SH Biennale review by Noor Chadha

The 8th Shanghai Biennale 2010

       The focus of the 2010 Shanghai Biennale is rehearsal, the
concept that the final product of an artistic process is not
necessarily the most important – that within every stage there is
substance and in some cases, the "rehearsal" stages may be even more
essential than the final artwork. Spanning over the three floors of
the Shanghai Art Museum, the exhibition consists of work ranging from
the more traditional painting, photography and video, to large-scale
installations and performances involving live music and spectator
interaction.
In one of the exhibition spaces, there was no "artwork" as such, but
an actual studio of the Shanghai artist Ma Liang. Every piece of his
original studio has been moved into the museum for the duration of the
show. This radical move places the spotlight backstage – not even on
artistic process but on the actual work environment for that process
to then take place in. An artist's studio shares so much insight into
the artist's creative soul – it is where the artist can find the peace
of mind to create. Usually you would think that the origin of an
artwork can be traced back to the conception of the idea behind it,
but no, exhibiting Ma Liang's studio in it's whole at the Biennale
takes it one step further, before conception of any idea, suggesting
that perhaps the true identity of any artwork can be located at it's
birthplace.
Right next to Ma Liang's studio is a performance piece by the
Norwegian art group Verdestreatret called "And All the Question Marks
Started to Sing". Whereas Ma Liang's studio is a stagnant environment
– a setting for the process to occur in, Verdestreatret's piece is the
complete opposite: both an ongoing process and a final artwork –
essentially an artwork in ongoing rehearsal. The work consists of all
kinds of machinery – wires, bicycle wheels, computers, projectors and
heavy duty lighting, and artists interacting with the machinery in a
combination of ways: Musicians playing beats on the bicycle wheels,
artists manipulating the silhouettes of the whole piece on the wall.
The piece is constantly undergoing changes and the final product is
that process of evolution.
Other works in the Biennale that I felt successfully emphasized the
theme of rehearsal included French artist JR's "Wrinkles of the City"
and Qiu Zhijie's "Qiu's notes on Colorful Lantern at Shangyuan
Festival". Overall, I thought the 2010 Shanghai Biennale was
conceptually successful and has contributed some wonderful artworks to
the art world.

by Shane Li

I went to Shanghai Biennale 2008 and it was not interesting to me at
all, whereas Shanghai Biennale 2010 is way better than 2008 in terms
of the sheer number and quality of art works presented. Part of the
reason why I think 2010 is better than 2008 is that I am taking
"Contemporary art and new media in China", which gives me a lot of
insights into the life and thinking of contemporary artists and allows
me to appreciate an art work from an amateur's perspective.

The themes for the two biennales have very different implication. The
theme of Shanghai Biennale 2008 is Trans Local Motion, which is a
reflection on the city, urbanization and people's living status in the
city (they probably chose this theme in accordance to Shanghai Expo).
The theme for 2010 is Rehearsal, which emphasizes more on the pure
arty essence of art, as well as the experimental and open nature of
Shanghai Biennale. In 2008 artists were compelled to do something
related to urban life, whereas in 2010 more artists present their
works in more fields. Wu Shanzhuan's installation "d=mr2"
interestingly combined mathematics and arts to express the
unpredictable character of life. MadeIn Company's installation "Must
Act" is a series of works addressing the same subject –politics, wars
and peace. In one piece of painting, the face of Marx is hidden in the
cloud of the Windows XP desktop.( See picture)  Another piece has a
cake-like military castle.

Unlike art works in 2008 which were highly abstract, some realism
works were presented in 2010's show. Liu Xiaodong's gorgeous oil
painting "Entering Tai Lake; Getting out of Bei Chuan" strikes me very
much with their realistic style. "Maleonn's studio" is also
interesting because the artist actually moved his studio into the
museum so that the audience can have a close look at the real
environment in which art works are produced.

Art works that perfectly combine the past and the future is always my
favorite, and Qiu Zhijie's "Qiu's Notes on 'Colorful Lantern at
Shangyuan Festival'" surpasses my expectation. "Colorful Lantern at
Shangyuan Festival" is a very famous traditional Chinese painting. Qiu
took the form of this painting to present various business,
occupations and machines, some of which are purely imaginary but very
interesting. The materials and techniques used in the wall painting
and installations are all very "traditional" and very "Chinese", for
example, black ink and wood.

The last thing I want to address is that I am glad to see more and
more Shanghai citizens and tourists are interested in going to art
museum. I think that artists' prior target when producing art is to
make it relevant and understandable to average spectators. Shanghai
Biennale 2010 also did a good job in presenting art to the society.

Shanghai Biennale 2010

by Grace Cori Huang
Shanghai Biennale 2010

       For the eighth Shanghai Biennale at the Shanghai Art Museum, curators
Fan Di'an, Li Lei, Hua Yi and Gao Shiming created a show with the
theme of "Rehearsal." From this title, I was looking forward to seeing
works centering around the art-making process rather than only the
finished piece that we usually see at shows, however the way the
pieces dealt with the idea of rehearsal were not just about practicing
or preparing for a final exposition. In "And All the Question Marks
Started to Sing" created by Verdensteatret, the piece was in a
perpetual state of rehearsal, with the mechanical pieces always
moving. Like at a rehearsal, everything was visible to the viewer: the
light sources, the electrical wiring, the set-up of the bicycles and
magnifying glasses, and that made it even more interesting than merely
looking at the resulting light and shadow projected on the walls. On
the first floor of the museum, there were still photographs of the
performance of Semele, directed by Chinese artist Zhang Huan. What was
interesting about this performance was the censorship it underwent as
the show travelled from Europe to China; according to news reports and
reviews, the show's meaning was significantly altered due to
censorship of sexual and political themes. As a result, when the show
opened in China with all the alterations, Zhang Huan did not really
know whether or not it would work, it was as though it was a
rehearsal. It is unfortunate, that it couldn't be shown the way it was
intended, though it gives the piece another interesting twist.

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by Mikael on SH Biennale

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Shanghai Biennale
Shanghai Art Museum until January

Shanghai is bustling with art the week I go to the 8th Shanghai
Biennale and I am already full of other impressions from different
galleries and shows.
The Shanghai Biannual displays a variety of artistic expressions, not
only from China and Asia but from around the world, and that this is
the center of attention in the art scene of Shanghai becomes clear as
I walk in through the front doors.

As I walk in on the first floor, things are very organized and put together.
The show flows and the works seem to speak with each other.
The theme "rehearsal" is clearly visible, and there is no need to read
any plaques to understand the works connection with the theme.
Zhang Huan's temple structure that is the set for one of his operas
clearly speaks the language of the theme and lets you as a viewer
emerge yourself into the artists work, something that seem to be a
cohesive element in the show.

Another good example of this is on the second floor, where I am able
to enter artist Ma Liang's studio that has been recreated in one of
the rooms.

Although some of the more to me interesting individual works are found
on the top two floors. There is a sense that the two curators instead
of creating a good mix and balance corresponding to the theme, instead
put in a random mix of their own personal favorite artists. The
balance and focus found on the second floor just completely vanishes
as I walk up the stairs.
The actual curatorial work seems therefore quite cluttered, imprecise
and in some cases
even quite blatantly obviously bad. Maybe the fact that the multiple
curators did not seem to have fully come to an agreement, the
governmental censorship and that while viewing the show, several rooms
still being built; just adds to the sense of rehearsal.
Maybe the open ended theme is the perfect cover all the madness that
goes wrong when putting together an international show in China.

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Looking at the 2010 Shanghai Biennial

The Shanghai Biennial (curators Fan Di'an, Li Lei, Hua Yi and Gao Shiming), carrying the theme of “Rehearsal,” showcases many artists’ work from both China and overseas.

The first floor’s exhibitions are more strongly tied to the theme of Rehearsal (which aims to discuss and contemplate on the meaning of contemporary art). Featured works include those from Zhang Huan, Liu Xiaodong, The Long March Project, the MadeIn Company. I particularly liked the works in The Spread series from the Madeln Company, headed by Xu Zhen, particularly impressed me for its meaning. The works from this series, which claims to use the “media as a medium…to create media,” come together as a collage of paintings that represents both media and reality (the painting of the windows desktop screen with the clouds forming Kar Marx’s head is representative of this as the desktop screen represents the media and Karl Marx represents the ideology that has shaped the socio-economic-political conditions of China today). On a side note, Guan Wei’s works on modifying ancient Chinese landscape maps also adds an interesting combination between more traditional and modern art.

The next few floors display many interesting works, but do not flow as coherently as those on the first floor. For example, Yves Bernard and Yannick Antoine’s “The Gate” combines ancient Chinese painting elements and concepts such as ink paintings and more modern concepts, but does not really contribute to reviewing or reinventing contemporary art.

Lustful Opera, Censored, Befuddles Chinese

October 25, 2010

Lustful Opera, Censored, Befuddles Chinese

By ANDREW JACOBS

BEIJING — As any artist or performer in China knows, it is impossible
to predict what will set off the mercurial culture censors who have
sweeping power over the content of film, music, television and print.

On Sunday, it was the depiction of a sexually aroused, anatomically
correct male donkey and references to capital punishment that nearly
derailed an ambitious interpretation of the Handel opera "Semele," the
tragic tale of what happens when a lustful god, a vengeful goddess and
an impressionable young maiden are ensnared in a love triangle.

In the end, officials allowed the donkey to remain onstage, but they
insisted on a number of last-minute changes that significantly altered
the production and left the audience perplexed.

The opera, directed by Zhang Huan, one of China's most
boundary-pushing artists, sold out nine performances last year in
Brussels with its melding of Baroque music, Greek mythology, Chinese
cultural references and modern touches that included sumo wrestlers,
flashes of nudity and rousing audience participation.

Lady Linda Wong Davies, an opera patron whose London-based foundation
brought the production here for the annual Beijing Music Festival,
said her goal was to expose Chinese audiences to Western-style opera
and to build bridges between China and the rest of the world. "I
wanted to bring to life an 18th-century German composer's work through
the eyes of a contemporary Chinese artist," she said.

Even before the cast arrived from Europe, Chinese officials who saw
the production in Brussels insisted on a number of changes: they
vetoed the singing of the Communist anthem "The Internationale" during
the finale — too provocative, apparently — and suggested a costume
change for the Greek chorus, whose burgundy and saffron robes too
closely resembled those worn by Tibetan monks.

Those and a few other demands — no nudity, less violence and fewer
sexually suggestive gestures — were easy enough to meet, Mr. Zhang
said.

But after officials from the Ministry of Culture watched a dress
rehearsal on Saturday, they decided that the donkey — two actors
draped in fabric — was revealing too much of the animal's anatomy.
More ominously, they objected to a short documentary, which was
screened during the overture, that explained how the gracefully carved
frame of a 450-year-old Chinese temple had made its way onto the stage
of the Poly Theater in Beijing.

Three years ago, Mr. Zhang bought the building and its contents from
an impoverished family who had been its occupants for two decades.
While taking apart the structure, the director discovered a diary
written by the broken-hearted husband. The man, Fang Jixin, wrote
about how the adulterous behavior of his wife had driven him to
alcoholism, and eventually madness. In the end, after he murdered his
wife's lover, Mr. Fang was arrested and put to death.

"I was amazed how this tale out of contemporary China was like the
Greek tragedy, and it inspired me to do this production," said Mr.
Zhang.

Although he declined to discuss the censors' specific objections about
the documentary, others who worked on the opera said it was the
mention of the husband's crime, and especially his punishment, that
troubled the authorities.

Their solution was not very subtle. They demanded that the
Chinese-language subtitles be excised, and they forced the
projectionist to freeze the film before it could reveal the heart of
the tale, leaving the audience confused about the connection between
the documentary and the opera.

"To be honest, as of 2 p.m. on Sunday, we were not sure the show would
go on," said Mr. Zhang.

Given her desire to foster intercultural exchange, Lady Davies, too,
was not eager to criticize the last-minute bureaucratic deus ex
machina. The donkey, after all, was allowed to stay in the production,
even if officials asked that his lascivious behavior be toned down.

"I'm optimistic about the future of the arts in China, although it's
definitely challenging with a capital C," she said with a sigh. "Maybe
next time I ought to do a production of 'Mary Poppins' or 'The Sound
of Music.' "

Zhang Jing contributed research.

Ho Chi Minh Trail by Stephanie Hsu

Blog Post #3

Ho Chi Minh Trail is an art project launched by the Long March
Project, a collaboration between artists, writers, curators, and
scholars that was founded by Lu Jie in 2002. Act 1 of Ho Chi Minh
Trail is currently being exhibited at Long March Space in Beijing's
798 Art District, with Act 2 to be exhibited as a part of the upcoming
8th Shanghai Biennale at the Shanghai Art Museum. Having the
opportunity to visit Beijing's 798 Art District last weekend, I was
able to see Act 1 of Ho Chi Minh Trail and begin learning about the
ongoing organization of educational programs and exhibitions to which
the project belongs.
As the headquarters of Long March Project, Long March Space provides a
modest gallery space that fulfills a multidimensional purpose—to
engage creative thinkers both physically and conceptually with the art
being displayed. The entrance of the gallery leads to two larger
rooms, which display the works of a group of established artists—Chen
Chieh-jen, Liu Wei, Xu Zhen, Wu Shanzhuan, Wang Jianwei, and Zhang
Hui. I entered the left-side room first, prompted by the text on the
wall, which gave me an introduction to Ho Chi Minh Trail as a metaphor
for a historical path connecting lived experiences, individual
memories, and collective imagination. Statements including "Taking on
the burden of history is not an act of retracing historical memory,
but a restless attempt to position the present in history" informed me
of the project's efforts to use art as a vehicle through which to
understand the past and its relevance to present issues.
Among the works, Wu Shanzhuan's installation, a c-shaped sculpture
surrounded by a border of cautionary stripes, takes the focus of the
room by laying claim of its conceptual function:
"imagination=perspective x projection x cloud3." This seemingly
lighthearted play on perception was then shadowed by the ominous
words, "VIOLENCE IS THE ULTIMATE MATERIALIZATION OF UNDERSTANDING."
Lining the edges of the sculpture in backwards text, these words
seemed to point towards the irony of contemporary knowledge as having
been gained through the brutality and human cost of war.
With the wall caption's description of Ho Chi Minh Trail as aiming to
"rehearse rather than produce," the smaller back room of the gallery
contextualizes the exhibition as merely a "rehearsal" in a six-stage
progression that includes "field research" and "physical journey."
Photos, videos, and books displayed in the casual, almost office-like
setting seem to act as records of the previous stages of the project's
development, documenting the human exchanges, research, and physical
travel between China, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia that paved the way
to the artistic production being shown. Nguyen Trinh Thi's
experimental film "Chronicle of a Tape Recorded Over," depicts the
collective telling of a story that is at once fictional and
non-fictional, by individuals that the filmmaker herself met during
her travel along the actual site of the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Though the individual works of Ho Chi Minh Trail evoke complex and
provocative ideas, the exhibition failed to convey the relationships
between them in a coherent and cohesive fashion. Optimistically
speaking, perhaps as a "rehearsal," the exhibition is intended to be a
true work-in-progress. Hopefully, the "theatre" stage of Ho Chi Minh
Trail—which will be exhibited beginning October 24 during the 8th
Shanghai Biennale—will attest to its claim as the final performance.

Farewell to Post-Colonialism

Farewell to Post-Colonialism

The Third Guangzhou Triennial

Organizer: Guangdong Museum of Art

Co-Presenter: Hong Kong Arts Development Council

Special Cooperator: Times Property

The Third Guangzhou Triennial opens from September 6th to November
16th, 2008. Opening preview is (Saturday) September 6th, 2008.

Curators: Gao Shiming, