thematic keyword of “motion.” The exhibition is divided into three chapters: Motion as Action, Motion as Interaction, and Motion as Agency. Through the progression of these chapters, the audience can embark on a time-travel-like experience, tracing the artists’ evolving understanding of different issues and exploring the transformation of artistic creations in terms of media, forms of expression, and concepts. Additionally, visitors can gain a profound appreciation of the depth and breadth of the Chinese art world.

Beiqiu Museum of Contemporary Art is pleased to announce the inaugural exhibition of the Art and Geography Series, Someone Has Been Disarranging These Roses, co-curated by architect Naitian Yang and curator Lin Liu. This exhibition will open on September 8, 2023 and run through December 10,2023.

Someone Has Been Disarranging These Roses delves into the historical and present context of BMCA’s site – Beijige Mountain,and investigates the pivotal role it has played in the evolution of meteorological science in China. Departing from the spectral atmosphere of the museum’s locus, the exhibition brings together about 20 artists,architects,and researchers from 6 countries to create a constellation of artworks engaging with this historical lineage and offering different perspectives towards the omnipresent reality of climate crisis.Beijige serves as a point of convergence for the history and reality of Nanjing and China. It weaves together various elements, including ancient myths/Daoist traditions, solar terms/agricultural activities, modernmete- orological science/intellectual individuals inChina’s modernizationprocess(suchas Zhu Kezhen, the founder of the Central Meteorological Observatory in Beijige), as well as civil defense projects/consumer spa- ces, collectively producing a complex, ambiguous,and romantic environment. The museum’s existing spaces further consolidate this essence, blending together mountain terrain, air raid shelters,and the “white cube” gallery environment. The exhibition seeks to portray this compressed moment through image and sound, and to extract the dynamic imagery of wind, rain, cloud, etc. It evolves from the perception of such phenomenon to the intangible existence of data clouds, and ultimately to the cultural and political weather and climate at large.

Architect Naitian Yang’s choreography of the exhibition space creates an experience that negotiates with the existing concrete structure and resonates with the oscillating cadence of weather itself. In a time when weather and climate issues have transcended theoretical discourse and become an urgent reality, the exhibition endeav- ors to integrate people and weather into the same fluid,precarious,and crucial state. The artworks within the exhibition allude to what might conventionally be termed “bad weather”, yet the binary idea of “good / bad” is no longer applicable to our judgments of weather. Beyond a human-centered perspective, the synthesis of chaos emerges as the norm of weather, where “good” and “bad” coalesce. It pervades every aspect of ex- istence, whether living or not.

MadeIn Gallery is pleased to present the group exhibition “What Kind of Us Does Painting Need” on Sep 2, 2023. Curated by Xu Zhen, the exhibition invites thirteen artists from around the world to present their highly experimental and revealing paintings. Together the works on view investigate how painting might refresh and regenerate its power as a medium while being confronted with the dual challenges of algorithm and post-conceptualism. They galvanize us into thinking how we could remold ourselves and our experiences so that we can sustainably imagine, create, and view the new paintings.

“Finally, we have come to a time when the number of painters reaches its zenith on Earth.”

Someone opened ChatGPT, and a new so-called painter was born. Is this the mediocre fate of the new painting in the age of algorithms? Today’s painting is so compatible and adaptable that it loses its weight. Do we have any reason to approach a painting other than the fact that we have to look at it? Is painting still a portal in the city to an unknown universe? Why is it necessary to have so many paintings on our screens? How does the contingency of our eyes and hands duel in the picture with the inevitability of artificial intelligence? Can this many paintings justify our world? Does painting exist to drift on social media?

We are hereby honored to invite these artists to reveal their painting practice. They attempt to refresh painting and endow it with the renewed power of a medium that captivates the viewer as firmly as smartphones and constantly updated apps. After the artists bring out the painterliness of the object with their painting, the latter acts as a reminder that painting begins when we swipe our fingers over the image on the screen. It is only when we transcend our excitement over new technologies that we can truly begin to paint. In choosing to paint these objects, the artists are also manifesting their attitudes and intervening in our inertia. We can but seek fresh experiences to match these paintings.

Rather than asking what kind of painting is needed, we need to ask what kind of us such painting needs.

From July 1st to September 3rd, 2023, Le Voyage à Nantes will exhibit “European Thousand-Arms Classical Sculpture” from Xu Zhen®. Le Voyage à Nantes is a local, publicly-owned corporation it has chosen for its development as a tourist destination. From2011，Each year, the summer Voyage à Nantes enriches the permanent collection through temporary or permanent installations of contemporary artworks in the public space，with a completely new way to discover the city.This year chosed sculpture as the theme, a total of about 20 large-scale sculptures were exhibited, distributed in the squares, castles, streets and other places of the city .

The 14-metre (46 ft.) long and 5-metre (16 ft.) tall work, European Thousand-Arms ClassicalSculpture, transforms 19 archetypal Western figurative sculptures into one dancingbodhisattva.Eproduced and arranged in rows to represent the undulating, dancing arms of the thousand-armed Guanyin, they challenge the traditional idea of cultural separation, suggesting that all of humanity is part of a single, absurd celebration.

https://www.levoyageanantes.fr/en/events/the-summer-journey/

Selected from a recent major gift of works to the Hammer Contemporary Collection by the Haudenschild family, this exhibition focuses on pioneering Chinese photography and video from the 1990s and early 2000s. Cruel Youth Diary looks at a generation of artists whose work responded to a period of tremendous social, political, and economic change in mainland China. Through strategies of Conceptual art, performance, and installation, these artists reflected on and critiqued the visual culture of a burgeoning new China on the cusp of the 21st century.

Featuring works by Cao Fei, Chen Shaoxiong, Feng Mengbo, Hong Hao, Kan Xuan, Liu Wei, Shi Yong, Song Tao, Weng Fen (also known as Weng Peijun), Xiang Liqing, Xu Zhen, Yang Fudong, Yang Yong, Yang Zhenzhong, Zhao Bandi, and Zhu Jia.

Cruel Youth Diary: Chinese Photography and Video from the Haudenschild Collection is organized by Nicholas Barlow, curatorial assistant, with Aram Moshayedi, Robert Soros Senior Curator.

The 3rd China Xinjiang International Art Biennale kicks off on Tuesday, and this year’s exhibition theme is “Harmonious Symbiosis.”

The exhibition is divided into the main exhibition area and a special exhibition section. The main exhibition area has three sections, titled “Civilization and Integration,” “Symbiosis and Dialogue,” and “Homeland Narrative and Ecological Wisdom,” involving 116 works by 77 artists from 12 countries, including China, Argentina, Italy, Belgium and Germany.

The special exhibitions are “Sketched Xinjiang,” a study of Xinjiang-themed works since the 20th century, and “Between Heaven and Earth,” the tradition and representation of contemporary Chinese ink painting. There are 143 artists from 11 countries, including China, and 260 works in the special exhibition.

The “Civilization and Integration” section of the main exhibition involves both natural and urban environments, as well as the human spirit, the expression of collective human memory, emotion and desire. The “Symbiosis and Dialogue” segment presents the reflection and expression of cultural, human and spiritual characteristics. Meanwhile, the ecology and homeland section focuses on the relationship between humans and nature.

This Biennale is hosted by China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the People’s Government of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. It has become an important platform for cultural exchange on the ancient Silk Road.

This exhibition is the first chapter of the debut of Start Museum, according to the team’s plan. The entire debut consists of 4 consecutive exhibitions, or the 4 seasons of “START”, each of them will last for 5 months in the upcoming 2 years. For the sake of diversity and complexity of art, each season will be demonstrated with different undertones and perspectives.

“Signal” is a contemporary art project initiated by artist XU ZHEN in 2022. XU ZHEN gives as a gift one of his “Passion” paintings to the global audience, and each recipient is invited to display the painting they receive on their social media accounts. A long-term, unceasing “art exhibition” will thus take place on Internet media platforms. The project aims to send the signal of art to people around the world and share with them the future of art.

Art field Nanhai Guangdong, a top-level international cultural festival, will open in Nanhai, Foshan on November 18. About 70 art projects from 15 countries and regions will be invited to participate in this festival, including China, Russia, France, Israel, Japan, Spain, the United States, Australia, India and Cameroon. The main venue is located in Xiqiao Town, Nanhai, Foshan, covering an area of 176 square kilometers. At the same time, there are 8 art sub-venues in Xiqiao Mountain, Tingyin Lake, Pingsha Island, Taiping Hui, Songtang Village, Ruxi Village, and Huanggang Village.

A true-to-life reproduction of the typical convenience store in China, XUZHEN Supermarket displays a dazzling array of daily consumer goods for sale at regular prices. On a closer look, however, one finds all the commodities bereft of substance. The anomaly of inviting viewers to purchase empty containers reveals the exchange-value crisis of global capitalism. Under the aesthetic disguise of product packaging, the emptiness of commodities points to the displacement of exchange and use values under the commercial hegemony. 

In his supermarket, Xu Zhen® constructs a space that parodies the rampant global consumerism. He simultaneously creates the simulacrum of commodities and of artworks alike, thus arriving at a simulacrum of contemporary life. As Baudrillard sees it, it is not an object but a sign, a concept that is consumed in capitalism, whereas simulacrums, without having any signified, become the only reality in a postmodern society. In this sense, once it enters the capitalist system, art turns into a sign or concept that is being consumed, a form of design or packaging; it has nothing to do with the artwork itself. This explains why the artist removes the goods while retaining only their packaging.

This exhibition focuses on artificial intelligence, 3D modeling software, social platforms, games, and other technologies that participate in social governance or rewrite aesthetic standards as human partners. Artists speculate on the potential mode of communication between humans, machines, and digital species and explore the possibility in the form of an exhibition. 

Integrating technology and art provides new thinking for developing the cultural and art industry in the new era. 

The exhibition also discusses two themes. One is to examine how humans handle the labor relationship between humans and machines when technological algorithms and artificial intelligence are particularly advanced. The other direction is how algorithms, 3D modeling software, and social platforms can generate subjective or alternative electronic species. The audience will see the ten artists’ images, paintings, and installation works and their imagination of the future world.

Bangkok, 8 June 2022 – The Bangkok Art Biennale Foundation is pleased to announce twenty-three new artists and four more venues for the third edition of the Bangkok Art Biennale (BAB) taking place from 22 October 2022 to 23 February 2023. This second announcement expands the Biennale’s line-up to 43 leading regional and international artists and 11 venues across the city’s cultural and heritage sites.

This edition’s theme CHAOS : CALM invites artists to contemplate the tumultuous conditions of the world around us as communities recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, and grapple with urgent climate crises and socio-political uncertainties around the globe. By exploring the binary opposites of chaos and calm, the Biennale aims to reflect on the confusing world we live in and offer glimpses of hope through art; celebrating a diversity of identities, cultures, and histories, and mapping a shared vision for our new post-pandemic world.

https://www.bkkartbiennale.com/

XU ZHEN^®  “SIGNAL” In conjunction with ShanghART Singapore 10th Anniversary Exhibition

Following the inaugural chapter of XU ZHEN®’s international contemporary art project “SIGNAL” at Art Jakarta in August, the gallery will be launching the Singapore chapter on the occasion of ShanghART Singapore’s 10th Anniversary Exhibition “Entrance”.

“SIGNAL” draws from a larger body of work, “Passion” which XU ZHEN® has been working on since 2021. The series consists of oil paintings on canvas derived from mobile devices screenshots of various social media platforms. The free-writing expressive brushstrokes and impasto work are a result of the artist’s attempts to capture the energy of online social media interactions. It is also the first time that the artist will be personally painting such a large number of works in a series, making it an exceptionally distinctive creation in his career.

