- Home
- A-Z Publications
- Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art
- Previous Issues
- Volume 7, Issue 1, 2020
Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art - Volume 7, Issue 1, 2020
Volume 7, Issue 1, 2020
- Editorial
-
- Articles
-
-
-
Curating climate change: The Taipei Biennial as an environmental problem solver
Authors: Jenifer Chao and Panos KompatsiarisThis article analyses the curatorial practices behind the 2018 Taipei Biennial by considering its ethos of public engagement that fostered a merging of artistic means and civic aims. Entitled ‘Post-Nature: A Museum as an Ecosystem’, the biennial confronted the timely theme of environmental precarity and positioned itself as a substantive stakeholder in the public debate on climate change. It mobilized the biennial platform to marshal artists, community groups, conservationists and others to spur on new thinking and, perhaps more importantly, to create solutions. By adopting this new role as an environmental problem solver, the biennial expanded itself from the ensconced space of aesthetic inquiry and sought to generate new forms of institutional relations and to nurture in its audience an ecological consciousness. These exhibition strategies underscore many international biennials’ self-assigned mandates to claim a socially relevant role and to adopt an interventionist posture. But while the biennial showcased multifaceted ecological visions of the present, it also delimited its range of critique and the possible modes of collective action. In this way, the exhibition becomes a valuable searchlight into the social and political relevance of global biennials, as well as their contention for legitimacy and significance as agents of social transformation.
-
-
-
-
An unfinished task: Viewing the legitimization of contemporary Chinese art from the Third Shanghai Biennale
By Wu MoThe Shanghai Biennale, initiated in 1996, was launched by the Shanghai Art Museum under the background of the proliferation and expansion of the biennial/triennial exhibition system outside Europe and the United States in the last decade of the twentieth century. Based on the investigations of the themes and tasks of the First and Second Shanghai Biennales, this article focuses on the Third Shanghai Biennale opened in 2000, which has made remarkable breakthroughs in its curatorial strategy. By including international curators and artists in the exhibition, the Shanghai municipal government and the Shanghai Art Museum were committed to establishing an international profile of the Shanghai Biennale and further making it an integral part of its namesake city’s cultural branding in the era of globalization. Soon after the opening of the Shanghai Biennale, it was prevalently regarded as a significant landmark of legitimization in many discourses, which was hard fought for by Chinese practitioners after 1989. By analysing the background, curatorial concepts and impacts of the Third Shanghai Biennale and Fuck Off, this research deciphers the connotation of legitimization advocated by contemporary Chinese art circle, as well as the complex relationship with both conflict and cooperation between the official and unofficial arts. Did the task of legitimizing contemporary Chinese art fully accomplished? In this process, what sort of effects did China’s governmental manipulation have on the legitimization of contemporary Chinese art at home and its value output on the international arena? The above lines of inquiry offer a new perspective on contemporary Chinese art, especially with regard to further media experimentations, curatorial practice and value assessment in art practice after 2000.
-
-
-
The path of reflection into the world: Voices from the Guangzhou Triennial (2002–08)1
By Hu BinBiennial and triennial exhibitions were first established in western countries, gradually becoming a well-recognized formula that came to influence non-western nations. Biennial and triennial exhibitions rose in prominence beyond western boundaries as they strove for the right to speak on the international stage. The sudden rise of biennial and triennial exhibitions in China is closely linked to these concerns. It is generally accepted that China’s biennial exhibitions first entered into the international field of vision in 2000 with the Shanghai Biennale, closely followed in 2002 by the Guangzhou Triennial, which has garnered frequent mention internationally. Viewed from a historical perspective, the themes explored by the first three editions of the Guangzhou Triennial constituted a different set of ideas regarding the international predicament of Chinese contemporary art, while the featured artists in the latter two editions were not limited to China. The backdrop for these ideas was the frequent appearance of Chinese contemporary artists on such international platforms as the Venice Biennale beginning in 1993, and the tendencies and conditions of the selections for such appearances. Chinese contemporary artists at the time were excited to gain entry to these important international platforms, but at the same time, the ways in which they were interpreted and selected gave pause for reflection. This reflection was directed not just at the artists themselves, but at the response from the critical and curatorial realms. A very important matter within this was the need for China to establish its own interpretive system and internationalized platform. Below, I will follow a chronological path in outlining the gradual progression of the Guangzhou Triennial in regard to these themes, and the connections between them.
-
-
-
One biennale, two systems: On the Shenzhen–Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture
By Luo XianmeiThe Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture (UABB) has been hampered in achieving a ‘co-construction’ between Shenzhen and Hong Kong since its debut. The twin exhibitions have distinct organizational structures, funding resources and curatorial strategies. The reasons for the frictions or disconnections within UABB can be roughly divided into three levels: the organizational level, the intercity governmental level and the societal level. Both organizers have made efforts to integrate the two into a real bi-city biennale, but the exhibition has tended to diverge and develop more towards two independent biennales. In a situation in which UABB is increasingly open to international participants, it has reached a stage in which it is constrained by the financial, administrative and political boundaries, and the outlook of the bi-city vision remains worrying.
-
-
-
Guangzhou Airport Biennale: Competition and confrontation in villagers-led participation
By Yu ShenglanThis article examines a brand new member of the biennale system in China, the Guangzhou Airport Biennale, in Fenghe Village, Renhe Town, Guangdong Province, and focuses on its first edition in 2019 entitled Extreme Mix, by analysing the topic of social engagement and public participation. In other words, the discussion below is two-way – not only art engaging in society but also public participating in art – and is principally about the latter. The interventions in question were initiated and activated preponderantly by the local residents in the biennale and artworks. Most notably, their line of practices was replete with competitiveness and confrontationality. It will be argued that although intention-wise the biennale was not dedicated to be socially relational and participatory, it ended up being strongly so, owing to the agency and creativity of the villagers. Using Clarie Bishop’s theory of antagonism, the conclusion of the article is that the competition, confrontation and debates are conducive for the fostering of democracy.
-
- Conversations
-