An extension of this series of paintings, the pieces in the “SIGNAL” project are sized similar to handheld mobile devices. The artist will be gifting them to the global audience, creating more paintings as the project develops, while inviting each recipient to share the painting they receive on their social media accounts, resulting in a long-term, ongoing virtual art exhibition of these pieces on the Internet. This unprecedented way of disseminating art is a continuation of XU ZHEN®’s provocative approach, inviting the audience to ponder the future of art.

Accompanying the project’s “online exhibition”, the Singapore chapter will also consist of a physical presentation of four large canvases of the same series displayed in the gallery. The larger-than-life renditions of “Passion” in the gallery will be an immersive display of XU ZHEN®️’s “passion” as manifested on the canvases, allowing visitors to encounter the artist’s personal perceptions and experiences. Titling each painting after their physical weight, the artist explores an alternative way to quantify our online experiences. Instead of bytes and bits, the “Passion” series of paintings will become a new representation of the Internet and social media activity.

The exhibition took author Wang Anyi’s lecture as a point of departure.
Wang Anyi spoke about the three tools in Ah Cheng’s novels at the online lecture “The History of Civilization in Contemporary Chinese Fiction – on Ah Cheng’s Three Kings” this May. The three tools in Ah Cheng’s novels – namely, The King of Trees, The King of Children and The King of Chess – refer to knife, literature, and art-mathematics respectively. While Wang considered each tool a symbol of civilization, he also examined the true rationale behind Ah Cheng’s creation of the works and the self-positioning within an author who led the marching of the Xúngēn, or root-searching movement. Ah Cheng’s writings is a witness of the “sent-down” which was also part of Wang’s bodily memories of Down To The Countryside Movement. Yet what could explain Ah Cheng’s obsession over the three tools in his books? Wang found his answer in Yìwénzhì, or the Treatise on Art and Letters, “lost etiquette may be found in the wilderness.” In times of undue chaos, the wilderness and wilderness alone electrifies the homo sapiens out of the centre, returning to the uncharted territories and hoping to encounter civilization again.
The exhibition, instead of merely recycling Wang Anyi’s thoughts, is an extension of his perspective, calling upon an inquiry into the proliferation, if not contamination, of the tools’ presence. While math, diction and knife are manifested as symbols of civilization, they also became instruments of violence. Zhūyě is an assemblage of such seemingly conflicting yet parallel conditions. Zhū not only stands for variety and togetherness, but also a state of in-betweeness and in-betwixtness. Yě also transcends its original meaning, beholding both the traces of civilization and the quality of violence. Therefore, zhūyě has been translated as violence at the exceptional moment, for the fine line between salvation and its opposite is another fragile earthly frame.

XU ZHEN®’s site-specific sculpture, Hello, is the newest outdoor artwork on the Stanford campus and the inaugural commission for the Stanford Plinth Project.

Xu Zhen created the 15-foot sculpture especially for Meyer Green, a 2.45-acre open space located close to several university landmarks, including Green Library, the Law School and the Graduate School of Education. He combined traditional bronze techniques with the latest digital sculpting technology to create something that looks both ancient and contemporary. Its form is based on Greek architecture pillars, symbolizing the origin and cornerstone of Western civilization. As viewers move close, they will notice that the towering column is twisted in the form of a magnified and mutated snake, observing its surroundings from its perch on a plinth surrounded by soaring cedars.

The work fuses the classical Greek column shape and the snake’s aggressive biological attitude to stimulate viewers’ perception and experience of classic civilization. The moment the viewer’s eyes come across the Corinthian capital also represents a confrontation with the depth of history and culture. With the increasingly frequent blending and impacts among global civilizations, the work constitutes both a reality and a metaphor for encountering civilizations of different times and space.

In 2019, Stanford’s Public Art Committee chose Xu Zhen to create a site-specific outdoor work of art for the Plinth Project. This new initiative places a series of temporary, commissioned public artworks in the central Meyer Green campus location where the Meyer Library stood from 1966 to 2015. The work was to be installed the following year, but due to the pandemic, the installation was delayed. Xu Zhen was chosen in part for his representation of global perspectives and his engagement with issues relevant to the university. In his statement about creating Hello, he writes: “Located in Silicon Valley, Stanford University plays an important role in terms of innovations, developments and discovery of new talent. The people of this distinguished university share similar qualities with contemporary artists: the capability to see new possibilities and the courage to explore opportunities, even though results remain uncertain.”

Making it big in an Eastern country used to be a second choice for Western rockstars. Despite its multitude, the Chinese opinion was once considered inferior to established Western tastes. Yet China’s fast-paced transformation has turned the nation into a global powerhouse. These days companies, brands, and even nations from around the world all scramble to win the favour of Chinese consumers.
What does it mean to make it Big in China? It is no easy feat to captivate the attention of over a billion wandering eyes and minds. How do we draw the focus of so many unique individuals and make them move in unison? Artist Xu Zhen® shows us how it’s done by transforming into a kind of snake-charmer — mesmerising viewers with his colossal, dancing, twisting Corinthian column. Tang Nannan submerges us with mountainous waves until we become, as the Zen saying goes, simply one drop in an endless ocean. Lin Yan humbles and unites us as mortals under her vast, textural sky. These artists show us that it is not simply brute force that drives a nation and its people. Rather, it is the grand and overarching narratives, outstanding creativity and unique art practices that have the power to move a population en masse.

From Revolution to Globalisation surveys the cultural dynamism of contemporary China from the early 1970s to the present. China’s open-door policy of 1978 began an era of profound social and economic change. Cities across the country grew into global commercial centres affecting the everyday lives of millions of people. Amid China’s rise on the world stage, artists sought to engage in international conversations about art with their contemporaries. Challenging traditional ideas and art practices, they staged their own exhibitions and experimented with new mediums and unconventional styles. From Revolution to Globalisation looks at how international audiences have come to understand China today and captures the bold generation of artists who defined the contemporary Chinese experience.

Sorry, this entry is only available in 中文.

Sorry, this entry is only available in 中文.

Sorry, this entry is only available in 中文.

Futurism was an artistic movement that originated in Italy and Russia in the early 20th century, glorifying the charm of industry, machine, technology, power and speed while repudiating all the artistic styles and forms from the past. Today, “futurism” has already become a historical phase while the reality is increasingly turning into what “futurism” once envisaged. The power and speed of industry no longer stun people. Neither does technological aesthetics. Looking back upon the past one hundred years, we’d realize that futurism has actually reflected and shaped the zeitgeist of the time.

When artistic concepts of the past have gradually turned into reality and reality has even made a step further than those artists concepts, would art still be able to take the role as “herald”, especially in the historical period like now which is imbued with all kinds of possibilities of the future? As the inaugural exhibition of the Culture and Art Hub of Beijing Exhibition Center and theme exhibition of “Beijing Contemporary ·STORY”, Futurism from the Past features works of forty artists, demonstrating their signature styles.

In the two almost symmetrical gallery spaces, what viewers would encounter is a mixture of our past visions of the future, present recollections of the past, present imagination of the future, and reverie of the past from a future perspective. Works on view, whether classic or recent, cast light on not only the imagery, imagination and narrative of the future in contemporary art, the historical anticipation of the past one hundred years of China, prospects of the future from a present perspective, but also a dynamical view of time that is unique to China: The future generations will look upon us just like we look upon our past.

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Pearl Art Museum is delighted to present a group exhibition entitled “From Clay to Words: Ceramics as Media” from May 29 to August 22, 2021. The show begins simply with the material and attempts to explore the serene depths of artistic concepts and languages, showing visitors unique artistic creations made of ceramic that go well beyond typical displays of ancient ceramics and handicrafts. The exhibition will showcase fourteen dynamic artists from around the world (listed alphabetically by last name): Céleste Boursier-Mougenot (FR), Chen Xiaodan, Geng Xue, Liang Shaoji, Liang Wanying, Liu Danhua, Liu Jianhua, Liu Xi, Su Xianzhong, Sui Jianguo, Sun Yue, Xu Xinhua, XU ZHEN®, and Zhao Zhao. They have created more than thirty diverse pieces, either made of ceramic or related to ceramics, spanning sculpture, installation, video, and painting. The works have been divided into seven sections: “Born Out of Earth,” “Studying the Nature of Things,” “Nostalgia and Appropriation,” “Ordinary and Extraordinary,” “Body and Identity,” “Time,” and “Synesthesia and Nature.” The exhibition explores and presents new concepts, new expressions, and new languages in ceramic art, a medium with a long and storied history.

Nostalgia and appropriation are common working methods or themes in post-modern art. The XU ZHEN® contribution to this exhibition is MadeIn Curved Vase – Famille Rose Olive Vase with Bat and Peach Design, Yongzheng Period, Qing Dynasty. The original model for the piece was a legendary famille rose vase that was once used as a table lamp, then broke sales records for Qing dynasty porcelain vases, and entered a museum collection. Using the firing methods of ancient porcelains, XU ZHEN® bends the neck of a classic Chinese porcelain vase ninety degrees, creating a new shape.

To celebrate Hong Kong’s annual art month, foster cross-cultural dialogue and inspire through the arts, K11 Art Foundation (KAF) presents a remarkable international arts programme at K11 MUSEA. Headlining the programme is Calligraphy Rhapsody – Retrospective Exhibition of Georges Mathieu co-presented with the Consulate General of France in Hong Kong & Macau, showcasing the preeminent artist’s works spanning four decades. Showing in Hong Kong for the first time, In Just a Blink of an Eye is the landmark installation by Xu Zhen, a leading figure in Chinese contemporary art. The programme will also debut the first-ever bronze sculptures by Japanese artist Izumi Kato, as well as the publication launch of City As Studio, giving an exciting glimpse of the forthcoming City As Studio exhibition slated for 2022, helmed by legendary curator Jeffrey Deitch.

Further augmenting the agenda of art and cultural happenings this month, KAF presents an additional array of cross-cultural projects including: the inaugural edition of Micromégas artist residency and cultural exchange programme between Hong Kong and France co-organised with the Consulate General of France in Hong Kong & Macau and Videotage, supported by the Institut français; KAF x MOCA: Transpacific Stream, an all-digital collaborative video art programme co-presented with The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) now screening on KAF’s newly revamped official website; and the release of Katharina Grosse: Mumbling Mud Catalogue, an extension of the acclaimed German artist’s first solo exhibition in China.

MadeIn Gallery is pleased to present “Art as Living Organism”, a group exhibition featuring three artists Ge Hui, Song Kun and XU ZHEN®, opening on May 8th, 2021 and running through June 30th. This will be the gallery’s last exhibition at One Museum Place. The exhibition revolves around the creation of figuration as well as the internal logic and driving force of its evolutional process. Based on their own experiences and different perspectives, Ge Hui, Song Kun and XU ZHEN® entitle the figures to grow in narration or develop in forms; and thereby extend to in-depth investigations on materials and artistic languages.

OCAT Shanghai is pleased to present the exhibition The Circular Impact: Video Art 21, which will be on view from April 28th to July 11th, 2021. The exhibition, curated by Dai Zhuoqun, features a sample of Chinese video art since 2000, showing 21 artists whose primary medium of practice has been moving images, with works spanning 21 years from the beginning of the 21st century to the present. This exhibition showcases the curator’s ongoing exploration of the development of Chinese video art in recent years. From the large-scale group exhibition Free Prism Video Wave in the fall of 2019 to The Circular Impact: Video Art 21 in the spring of 2021, the focus of Dai’s curatorial practice on video art always centers within the screen, revolving around content, rather than the medium itself. Amid waves of the avant-garde and new wave art, video art emerged to serve as a medium of enlightenment for the most cutting-edge consciousness and concepts of the contemporary Chinese society, recording and reflecting the social and spiritual conditions of Chinese people, as well as the great diversity of thoughts and emotions.

Based on these ideas, Dai Zhuoqun divides Chinese video art into three periods shown in three chapters, based on the reality and conceptual representations of different stages of time where a decade is a generational interval. The first chapter, “1988-1999, Spring Story,” focuses on the early video practices in the early avant-garde art period between 1988 and 1999. “Spring Story” comes from the song sung by Dong Wenhua in the 1990s to celebrate reform and opening up and Deng Xiaoping’s southern tour. The other two chapters in this exhibition cover the two decades of the new century, the globalized economy, and the Internet era, which have redefined our understanding and perception of the world and even our way of thinking. Chapter two, “Love Song 2000” and Chapter three, “Floating World and Faint Shadow,” attempt to afford an optimistic and humanistic narrative to the new century. Meanwhile, both chapters faintly reveal gradual diversification and fragmentation in Chinese society since its enlightenment in the 1980s and its transition into its current manifestations in the post-globalization era.

Time is a circle, which travels circularly, and the moving image is an art form based on time and mirror images of the myriad world. Images and sounds wander and collide in our receptive senses, and life revolved around the screens has become our way of experiencing the world. In this sense, the art of moving images engages, assesses, intervenes, or has even shaped the psychological symptoms and social life of our generation.

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The city binds the works of the past, the contemporary, and the future. It’s more a system that operates the lives of the urbanites, but a collective work of many generations; it’s not a written book, but one that’s being re-read and re-written. The new urban dwellers who have just arrived are inventing new features and forms of the city and transforming it into their works.

Every city is a work of art created by generations of people living there, while the new city has also been “on exhibit” in each generation’s works.

Contemporary art has afforded the city a compound structure to encompass time, space, bodies, and desires. It can transform a product of space into an artwork about space, transforming urban dwellers from product consumers to creators of their own artworks. Contemporary art supports new urbanites:

· To realize one’s experience in the city over a period of time into a work of art;

· To present one’s artwork in one’s city;

· To transform the city into one’s artwork;

· To present the city in one’s artwork.

Contemporary art integrates the spaces of everyday living, architecture, design, the fashion of a city into the “gesamtkunstwerk” of art and discovers new capacities for surviving the Anthropocenic city of a new festival of commonality.

In an era where new works are being created, APSMUSEUM aims to unite artists, architects, designers, and all talents in the creative disciplines to stimulate new desires and wisdom in the city and show the public other possible tracks of life beyond work and leisure. We will engage in urban practice through integrated interdisciplinary art exhibitions, public programs, art shops and an art flash shop in collaboration with Xinhua Bookstore, a subsidiary of Shanghai Xinhua Media Group. In doing so, we aim to foster a pollinating economy that would bring together contemporary art, architecture, design, and fashion beyond the art institutions and social practice and engendering the ethic of stems in the new urban society, where its components, intrigue, share, contribute, empower and reciprocate with one another.

As the anthropologist and sociologist, Georges Bataille has put it, an art space is the lungs of the metropolis, and the masses that poured in are the blood that stimulates the city. By amplifying, fermenting, cataloging works of art and their relationships with their viewers, an art space in the city introduces fresh oxygen and provides a profound grammar for urban space planning and the development for organizing urban life.

XU ZHEN®’s practice is committed to probe issues around the pretension of human condition, looking to upset and challenge the assumptions of established order. Experience – Venus de Milo presents an elaborated outline of the classic “Venus without arms”. Based on their own cultural experience, viewers can still clearly identify the source of the image. The work fuses digital media and cultural genes to create a new perspective on aesthetics and angle on media representation, as well as stimulate viewers’ visual memory through cultural experience.

Himalayas Museum has gone through a glorious and beautiful time, and has also made its due efforts and contributions to contemporary art. Even though the tide has ebb and flow, and ups and downs, we have not been lost, nor have we given up. Despite the hardships and difficulties that we have encountered, we have been learning and renewing ourselves. And we are still full of hopes and have confidence in our future. The reason why this special exhibition is entitled “Black Out” is to show that even though there have been some embarrassing and helpless situations, contemporary art is also experiencing aphasia and amnesia in the current context. The fact that we dare to honestly face those situations is to demonstrate that we have confidence in ourselves. It also indicates that we will start anew. We will continue to make our efforts in this heated field with ideal and passion and will try to turn a new page in the history of our museum. Even though mountains may have valleys, they have broad terrains. “Black Out” is a turning point and it will bring about sunshine and hope……

The year of 2020 defines a great watershed of the global landscape as well as of mankind as a whole. The ideology strucutres since Cold War and post-Cold War has been downright overthrown as the pandemic rages. In the meantime, to worsen the matter, the once familiar cultural and political conflicts have violently staged its comeback, further accelerating the collapse of globalization and the turmoil of humanity.

The art world (and the culture system as well) which clings to the global Capitalism system has fully revealed its weakness in this era of pandemic. Even today, the COVID and the looming global conflicts have not yet stopped, and the destiny of the world and mankind have become indeed indefinite. At the moment, we are not only facing the question of how to regain the will of life, or the power of art, but more importantly, that of deciding what the role and function of art will (or should) be.

At this special historical moment, three artists, Wang Xingwei, Xu Zhen® and Song Ta, who were born in the late 1960s, 70s and 80s, have gathered together and hope to create a new voice of the era and action force through their intersections and collision. The three artists grew up in three different places: northeast, east and south of China. All of them have strong regional characteristics, but at the same time, they share many common qualities. In addition to their shared keen senses to art, they have this kind of humor, frankness and conceited evilness that are capable of desecrating all sacred power. Yuan Mei, a scholar of Qing Dynasty, wrote in his poem Mount Zhuo Bi: “A solitary peak stands tall for a long time without earthly strives, where there are gods in all sides of the wind and cloud. With this pen that is from the horizon to the sky, who do I need to rely on?” The poem conveys the artistic conception that only by being outstanding can one be able to amaze the world. Perhaps it is the most appropriate description of the three artists.

This exhibition is honored to gather the three artists’ works in recent years. They are full of reasonless absurdity and oriental colors that are both real and sham. They are stylish and novel, but not carnivals; they are alternative and non-mainstream, yet they stay closely to the pulse of the earth and the times; they are a manifesto of new aesthetics, but not a simple patchwork of symbols. In fact, they lead to deep ponderings of history and extraordinary imagination for the future, in various methods of handling complicated matters with ease and vice versa. The three artists sketch a picture of the Chinese culture, society and politics in the era of globalization. Although it seems extremely incorrect and even reprehensible, what it carries may be most Chinese people’s expectation for the future.

In this Internet era that is constantly upgrading, we still have to do business with passion, do passional business, and turn business into passion, because that is art-making and exhibition-planning. “Commerce of Passions” is how the famous utopian socialist, Charles Fourier, addresses art. He regards art as a broader business, as a business in a biological economy, a political economy, a libido economy, a contribution (anti-entropy) economy other than the capitalist economy. “Art For Sale” in 1999 had raised this question: Why not? In the age of stacking, contemporary art has to be such commerce of passions: through such exchanges, everyone has equal rights in front of automatic machines, express parcels and mobile phone screens; at the same time, it recognizes and encourages different workers to equally contribute to public welfare, so that everyone can freely devote themselves to the cause they love.

This is because the use of contemporary art to transform urban core and its commercial space must not only support the re-appropriation of wealth by all residents as co-authors of the city, but also re-utilize all concurrent estate in the city by building a dominant force, restoring their original use values, in order for cities to become everyone’s common currency, and everyone’s own art-text.

Therefore, at present, this art and commerce project with “Social, Vision and Playfulness” as the main axis is realizing an ideal: with culture and art as t thread, international vision as pattern, in the commercial space to explore interactive relationships among humans, between human and consciousness domains, and between human and urban space.

In addition to incorporating contemporary art, the “Shanghai Plaza” project is also engraved in history. It started in the east section of Huaihai Middle Road, and this year marks the 120th anniversary of its construction. In the long axis of time, it is the background of past prosperity, and also a testimony to the values of new generations. This is for the first time a business model integrates consumption, office, art, culture, creativity and other dimensions into one. It is an attempt to wrap around life with “fineness”, and “fineness” has already surpassed the previous customary definition, demonstrating further connotations and directions beyond.

“Panorama: Serendipitous Encounters of Worlds” is a multi-year project that brings together a large-scale art exhibition and the urban landscape. The concept of the “panorama” was important to the initial construction of the museum space, which emphasizes the juxtaposition of the exhibition and its urban setting. Visitors move between views of the exhibition gallery and views of the city from the air, so the works of art are part of both the exhibition and the urban space. The spatial dislocations of multiple times, spaces, and regional cultures, which are comprised of space (in the architectural sense) and works of art, are connected to the subtitle of the show: “Serendipitous Encounters of Worlds.”

“People who live in the world are constantly shaping the world based on their surroundings—whether they be realities or dreams. People are caught up in these many worlds, and no one can be left behind. In the art world, artists are all realists, actively creating dreams and occasionally forgetting themselves. Here, visitors can look at art and occasionally look down on the entire city. While reveling in the urban panorama, you will come to appreciate the art around you—the experience is a blend of the real and illusory, true and false, believable and doubtful. Our grasp of the world is decided by our grasp of ourselves. Are we innocent bystanders or directly involved? Is this the real world or nirvana? All of this is related to how we manage our relationships with others.” This was how Wang Yamin, the exhibition’s curator, poetically explained the experience of viewing the exhibition. He puts himself in the viewer’s shoes, discussing the exhibition as a viewer would. Hovering outside the self reflects the exhibition’s uncertainty, another element in this show. During the nine-month exhibition, Wang Yamin and the G Museum team will present a series of public education events focused on the subject of the city. These mobile lectures and dialogues become part of the exhibition, creating truly meaningful encounters between conceptions of the world.

Sorry, this entry is only available in 中文.

Sorry, this entry is only available in 中文.

What is painting? That is the question that runs across a rectangle of canvas exhibited in the new installation of the permanent collection of The Museum of Modern Art in New York:

WHAT IS PAINTING

DO YOU SENSE HOW ALL THE PARTS OF A GOOD PICTURE ARE INVOLVED WITH EACH OTHER, NOT JUST PLACED SIDE BY SIDE? ART IS A CREATION FOR THE EYE AND CAN ONLY BE HINTED AT WITH WORDS.

John Baldessari’s painting, What is Painting (1966-68), sparked the attention of Austin Lee when he saw the work at the Museum of Modern Art last fall. “It’s been stuck in my head ever since,” Lee recounts. “I think of painting as evidence of a state of mind. Documentation of thoughts. That can take form in an infinite amount of variations.”

Good Pictures, curated by Austin Lee, expands Baldessari’s investigation into what it takes to make a good painting, or more generally, a good picture. In Good Pictures, Lee has brought together artists with whom he has a personal history, some of which he considers part of his artist community. As Lee reveals, “They are artists who have influenced what my idea of painting is. Some through years of discussion, some from only seeing the work online.”

The works in Good Pictures embrace the holistic idea suggested by Baldessari’s painting that “all the parts of a good picture are involved with each other, not just placed side by side.” The exhibition showcases a mix of styles and techniques with some technological experimentation. Baldessari’s ironic painting is an invitation to celebrate seemingly simple “fundamentals of art.” The show is not meant to answer the question, but provide a prompt for artists in a group show to do what they always do.

Prior to the grand opening of the 13th Shanghai Biennale “Bodies of Water” this fall, the Power Station of Art is going to hold “Shanghai Waves: Historical Archives and Works of Shanghai Biennale” from July 31 to November 15, 2020, representing more than sixty works by 51 domestic and foreign artists and groups, including paintings, installations, videos, etc. Most of these exhibits are from the collection of previous editions of the Shanghai Biennale held in the China Art Museum,Shanghai and the Power Station of Art. The exhibition is built on two cross-referential documentary threads, which serve as the development course of the era linked up by major events, and personal objects, photos, materials and other documents at the courtesy of many artists. By converging personal memories into a historical narrative framework, the exhibition shall present the history of the Shanghai Biennale with feelings and evolutions, in order to inspire and enlighten viewers by revisitng the past and considering the present in the post-pandemic period when they are forced into a slowdown and standstill.

Artists participating in this exhibition are: Moinak Biswas, Chang Qing, Chen Junde, Chen Shaoxiong, Chen Zhen, Willem De Rooij, Ding Yi, Fang Lijun, Regina Jose Galindo, Gu Wenda, Hong Hao, Hu Xiangcheng, Huang Yongping, Ji Dachun, Leandro Katz, Liang Shaoji, Liang Shuo, Liu Qingyuan, Liu Wei, Luo Yongjin, Mao Yan, Yasumasa Morimura, Bird Head, Qiu Anxiong, Qu Fengguo, Raqs Media Collective, Shang Yang, Surabhi Sharma & Tejaswini Niranjana, Shen Fan, Gagandeep Singh, Wang Tiande, Weng Fen, Cell Art Group, Xia Junna, Xia Yang, Xiang Liqing , Xiao Qin, Xu Zhen, Yan Peiming, Yang Zhenzhong, Zhang Enli, Zhang Huan, Zhang Jianjun, Zhang Peili, Zhang Yu, Zhang Zhenggang, Zhou Changjiang, Zhou Chunya, Zhou Tao, Zhou Tiehai, Zhou Xiaohu (in alphabetical order)

History and Evolution of Shanghai Biennale

Founded in 1996, the Shanghai Biennale has become one of the most important international art biennales after 24 years of academic persistence by generations of art museum professionals. It is not only a biannual international art event, but also an important source of urban renewal and cultural production in Shanghai.

The initial intention of the Shanghai Biennale was very simple, that is, to build a platform for Chinese artists to effectively communicate with the world, and to open a window for Chinese audience to understand the world’s most cutting-edge artistic thinking and creation. Fang Zengxian (1931-2019), initiator of the Shanghai Biennale, wrote in his word to the first Shanghai Biennale, “China should have its own international art exhibition. In order to achieve two-way selections and equal exchanges in a real sense, it is a noble ideal of art, and also the only way in history.” The 1st Shanghai (Fine Art) Biennale “Open Space” mainly displayed easel paintings by domestic painters, and many of them applied mixed materials to experimental artworks. In addition, the exhibition featured the installations by Chinese artists Chen Zhen, Gu Wenda, and Zhang Jianjun, who are active overseas.

Since its establishment, the Shanghai Biennale keeps to the path of continuous self-innovation and exploration, with its root set in Shanghai. “With Shanghai as the matrix, it will practice a series of propositions in a cross-cultural and interdisciplinary way in the development of an Eastern city” (Xu Jiang). In 1998, the 2nd Shanghai (Fine Art) Biennale “Inheritance and Exploration” consisted of two main sections “Inheritance and Exploration” and “Absorption and Integration”, which analysed and demonstrated the new dynamic of ink and wash as a traditional Chinese medium under the current cultural context,“Inheritance and Exploration” and “Absorption and Integration”. In 2000, the 3rd Shanghai Biennale made a major breakthrough by building on the previous two exhibitions. It removed “Fine Art” from the title of the biennale, and started to widely include more diverse forms such as installations and videos. At the same time, the Shanghai Biennale established the curator system and invited international curators and artists into the Shanghai Biennale, allowing difference voices to rise and constructing positive conversations Since then, the Shanghai Biennale has become China’s first international biennale in the real sense. In 2004, the 5th Shanghai Biennale “Techniques of the Visible” established a “News Center” in order to reach a wider range of audience through media publicity across multiple channels, which had effectively increased the number of visitors over the past sessions. In 2006, the 6th Shanghai Biennale “Hyper Design” officially established the Shanghai Biennale Organizing Committee and launched the official website. In 2012, the Shanghai Biennale moved its venue to the Power Station of Art. With the establishment and implementation of the Academic Committee and Chief Curator Systems, the Shanghai Biennale took the opportunity of “reactivation” to develop jointly with this building which was known as the Nanshi Power Plant in the memory of the city.

The Shanghai Biennale encompasses a rich variety of themes. In 2002, the 4th edition “Urban Creation” described the current development of new urban architecture in China and the lifestyle of urban residents. In 2004, the 5th edition “Techniques of the Visible” was dedicated to introducing the image technology in visualization, as well as the multiple relationships between technology and humanities. In 2006, the 6th edition “Hyper Design” took off from design to reduce opposition between art and practicality. In 2010, the 8th edition “Rehearsal” observed the Expo host city Shanghai from the perspective of the “Expo Theater”. “Rehearsal” is an experiment conducted to discover multiple possibilities at this moment, and to build the Biennale Theater into a multi-domain and cross-media public scene. The exhibition theater has become a multi-domain and cross-media public scene. The Shanghai Biennale Exhibition has now become a platform for interdisciplinary collaboration and cross-media dialogue. The topics and impacts involved have radiated to wider domains such as urban studies, philosophy, sociology, and anthropology.

Shanghai, an international metropolis that took the lead in embracing modernity, provides the Shanghai Biennale with a fertile soil for organic growth, and constantly motivates curators and artists to think. In 2000, Hou Hanru, co-curator of the 3rd Shanghai Biennale “Shanghai Spirit”, believed that the core of Shanghai spirit lies in its “cultural openness, diversity, hybridity and positive innovative attitude”. This biennale regards the development process of Shanghai as a unique modernity and explores the cultural positioning of contemporary cities in the context of globalization. In 2008, the 7th Shanghai Biennale “Translocalmotion” focused on “people”, who are workers, migrants and residents in this rapidly developing city. In the main project, the exhibition invited about 20 domestic and foreign artists to conduct field research on the iconic “People’s Square” and take it as a starting point for creation. In 2014, the 10th edition “Social Factory” shifted its attention from Shanghai’s social phenomena to the core of its modern social structure. In 2018, the 12th edition borrowed the word “Proregress” from the American poet e. e. Cummings and ancient Chinese mythology to look into the relationship between the world’s faster growth and artists’ creative practice.

The Shanghai Biennale has been actively interacting with the city where it is staged, tapping into the hinterland, and moving the exhibition space to streets and alleys. In 2012, the 9th edition “Reactivation” initiated the City Pavilion project, inviting more than 30 cities from all over the world to participate in the exhibition, and distributed their masterpieces to historical buildings along the Waibaidu Bridge—Yuanmingyuan Road—North Sichuan Road—East Nanjing Road. In 2014, the 10th edition “Social Factory” continued the concept of City Pavilion for the exhibition “City Workshop”. It selected the cultural and commercial representative “Huaihai Road” and the extended public space as a subvenue of City Pavilion, artistically activating the most dynamic art corridor in Shanghai. In 2016, the 11th edition “Why Not Ask Again” lasted for three months, when it discovered and observed personal stories in the City Project “51 Personae”. In 2018, the 12th Shanghai Biennale “Proregress” created various sections such as “City Exhibition Hall”, “City Cinema”, “City Archaeological Team”, which provided the public with a unique life perspective and further explored the distinctive humanistic charm of Shanghai.

“C” is the symbol of the current idol culture and a product of the values of the new era. “C”, in whichever configuration it is displayed to the public, will always forge a kind of energy that exists in the form of idols, music, art et cetera, with unlimited possibilities. Contemporary art also contains formidable energy.

The exhibition came into existence through the initiatives of ROCKET GIRLS 101 MENG MEIQI & RISE ZHOU ZHENNAN, and the creations for the theme “C” by artists CHENG RAN x MARTIN GOYA BUSINESS, He Xiangyu, Liao Fei, Shi Zheng, Tan Tian and XU ZHEN. The exhibition is fittingly presented at thevenues of TANK Shanghai which allows the audience to not only feel the energy from vvCn and the idols in the exhibition space，but also experience the energy brought by TANK Shanghai and the artists.

“C”: Digital Interactive Art Experiment promotes the communication between contemporary art and society in diverse ways in the hope of pondering, through this exhibition the value-role that art should be ascribed in the process of continuous social development. As a pioneering and multifunctional contemporary art institution TANK Shanghai believes that art and creative experiments are an essential driving force in the society as of today.

Wild Cinema: Reshape the city with youthfulness, and redesign it as your artwork

What can contemporary art do to battle against the COVID-19 pandemic? Here comes the answer: looking for the new definition of art to help people survive the epidemic, and having an art carnival in the city core to calm people. Guided by the enthusiastic young generation, we reorganize the virus-stricken art world and create its new rules with creative practice.

Wild Cinema, the first opening group exhibition of iag, is fiercely landing at TX Huaihai | Youth Energy Center on June 12th, 2020. The new concept of “Contemporary Art Cinema” has endowed the exhibition with the long-delayed city mission of contemporary art: reshape the city with youthfulness, and redesign it as your artwork. It aims to provide the city core of Shanghai with immersive art experiences. When surrounded by artworks, visitors can go beyond the physical boundaries of art gallery, art space and other art forms, and thus build their fresh inspiration into the system of contemporary art.

The contemporary art cinema hopes to answer the following questions: in concert with this generation of young people, how can contemporary art discover and publicize their experience, ideas and careers? What should it do for them? What can young people do when invited to appreciate art works? How can exhibition encourage young people to get energetically involved in learning and living, and take a leading role in the artistic business, thus incubating a new city core with their youthfulness.

Empower young people, and inspire the new force with freedom and crossovers, thereby creating the new art, new industry as well as the new business of the city core. To achieve that, we offer them the Wild Cinema to refresh their soul, reveal their lives, provoke their innovative thinking and exhibit their worlds.

The Wild Cinema exhibition will soon spread all over the country after the very first exhibition to be held at TX Huaihai | Youth Energy Center, where more than 20 artists will kick the tires of the decommercialized shopping mall for young people. Visitors are invited to engage in the large-scale interactive installations to construct their own art scenes, and create their own art. Also, Cc Art Museum will build a priceless, unique and exclusive contemporary art cosmos, placing an academic contemporary art museum into the city core to popularize the youthfulness and the contemporary art, so as to demonstrate that contemporary art is a reflection of the city’s space-time extension. It can awaken the city core with artworks and reinvigorate it by offering each citizen the appreciation of beauty:

• turn their individual space-time into artistic works；
• model artistic works after their city’s space-time；
• write their own lives in the city’s stories, like street musicians’ depicting their harsh time with grief or joy in their compositions.

New York, NY; December 3, 2019. The inaugural Asia Society Triennial—a multi-venue festival and first of its kind in the United States devoted to celebrating Asian contemporary art, ideas, and innovation—will feature as its centerpiece an exhibition entitled We Do Not Dream Alone, on view at venues across New York City from June 5–August 9, 2020. The exhibition will present approximately 40 artists and include more than 18 newly commissioned works by participants from Asia and the Asian diaspora, many participating in a major New York museum exhibition for the first time. Cocurated by Boon Hui Tan, Vice President of Global Artistic Programs and Director of Asia Society Museum, who is also the Artistic Director of the Triennial, and Michelle Yun, Senior Curator of Asian Contemporary Art and Associate Director of the Asia Society Triennial, the exhibition will open to the public on Friday, June 5, 2020.

The initiative seeks to gather artists who are confronting timely issues of global concern. “Societies have been splintered by forces, both natural and political, that are exerting pressure on the ties that historically bound individuals, cultures, and communities. These conditions challenge artists to dream and imagine worlds sometimes serene and sometimes nightmarish,” says Mr. Tan. “Asia is not an isolated physical realm. It is not ‘out there’; it is here and everywhere. We are interconnected, and artists are key actors in reimagining these ties and how they enrich and help us make sense of our lives. We chose these artists because of their engagement with international affairs and their ability to transcend borders and other divides. Art in this moment must demonstrate our common humanity and express our ability to dream together. We designed the Triennial to foster conversations in art, policy, education, technology, and innovation. The exhibition and programs affirm the power of the artistic voice and its critical role in society today.

“The Asia Society Triennial advances the legacy of the Museum as a cultural vanguard for artistic voices from and about Asia. This new international platform builds on more than six decades of institutional heritage of diplomacy and systematic engagement between Asia and America,” says Agnes Hsu-Tang, Ph.D., Executive Chair of the Triennial and Chair of the Triennial Steering Committee. “We are galvanized by the enthusiastic participation of leading thinkers, policy makers, educators, and partnerships with fellow New York institutions to further proliferate the ideas and innovations that form the intellectual core of the Triennial.”

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Performance’s only life is in the present. Performance cannot be saved, recorded, documented, or otherwise participate in the circulation of representations of representations: once it does so, it becomes something other than performance. To the degree that performance attempts to enter the economy of reproduction, it betrays and lessens the promise of its own ontology.

—— Peggy Phelan

In the eyes of a performance fundamentalist like Phelan, once this medium degrades to the object of reproduction of images would be fully degenerate. Behind this, one would likely find its supporting position of “dematerialization,” advocated by the second avant-garde art movement.  Where the medium is isomorphic to capitalism – only that such ideology seems somewhat flimsy before the realities of a new medium. Since the 1960s, performance became integral to media art, in the swings of live experience and reproduction, presentation and representation, we come to realize that what was once referred to as the classic “performance art”  often preserved in a mediated form. Video art is undoubtedly one of the critical loops. Recorded performance or performance videos derived into many complicated forms, the interactions between the body and technological media bring together two different types of discourse, where the organic and the artificial, the immediate and the documentary, the flesh and the screen generate unavoidable friction and integration. These are the points of departure for this exhibition.  

What “Embodied Mirror” attempts to explore is the intimate exchange between video art and performance in the history of Chinese contemporary art. At its inception, video art in China was integral to performance art. With time passing through the camera lens, Zhang Peili’s 30 x 30 (1988) allowed the viewer to observe the body objectively, from which to arrive at the impact of its metaphorical effects. Thereon, in the development of video art in China, many artists have adopted strategic approaches to extend the mediums of video art and performance for one another. This exhibition presents five themes, “Autobiography,” “Event,” “Dancer,” “Speaker,” and “Theater.” Each topic will address an independent clue in combing through the diverse and complex phenomenon of this overlapping domain.

“Embodied Mirror” points to the fact that video art does not necessarily provide the “stage” for performance, but a “mirror” or “exit” to access the world. It does not necessarily emancipate the body or to isolate it from the confines of social and historical discourses, but provides new strategic device or decoder. Where the body becomes the embodiment of “eternity” and “transmission” in the context of moving image, and the medium becomes a new scenario of life. At the same time, the subject’s response to reality translates into a shared media sensibility.  

“Word”, either in its spoken and written form, is an ancient method of information transmission, a carrier of historical records, and is also considered as an invention in the history of technological evolution. In the general contemporary visual experience, the word comes in the form of subtitles, voice-overs, advertising slogans, plain texts, captions, prefaces, and curatorial statements. The words attach meanings, and so is of value, and helps communication. The word can be edited, typeset, bolded, italicized, copied, pasted, and is the name of Microsoft’s iconic software. In this exhibition, the viewer does not see the object pointed to by the “named” words, rather, words are just words and they proliferate. Here, the word is fixed. It can be without meanings, but it is placed in the foreground, like an image to make itself visible.

In 1976, American art critic and art historian Annette Michelson and Rosalind Krauss founded the journal October. The journal name was taken from Eisenstein’s film October in 1927, which commemorated the 10th anniversary of the “October Revolution”. This is also the year in which Trotsky was deported.

Eisenstein is the witness of the “February Revolution” and “October Revolution”. The film is full of his understanding and perception of these two revolutions. In an article entitled The Dialectic view of Film Forms, Eisenstein said that all new things are born in the struggle of opposite contradictions. The”October Revolution” is the turning point of the era that changes the history of the world and creates anew system. Montage can vividly reveal the belligerence of the revolution. The “February Revolution” is essentially different from the “October Revolution”. The former is the bourgeois revolution, while the latter the proletariat. And the “dialectic montage” on the screen exactly shows the break between the two.

Eisenstein’s October is a masterpiece of the Soviet silent films. It not only creates a new art paradigm, but itself can also be regarded as a political action. It is this moment of revolutionary practice,theoretical exploration and artistic innovation that has become the starting point for the thinking and action of Michelson and Krauss. For them, the art revolution that took place in Soviet Union more than half a century ago radiated to all areas of literature, painting, architecture and film. And the birth of this artistic revolution and historical movement is civil war, factional disputes and economic crisis. In the first issue of October, the two editors stated that their purpose was not to make the myths or Hadith of the revolution immortal, nor to share this self-verification sadness, but to revisit the relationship between several arts in their own culture at this time, and based on this, to re-discuss their meanings and roles at this important historical juncture.

In fact, before the publication of October, Michelson had published a paper on Soviet avant-garde film Camera Lucida/Camera Obscura in the Artforum (January 1973). The article mainly discussed the works of Sergei Eisenstein and Stan Brakhage in different periods, especially focusing on the film language of Eisenstein’s October. Michelson pointed out that for Eisenstein, film is the inheritance of philosophy. He embodied aesthetic principles as an epistemology and eventually led to ethics. Therefore, “montage thinking cannot be separated from holistic thinking.” October is a thinking paradigm that constantly repeats “Film Form” and “Film Sense”. Eisenstein’s active and profound involvement in his own consciousness (to attribute himself to the historical process of the revolution) makes us aware that his work is some kind of vector in the process of historical transformation. Here, Michelson has clarified the integral relationship between Eisenstein’s film language in October (or the “epic style”) and revolutionary politics. For Michelson, film is only part of it. She also mentioned in the article that Eisenstein was nourished by poetry, painting and drama at that time. These arts have successively appeared, following the complex path around Russia’s “October Revolution”, from futurism to cubism and to constructivism. Only by studying Tatlin and Rodchenko, and how they understand cubism, can we have a deeper understanding of Eisenstein. Three years later, the second issue of October in 1976 published Eisenstein’s notes for a film of “Capital” in 1927-28, as well as the introduction and commentary of Michelson. In her comments, Michelson also mentioned October, which reads, “October  is Eisenstein’s most delicate and complicated effort in moving toward a thorough art film. …by changing the time flow of events and the surrounding narrative structure …it attracts new attention and induces inferences about spatial and temporal relationships.” Here, “the power of montage exists in the ‘primitive’ fact, and the ideal image is not fixed or ready-made, but produced. It gathers in the perception of audience.”

Until today, the top right corner of the cover of October still marks the four key words “Art”, “Theory”, “Criticism” and “Politics” as its basic positioning and value. And from the beginning, they made it clear that October is anti-commercial, anti-college and anti-institutional, which is also the difference between it and the abstract expressionism and formalism that has been commercialized at this time. But it is no coincidence that the revolutionary avant-garde in the early 20th century constituted their common narrative starting point. The first issue of October mentioned the Party Review, a left-wing publication with Trotskyism. The two editors did not deny the political nature of Party Review, but they felt that it was increasingly “ignoring innovation in art and criticism,” and even “encouraging the development of new vulgarism in the intellectual world.” It should not be overlooked that the Party Review is also themain theoretical position of Greenberg in the early days. In the early 1940s, he worked as a journal editor for several years, and his early most important commentary, Avant-Garde and Kitsch (1939), was published in the Party Review. In this article, Greenberg clearly opposed the kitsch academicism, commercialism and socialist realism. For him, the real representative of the avant-garde is abstract painting. The abstraction here seemingly refers to formalistic painting, but in fact it represents the entire avant-garde art movement opened by the 1917 “October Revolution”, including Mayakovsky and the LEF group in literature, the formalism and constructivism genre in painting, Eisenstein, Pudovkin and Dovshenko in the film industry, Taïroff and Meyerhold in drama. The spiritual leader of the avant-garde art movement is Trotskyism. Pi Li has done a very clear combing on this background: In 1924, Stalin assumed leadership over the Soviet Union following Lenin’s death. Trotsky was expelled from the party by Stalin in 1927 and was in exile. In 1928, in order to eliminate the influence of Trotsky, Stalin strengthened his control over the Third International. Stalinism gradually replaced Trotskyism, which also aroused the vigilance of many European progressive intellectuals who had supported the “October Revolution”. In the same year, Mussolini took office with the left-wing socialist banner. He ended the parliament in Italy and abolished all political groups and suppressed progressive intellectuals and the Communist Party. The rise of Mussolini made progressive intellectuals see the danger of fascism in Europe. From the late 1920s to the mid-1930s, intellectuals also tried to pin their hopes of eliminating fascism on Stalin. Even after Hitler came to power in 1933, they did not give up. However, Stalin and Hitler signed the Treaty of Non-aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in August 1939 and then secretly divided Poland. The Treaty led to the complete disillusionment of European progressive intellectuals’ ideals of Soviet Union and Stalinism, which in their view was the confluence of fascism and Stalinism. When they thought of the exile of constructivist artists by the Soviet Union, they felt that Stalinism was almost synonymous with fascism. Thus, the honeymoon period of modernism and communism has come to an end at this moment.

Greenberg published the article Avant-Garde and Kitsch in 1939, which should not be a coincidence. Although Greenberg criticized socialist realism and fascist art, he did not give up revolutionary politics and modernism. In other words, Trotskyism is the background of his theory. At the end of the article, he said: “Today we no longer look toward socialism for a new culture-as inevitably as one will appear, once we do have socialism. Today we look to socialism simply for the preservation of whatever living culture we have right now.” Socialism here is not Stalin’s socialism, but Trotsky’s socialism. About 20 years later, in a footnote in New York Painting Only Yesterday (1957), Greenberg wrote: “Though that is not all, by far, that there was politics in art in those years; someday it will have to be told how ‘anti-Stalinism,’ which started out more or less as ‘Trotskyism,’ turned into art for art’s sake, and thereby cleared the way, heroically, for what was to come.” This has already clarified his relationship with Trotskyism, and the reason why it was placed in a footnote may be to “deceive the public”. After all, the entire United States has not yet come out of the shadow of McCarthyism.

As mentioned earlier, Trotsky was deported in 1927 and began his exile. In the same year, Eisenstein completed the film October which was to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the “October Revolution.” It is worth mentioning that Trotsky published an important long essay entitled Lessons ofOctober in 1924. He systematically combed and reviewed issues like “the democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasants”, “July Days, Kornilov affair” and “Soviet’s ‘legality'” since the 1917 “October Revolution” (including the “February Revolution”) in the essay. On this basis, the need for the “Bolschevization” of the Communist International was reiterated – an indisputable and definitive task. He said: “The Bolsheviks are not just a doctrine but a revolutionary education system for the proletarian revolution……’This is Hegel, this is the wisdom in the book, and this is the whole meaning of philosophy! ……'” Trotsky finally mentioned Hegel. Coincidentally, Eisenstein’s so-called “dialectical montage”, that is, “contradictory opposites” and “natural unity” are consistent with Hegel’s dialectics, which both enters a new “thesis-antithesis-synthesis” by the “thesis-antithesis-synthesis.” By analogy, contradictions spiral up and develop in constant conflicts. I don’t know if Eisenstein’s October comes directly from Trotsky’s long essay, but there is indeed an intrinsic connection between the two. Half a century later, Michelson and Krauss chose it as one of their motivations to found the October journal. The “October Revolution”, Eisenstein and (early) Greenberg together formed the starting point for their actions. At this time, the United States and the Soviet Union are in the cold war. But it is clear that October doesn’t favor either of them. What it truly recognizes is the Fourth International: “Trotskyism.”

Although Greenberg also mentioned the practice part of modernism, from the end of the 1940s to around the 1960s, he rarely mentioned how modernism could be a revolutionary political movement, nor the criticism of the bourgeoisie and kitsch. An important reason that can’t be ignored is the cleaning of McCarthyism in the early 1950-54. In some sense, it was McCarthy’s purge that forced Greenberg to abandon revolutionary politics, but only committed to constructing a set of “closed” formalist discourses, which evolved into a set of monopolar hegemonic narratives. However, this discourse quickly colluded with the rising art market and somewhat echoed the neoliberal ideology that dominated the mainstream and expanded globally. It was also during this period that the voices of anti-formalistic hegemony accompanying the wave of civil rights movement, anti-war movement and anti-cultural movement were upsurging. In particular, the rise of conceptual art and its “dematerialization” movement eventually led to the withdrawal of formalism. The art world was looking forward to a new revolution, and October was undoubtedly part of it. As Greenberg said in the article Avant-Garde and Kitsch: “Where there is an avant-garde, generally we also find a rear-guard.” This sentence can also be said: where there is a guard, there is avant-garde.

Michelson died of illness at the age of 97 in September 2018, while old Krauss is still very sprightly. The October journal has gone through more than 40 years of history. Although today’s art criticism, art media and even the entire art ecology have changed from the past, October is still outstanding, as it’s not only a revolution in art criticism and art cognition, but also a political movement itself. If this is the meaning of the birth of the October journal, then today’s question is, can we find an identical or similar (or can we return to the) starting point for action? Perhaps we must also reiterate Trotsky’s question 90 years ago: “What is permanent revolution?”

At this new historical juncture today, our exhibition “Corner Square Montage” hopes to return to the avant-garde moment again. The exhibition was curated by the art director of Surplus Space, Lu Mingjun. We specially invited Tang Xiaohe, Wang Jianwei, Chen Chieh-Jen, Xu Zhen, Zhang Ding, Shi Qing, Gong Jian, Li Yu + Liu Bo, Lang Xuebo, Li Liao, Hu Wei and Wu Hao, hoping that through the collisions of their works with different medias, languages and styles from different periods, a new kind of montage and political power will be generated.

Rossi & Rossi is delighted to present Theatre of New Gods, a group exhibition featuring twelve artists from Taiwan, Hong Kong and mainland China. Each offers his unique perspective in observing the relationship between god and people, constituting a cultural kaleidoscope for a glimpse into the various developments of the same religious belief under different trajectories in history.

Theatre of New Godsis an idea inspired by a field trip to research the folk culture in Tainan by the curator, Chris Wan Feng. The rich diversity of folk religious activities, especially with their respective theatrical rituals and timeless architectonic environs, serve as a reminder that the research in religions can help trace the course of changes in human society and mirror the context where the culture of today is being constantly shaped, portrayed and re-interpreted. If we were to think that religion is rooted in the spiritual interaction between deities and the human individual or collective and in the constant re-imagination of such experience, we must acknowledge “divinity” as such is still being actively renewed and re-created. The “new gods” in this sense are being reshaped in the day-to-day theatrical performances, prompting us to probe into the humanity and the human life embedded in it.

Shanghai artist Xu Zhen®(b. 1977) often approaches contemporary Chinese social phenomenon in his signature witty and playful manner. The exhibition features one of his small bodhisattva sculptures placed diagonally across the puppet theatre stage.

The exhibition layout is reminiscent of the continuum of space in Chinese temples, indicating the return to and recurrence of history. The show will be accompanied by a series of workshops, seminars and publications, in an attempt to renew the discussion and the re-imagination of religiosity, beliefs and folk culture.

Joseph Beuys declared: “Everyone is an artist” and Andy Warhol said “In the future, everyone will be world famous for fifteen minutes”, these masters are long gone but the predictions stayed. More than thirty years after, these two prophecies came to us and constitute our reality. Facing this diversified, tumultuous and ever-changing world, art is intensively seeking for new forms of expression. Curated by the artist Xu Zhen, and with the philosopher Lu Xinghua as academic advisor, the exhibition “Wild Metropolis” will showcase this continuously mutating reality, presenting the diversified status quo of the virtual digital world in relation to urbanization development, and will reveal a pure state of contemporary cultural imagination.

Here the term “Wild” not only refers to the barbarism of the surrounding reality, the cultural environment without notions of classes and borders, but also to the growth of a popular network culture. Therefore, “Wild Metropolis” observes and excavates status quo without restrictions through cultural investigations and social researches. At the core of this exhibition, various topics such as the reality of virtualization, the capitalization of culture, big data calculations, the consequences of national branding, individual fragmentation and more will be addressed, while hotspots that are modifying the directions and dimensions of life will be explored in depth.

“Wild Metropolis” not only features international artists standing at the forefront of new contemporary art trends, it also includes cross-disciplinary artists such as musicians and fashion designers. Installations, performances, video works, media art and digital art will be exhibited transcending traditions and reflecting youthful expression in a spectacle manner. During that specific period, the exhibition venue will be designed in a dynamic platform alternating between contemporary art exhibition and experimental music stage, proposing an unprecedented experience to the viewers. The show will trigger visitors to explore how mass consumer cultural products are being produced, how to become a member of a social civilization, how to influence other cultural developments and other themes.

“Wild Metropolis” will gather various groups of people, from the perspective of humanities and sociology, to show creation and imagination, it will constitute a forward-looking exhibition of mixed reality and vision of the future.

James Cohan is pleased to present James Cohan: Twenty Years, a special group exhibition celebrating the gallery’s twentieth anniversary. On view from November 1 through December 20 at James Cohan’s Tribeca and Lower East Side gallery spaces, the exhibition will feature new or historical works by every artist in the current program. James Cohan will host opening receptions on Friday, November 1 from 5-7 PM at 291 Grand Street and 6-8 PM at 48 Walker Street.

James Cohan opened on West 57th Street in the fall of 1999 with an exhibition of early work by Gilbert and George, followed by the gallery’s first exhibitions with artists Trenton Doyle Hancock, Robert Smithson, Fred Tomaselli, and Bill Viola. The gallery moved to 533 West 26th Street in 2002, where it mounted important exhibitions by artists including Spencer Finch, Beatriz Milhazes, Yun-Fei Ji, Yinka Shonibare CBE, Xu Zhen, etc. More recently in Chelsea, the gallery presented exhibitions by newer additions to the program such as Kathy Butterly, Federico Herrero, Mernet Larsen, Lee Mullican, and Elias Sime amongst others. James Cohan operated an additional location in Shanghai, China from 2008 through 2015. This space functioned as a locus of cross-cultural exchange, introducing American and European contemporary art to a Chinese audience.

In November 2015, James Cohan opened a second New York location at 291 Grand Street. Its inaugural exhibition in the Lower East Side neighborhood was a revelatory exhibition of early Robert Smithson drawings. This location has allowed the gallery to expand its dynamic programming with focused and experimental exhibitions of gallery artists and curated shows.

The gallery’s twentieth year marks an exciting new chapter in its history, beginning with the relocation of its flagship space to 48 Walker Street in September. This new location opened with an exhibition by Josiah McElheny, his first with the gallery. In this new space, James Cohan will present upcoming exhibitions of recent additions to the gallery roster, including Teresa Margolles, Firelei Báez, and Grace Weaver.

James Cohan: Twenty Years will be accompanied by an illustrated catalogue that documents the achievements of the artists in the program, to be published in Spring 2020. Featuring an essay by Gregory Volk alongside contributions from several gallery artists, this major publication commemorates the gallery’s rich history and bright future, celebrating the artists who have made it all possible.

Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art is pleased to announce the launch of A Turning Moment: Urban Narratives in Chinese Contemporary Art, 1995-2019 from October 18 to December 15, 2019. Curated by Azure Wu, the exhibition, featuring the intersection of public space and contemporary art practice, responds to Chinese contemporary art practice themed on urban streets since mid-1990s. During the exhibition period, contemporary art works covering painting, photography, video, sculpture and installation from 17 artists are slated to be on display both inside the museum and outside the museum, on Duolun Road. The exhibition is free to the public.

Themed as A Turning Moment, the exhibition focuses on the artists’ progressive journey through the city streets, walking and wandering. Showing the artists’ critical thinking on social environment, urban space and people, their works present individual and collective memories and experiences, and bring changes to everyday life.

In the 1990s, with the acceleration of China’s urbanization process, artists started to pay attention and explore urban public space. They have changed the way they used to perceive and intervene in public space and further expanded the scope of cultural and aesthetic expression. When art enters into places or territories where people are familiar with, streets not only keep the record of tracks of artistic concepts and practice changes but also become the witness of city development and public culture, which highlights the peculiarity and significance of community life. The exhibition attempts to build a bridge between museum and community, artist and public with art.

A special project called Archives of Dial 62761232, A Portable Exhibition will be introduced to the public at the same time, which is its first time to be presented in the domestic museum. BizArt initiated a special take-out exhibition in September, 2004, in which 42 artists as well as 15 deliverymen took part. During that exhibition, Shanghai citizens could call express company to ask a deliveryman to bring the exhibition in a suitcase. 15 years passing by, we will review the inspiring art project through archives of that year to show the artists’ unique vision and foresight in times of great change and redefine the relationship among art, public and the city. Great thanks to Shanghart Gallery for the literature files.

The exhibition will participate in the joint exhibition of 2019 Shanghai Urban Space Art Season and 1+16 Sharing Program of Museums and Citizens. Aiming to upgrade art aesthetic education, this event is part of an ongoing effort to constantly improve the internal aesthetic and humanistic quality of citizens.

We hope to attract more citizens to participate in the interaction through the art works of various kind, expanding thinking space for the development of Duolun Road. Perceiving the texture of contemporary cities, digging into details of modern life, stimulating creative thinking, here, artists and visitors are all modern city walkers, making it possible to reshape urban space and public life.

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“Free Prism Video Wave” traverses the changes in Chinese video art over the past 30 years from beginning with the liberation of ideology and enlightenment since the 1980s to the global consumerism era nowadays, inviting 17 artists who active in different periods and influential as well as  representative in the field of video creation. The exhibition tries to pass through the longitudinal timeline and emphasizes the investigation of outstanding creative individuals, which not only traces back to the rich folds and facets of history, but also presents the refreshing and exciting ideas brought about by the current social and technological process.

Have you eaten?

For SGA`s re-opening and re-launch, for the first time in the history of Three on the Bund, a major exhibition will take place throughout the whole building – Pal(ate)/ette/.

From September 20th – October 31st, over 100 objects by 69 artists will be displayed in a salon-style exhibition within SGA and peppered throughout Three on the Bund`s restaurants and bars, in dialogue with the exhibits and their surroundings.

The exhibition also marks the debut of nrm`s curatorial project as Artistic Director of the new SGA.

Pal(ate)/ette/ will show artworks throughout Three on the Bund with the exhibition`s core display in SGA. Curated by nrm, Pal(ate)/ette/ reflects the spectrum of associations of the homonyms Palate and Palette; a synthesis of the senses – taste sight hearing smell and touch – and presenting Three on the Bund as a cultural whole.

The exhibition title relates to two homophones. While ‘Palate’ refers to the ability to distinguish between and appreciate different flavours related to food as well as relishing its taste, ‘Palette’ denotes a broad range of colours or simply the board upon which artists mix pigments. Both symbolise the most significant motif in Pal(ate)/ette/, both as metaphor and experience.

Pal(ate)/ette/ involves two distinct but intertwined worlds, those of taste and color. These worlds interact to create relations between the artists, artworks, and the halls and salons of Three on the Bund, and Shanghai itself. The exhibition explores the richness of aesthetics and materiality in colouration and the sensuousness of food and its ingredients, as medium, subject matter, in its devouring, and as communicative and social habits, experiences for which Three on the Bund is famous. The exhibition is a sumptuous journey that delights us into imagining anew the limitless ways to plunge into uncanny and alluring experiences that tease our senses of sight, smell and space, immersive experiences, encompassing and meditative. This fluidity brings the artworks to resonate with each other, adding to and ultimately enriching one another.

Pal(ate)/ette/ finally is a journey through synesthesia. Colour and taste are always elements of the experience of art and food, affecting the sensations of the person moving in and through the show as much as ordinary life. Pal(ate)/ette/ embodies this.

Wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling, in corners and cabinets, Pal(ate)/ette/ does not merely serve the cause of art, food and drink. It is a social organ with a life of its own, a meandering walk through Three on the Bund, its history, restaurants, and its gallery, to stimulate and engage a wide range of artgoers, eaters, drinkers and conversationalists, cultivating awareness from an amalgam of expressive invention and poetic association, memory and madeleine.

THEN celebrates the great adventure of White Rabbit’s first decade: ten exciting years of showcasing the creative energy, daring and technical accomplishment of Chinese contemporary art. The gallery’s tenth anniversary exhibition presents works by more than 60 artists, all produced during the first ten years of Judith Neilson’s private collection (2000-2010). Some were highlights of the very first White Rabbit exhibition, in 2009.

Sweeping social change at the end of the 20th century meant that Chinese artists at the start of the 21st century found themselves in a world that had been utterly transformed. The responded by embracing new influences from overseas and from within China. Re-examining and reinventing Chinese art traditions, playfully fusing them with the best of international contemporaneity, they created an eclectic mash-up of past and present, and east and west.

Their provocative work celebrated – and satirised – a society in flux. A fire-engine red, pig-like care with an 11-metre protruding tongue; a giant pair of pink, neon-lit underpants with a soundtrack of Shanghai love songs; a dusty minivan that ‘breaths’; an installation of 1500 knitted strawberries – the sheer inventiveness of artists revelling in new-found freedoms challenged cliched perceptions of China. From embroidered portraits of grinning world leaders to American and Chinese flags made of corporate logos, the artists in THEN examine the paradoxes of a nation on fast forward.

The first decade of the ‘Chinese century’ was the moment that Chinese contemporary art exploded into the international arena. THEN tells the story of White Rabbit’s first, boldly adventurous decade – a journey into the unknown that parallels the ambition and audacity of contemporary Chinese art.

THEN is drawn completely from Judith Neilson’s renowned White Rabbit Collection.

Conceived by leading Chinese Contemporary artist XU ZHEN® , XUZHEN SUPERMARKET is one of the artist’s most critically acclaimed works, which satirises consumerism and global capitalism. First exhibited in 2016, XUZHEN SUPERMARKET evolved from its predecessor, the SHANGHART SUPERMARKET, which debuted at Art Basel Miami Beach in 2007 and was exhibited subsequently at numerous locations across the world. An installation will be open for public participation during the auction previews in Shanghai (1 – 2 September) and Beijing (4 – 5 September), before the work is presented in Hong Kong (28 – 30 September) for exhibition only.

Artist XU ZHEN® commented: ‘This truly ground-breaking collaboration with Sotheby’s marks the first time in auction history a supermarket [concept] will go on sale. I am delighted that XUZHEN SUPERMARKET will be offered at an international auction, which escalates the work to a new level of breaking boundaries and disrupting preconceptions about art and daily life.’

A humorous yet subversive work, XUZHEN SUPERMARKET replicates a Chinese convenience store, housing a functioning cash register and an assortment of familiar merchandise available for visitors to purchase at normal retail prices. From tubes of Colgate toothpaste to bottles of local Kweichow Moutai liquor, each item lacks content, consisting only of its packaging. For visitors, each act of purchasing – or not purchasing – and corresponding thought-process, contributes to a playful yet penetrating critique on consumerism, advertising and global capitalism. The fact that the work is – for the first time – offered for sale at auction adds to the irony. The buyer of the XUZHEN SUPERMARKET will obtain the right to commission new physical recreations and enactments of the concept, to be executed by XU ZHEN® . The current work on offer is the first and only edition of XUZHEN SUPERMARKET to ever come to market.

Yuki Terase, Sotheby’s Head of Contemporary Art, Asia, commented: ‘We are thrilled about this innovative collaboration with XU ZHEN® , who has a significant career spanning from being the youngest Chinese artist to participate in the Venice Biennale, to showing at the Guggenheim’s major exhibition of Chinese Contemporary Art last year. A concept can be art, and with Conceptual Art like XUZHEN SUPERMARKET, we want to show the world a different, fresh, and stimulating side of Chinese Contemporary Art. This category is still new to auction – even on a global scale – and is therefore a testament to Sotheby’s creative spirit and our capacity to push new frontiers to expand the variety of art in the region.’

The works in this exhibition varied from paintings, sculptures, installations, to new media works.  Behind the different presentation ,curator reveals the similar explorations towards the concept of dreams. Artists with unique creation inspired viewers to think under context of current society, conflict and reconciliation. Through the exhibition, audience can make infinite and boundless imagination and reflections, and engage in the multi-dimensional experience.

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Art Basel brought together 290 premier galleries, presenting works ranging from early 20th century Modern art to the most contemporary pieces.While galleries from Europe continued to be strongly represented, the show featured returning and new exhibitors from across the globe, including Asia, Europe, North and South America, the Middle East, and Africa.

Extreme Mix – 2019 Guangzhou Airport Biennale, curated by Jiang Ning and Lu Mingjun with Xu Zhen and Fan Bo as art consultants, will officially open to the public on June 1 at Guangzhou Wings – Airport Cultural Town, a rising community of art and culture that builds upon Fenghe Village, Renhe Town of Guangzhou’s Baiyun District. The contemporary art feast will run for three months before it wraps up on August 31.

The biennale gathers 81 artists/collectives from both home and abroad, putting on display more than 100 pieces/groups of artworks that cover various genres like painting, installation, sculpture, videography and performance. Among them, more than 40 are specially commissioned for the exhibition by building on the exclusive local cultural landscape. The event will also debut 6 pieces/groups of large-scale installations by celebrated artists like Olafur Eliasson and Yayoi Kusama that have never been exhibited in China before. In addition, several pieces/groups of artworks will remain at Fenghe Village as a permanent scene, empowering contemporary art to involve itself with the community and the villager’s day-to-day life.

For the inaugural edition of the Guangzhou Airport Biennale, in hopes of creating a locally-based “cultural hybrid” and unique landscape, its curatorial team is committed to exploring a brand-new “biennale plus” mode, which promotes the organic integration between regional folk culture and contemporary art .

Extreme Mix: Empower the cultures in rural area with contemporary art

Picking “Extreme Mix” as the theme of the first Airport Biennale, curator Lu Mingjun notes: “Thanks to its suburban location and unique ecology, the Airport Cultural Town stands out as a ‘cultural hybrid’ in China’s urbanization process”. Being both a community with rich traditional culture and China’s first portal city that opened to the globe, Guangzhou, the city where the Airport Biennale will be held, is also featured by its hybridity.

Lu continues to point out that ‘hybridity’ has been a common discourse and feature in the global contemporary art scene, which has also risen to become a cultural logic of globalization. This is the reason why Lu hopes to re-convey avant-garde cultural dynamics against today’s dwindling globalization and mounting barriers by presenting Extreme Mix.

Jiang Ning, one of the curators of the Biennale, had a part of his life spent in Guangzhou’s Renhe Town during the 1990s. Compared with China’s economic take-off over the past three decades, many Chinese villages like Renhe Town have, however, been revealing an increasingly impoverished state regarding their cultural life. Therefore, Jiang believes that the Airport Biennale will help to instill cultural confidence into Renhe Town in the best possible approach. He says: “We hope that the biennale can help foster a cultural and artistic atmosphere for Renhe Town, make a positive impact on the locals’ way of thinking and transforms this place into a cultural landmark where art events keep taking place.”

Innovation of Exhibition Modes: A “biennale plus” approach

Cultural Inheritance: Respecting local customs and natural environment

Extreme Mix – 2019 Guangzhou Airport Biennale is also committed to exploring a new “biennale plus” mode – it offers four theme programs, namely “Site-specific Spatial Intervention”, “Creative Bazaar”, “Traditional Culture” and “Airport Elements”, to fully showcase the binding power of public art. At the same time, it also embraces a “3+365” timeline to ensure a truly long-lasting art event – “3” represents the months that the exhibition is set to last and “365” symbolizes the plans of art institutions, such as ShanghART Gallery, MadeIn Company and Zhang Ding Control Club, to sustain their presence at Renhe Town for at least a year. It demonstrates the curatorial team’s unremitting efforts to synergize local and non-local art institutions with the purpose of establishing an academic and cultural atmosphere for contemporary art in Guangzhou.

Throughout the installation process, the biennale bears in mind that the natural and cultural landscapes of Renhe Town shall not be subjected to any forced changes. It seeks to preserve the indigenous culture of Lingnan Area, including local sceneries, customs and dialects, while maintaining the integrity of artists’ creative threads. Given such a precondition that the right of local villagers shall be fully respected, the biennale has successfully stimulated a direct link between artistic creations and the features of local culture and space, which also renders a sense of continuum to these artworks.

Works by artists Fan Bo and Qiao Xiaoguang will be kept as permanent experienceable exhibits, while Bi Rongrong’s Ideal & Useless Space (II) not only further extends her exploration over retail space, but also uses a new form of landscape to metaphorize the long-term fermentation beneath the specific architectural façade of handshaking buildings. Other artists that have contributed to the renovation of Fenghe Village’s handshaking buildings include Ding Yi, Lu Pingyuan and Li Naihan.

Meanwhile, the biennale wishes to throw light on the value of contemporary art by incorporating it with local buildings and commercial industry by means of presenting site-specific artworks for renovated spaces, aiming to promote and diversify the local economy. For example, GOLD CAN MOVE THE GOD, a provocative installation by artist Zhang Ding, not only inherits the artistic and experimental attributes of his creative series, but also creates sustained commercial values for the town as the bar will continue to run in the future.

40,000m² outdoor open space that presents artistic and cultural congregation for airport town

The majority of this year’s Airport Biennale will be hosted at the outdoor open space of Guangzhou Wings – Airport Cultural Town, where the curatorial team divides the more than 40,000-square-meter space into four area (A, B, C and D). The renovated Hongyi Ancestral Temple in Area A shelters works by celebrated artists; Area B stages around ten large-scale outdoor installations; Area C houses a concentration of site-specific installations, which belongs to the special curated “Site-Specific Spatial Intervention” program that takes the compatibility between artworks and space into consideration.

Area D is reserved for the biennale’s new media exhibits, where 14 new media spaces have been co-established by artists to renovate the village’s long delipidated houses. The contrast thus presented will not only impose visual impact upon the spectators, but also initiates contemplation and experimentation upon contemporary culture. Works from more than 30 artists, including Wu Juehui, Ge Yulu, Tatsuo Miyajima, Ryan Gander and emerging artist Steph Li, a former teamLab member will be on display. Exhibits installed at the new media area stands out by offering a young perspective into contemporary art forms, triggering new sensual experiences atop buildings that have witnessed the ups and downs of several generations.

The Airport Biennale will also present a special unit – “Fenghe Impression Exhibition” which features the cultural heritage of Fenghe village. Lingnan’s folk culture will be embodied through popular forms, creating a new linkage between the village and its historic heritage.

However, the Airport Biennale targets at not merely a short-lived art feast. It proposes disruptive and visionary imaginations that are well-aligned with local realities. In a macro-environment where art dynamics can be leveraged to revitalize regional economy, the biennale will take advantage of a mode that differentiates from other international art exhibitions. The unique concepts and organizational forms aim to establish a new, unique focal point that caters to the airport town’s history, function and characteristics.

Art collecting is a passion. The collector finds a work of art, falls in love with it, and cannot let it go. And that process repeats itself again and again. The role of collectors in western culture is complex. They explore art history in their own way, picking and choosing, taking a stance. Like artists, collectors act as individuals. It is their personal taste that determines the selection.

In recent years there has been an increasing desire among private collectors to build and establish their own museums that can rival not only other private collections but also public museums in terms of acquisitions, exhibition making and knowledge production. In fact, private collectors are now more than ever preoccupied with telling their own stories of contemporary art. Today, we have an interesting polyphony of voices that are creating diverse micro-narratives in a variety of formats, scales and structures, offering a range of different meanings for contemporary art.

Hans Rasmus Astrup, the man behind the Astrup Fearnley Collection, is one of these passionate collectors. His clear intentions and structured approach to building a group of international contemporary artworks have resulted in an ambitious, coherent collection that is both world class and complementary to those of other museums in Norway and the Nordic countries in general.

This exhibition will present a large and varied selection of Norwegian and international art works that have been acquired during the past few years.

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SHARJAH, United Arab Emirates–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, Member of the Supreme Council and Ruler of Sharjah, the 14^th edition of Sharjah Biennial (SB14) commenced on Thursday at the Sharjah Art Foundation (SAF) Art Spaces in Al Mureijah.

SB14, held this year under the title ‘Leaving the Echo Chamber’, will feature three distinct exhibitions; Zoe Butt’s exhibition Journey Beyond The Arrow; Omar Kholeif’s Making New Time and Claire Tancons’ Look for Me All Around You.

SB14 features over 80 established and emerging artists from around the globe, including over 60 new commissions, as well as many never-before-seen works that will displayed in various locations across the emirate of Sharjah, the Mureijah Square and the Arts Square, as well as in SAF’s studios in Al Hamriyah, in the East Coast city of Kalba and other spaces in Umm Al Quwain.

The Sharjah Art Foundation is also organizing the 12^th edition of the March Meeting 2019, from 9 -11 March, 2019 at the Sharjah Institute of Theatrical Arts in Al Mureijah, which will include panel discussions, performances, films and artistic productions, in line with the themes of the three exhibitions at SB14.

SB14 will also feature independent film screenings for film lovers in the UAE; as well as educational programs, aligned with this year’s theme ‘Leaving the Echo Chamber’.

Programs intended for adults and children include workshops on photography, drawing, writing and theatrical performance. Other workshops for ‘People of determination’ provide a variety of topics on photography skills, puppetry, drawing, musical instruments and Islamic art; while the schools and youth centers’ program offers a set of workshops and field trips on topics such as abstract art, architecture and storytelling.

SB14 is made possible through the generous support of Van Cleef & Arples (Gold Sponsor) and Crescent Petroleum (Silver Sponsor). In-kind support is offered by Sharjah Municipality, Sharjah Roads and Transport Authority; Sharjah Electricity and Water Authority; Bee’ah, the Dubai Economic Department; the Institut Français in the UAE and the Institut Français in France.

The Sharjah Biennial is the most important cultural event in the Arab world and, since its inception in 1993, has been instrumental in supporting the arts landscape in the UAE and the region.

“Whatever phrases you may pursue in your lyrical paths, please don’t forget that you yourself emanate from the ongoing ornamentation of the corpus of signs, that you are actually a sign within this corpus of signs, and that everything that you do becomes inscribed as a sign within the universal ornament. So if you’re getting blown around in a storm of signs, just hook yourself around the tendril which pleases you best.”

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This is the story of a dream.

Imagine a world crowded with old master portraits, ancient Roman marble heads, gold reliquaries filled with zombies’ hands and hearts, blooming carpets and colorful tapestry, baby dragons, and unknown creatures’ skulls.

This dream belongs to Gucci’s visionary creative director, Alessandro Michele. As the poet did, midway upon the journey of our life, he found himself within a forest dark. But he hasn’t lost the straightforward pathway: he simply never followed it, deliberately choosing the road less traveled.

On this path, there is a man, tall and lean in his jeans and a tight T-shirt, salt-and-pepper gray hair, and a long, puzzled face anchored by a propitious Roman nose: Maurizio Cattelan, tireless artist, affected by a serious image hoarding disorder. The perfect partner in crime.

Maurizio Cattelan is dreaming of hanging around Shanghai for inspiration. Their shared dream world is staged in the Chinese metropolis, homeland to “the copy is the original” thought.

On 10th October at the Yuz Museum in Shanghai the dream is becoming true: an exhibition project curated by Maurizio Cattelan, titled The Artist is Present, after Marina Abramovic’s celebrated solo show at MoMA. From its very first line, The Artist is Present is an act of appropriation. The least you can expect for an exhibition project curated by Maurizio Cattelan and powered by Alessandro Michele’s Gucci.

Both are very well aware that complex relationship between image and reality, representation and presentation have been one of the most important topics in art. And they both well know that it is truer today, as we all are at the same time the generous feeder and the avid consumer of a world of simulacra, in between illusion and reality. Rooted in this permanent visual deluge, The Artist is Present focuses on artists projects that propose simulation and copy as a paradigm of global culture. The title itself aims at demonstrating how the act of copying can be considered a noble act of creation, featuring the same artistic value as the original.

The Artist is Present features a selection of more than thirty artists, foreign and Chinese, that will show both site-specific and existing works that question the most hallowed principles of art in the modern era: originality, intention, expression. In an era where everything is reproduced, nothing really keeps the aura of originality, suggesting the urgency to overcome an old concept of counterfeit in favor of a new way to conceive copy as an indispensable tool for facing our contemporary society.

If it’s a fact that a life-size replica of the Sistine Chapel is travelling around Mexico, and it is visited as if it was a pop singer on tour, The Artist is Present might be seen as a manifesto based the concept that appreciation of a work relies on engagement with ideas rather than on simple visual gratification of an original artwork.

The show explores how originality can be reached through the act of repetition, and how originals themselves can be preserved through copies. It consists in a physical immersion in the reign of imitation, a land where the core values that used to identify with an artwork in the Western world, such as originality, intention, expression, and authorship, are dismantled. As Maurizio Cattelan said: “Copying is like a blasphemy: it could seem not respectful towards God, but at the same time is the significative recognition of its existence”.

In The Artist is Present the nature of the creative process itself results deconstructed, and with it, the idea of godlike creation: the only belief remains the conviction that originality is definitely overrated. Artists on show: John Ahearn (with Rigoberto Torres), John Armleder, Nina Beier, Brian Belott, Anne Collier, Jose Dávila, Wim Delvoye, Eric Doeringer, Sayre Gomez, Andy Hung Chi-Kin, Matt Johnson, Jamian Juliano-Villani, Kapwani Kiwanga, Ragnar Kjartansson, Josh Kline, Louise Lawler, Margaret Lee, Hannah Levy, Lu Pingyuan, Ma Jun, Nevine Mahmoud, Aleksandra Mir, Pentti Monkkonen, Philippe Parreno, Jon Rafman, Mika Rottenberg, Reena Spaulings, Sturtevant, Superflex, Oscar Tuazon, Kaari Upson, Gillian Wearing, Lawrence Weiner, Christopher Williams, XU ZHEN®, Yan Pei-Ming, Damon Zucconi.

The October Salon was founded in 1960 by the City of Belgrade. Originally conceived as a platform for Serbian fine arts, it has lately become the largest annual international exhibition of contemporary art in the country, staged on the basis of a curatorial concept selected by the Board of The October Salon. Since 2004 when it became international, the October Salon aims to profile Serbia and the city of Belgrade within the framework of the international contemporary art scene and to strengthen the collaborations between local and international art scenes, professionals and public. Among the curators of the international editions of the Salon we find professionals such as Anda Rottenberg, Darka Radosavljević, Réné Block, Lóránd Hegyi, Bojana Pejić, Branislava Andjelković, Johan Pousette, Celia Prado, Alenka Gregorič, Galit Eilat, Mika Hannula, Branislav Dimitrijević, curatorial group Red Mined, Nicolaus Schlafhausen, Vanessa Muller, David Elliott.

This is Shanghai

This is Shanghai, explores and celebrates the relationship between Liverpool and its twin city in China, to reflect urban and cultural evolution and transformation through ten leading and emerging contemporary artists from China. Presented by Culture Liverpool in partnership with Open Eye Gallery, the works are staged at locations across Liverpool’s iconic Waterfront. The Cunard Building plays host to the This is Shanghai gallery and pieces will also be shown at Tate Exchange Liverpool, Mann Island and the Museum of Liverpool. With select works also exhibited within the public realm, this project has been developed to explore and reimagine Shanghai’s everyday reality, within the city of Liverpool.

Taking place at the same time as the 10th Liverpool Biennial, This is Shanghai is the second of three chapters of China Dream, a festival designed to explore and understand contemporary Chinese culture, the celebrations for Liverpool 2018, marking the city’s tenth anniversary of holding the title of European Capital of Culture in 2008. Curator Jiang Jiehong is originally from Shanghai and has lived in the UK in 1998. Travelling regularly and working between the two countries in the last some twenty years, he has a unique understanding of cultural differences and exchanges. In this project, Jiang has invited artists Liang Yue, Lu Pingyuan, Shi Yong, Xu Zhen, Yang Fudong, Yang Zhenzhong, Yu Ji, Yuan Gong, Zhang Peili and Zhou Xiaohu, who are either Shanghai natives or those who have migrated from the rest of China, to present an impression of Shanghai’s dynamic urban life and complex cultural identity to British audiences.

The exhibition introduces 43 international artists and represents the exploration of creative medium and artistic language of contemporary art. These artists reconstruct the relationship between subject and object in digital age through more than 60 pieces of visual arts, fashion, installations, sculptures, new media art, etc.This exhibition attempts to discuss the concept of physical substances,production processes, renewable forces , cycle of life and to re-examine the role of matter in everyday life.

In Beaufort 2018, curator Heidi Ballet highlighted the sea as an uncontrollable place, which at the same time connects us with the rest of the world. An underlying theme of this edition was the role of permanent monuments.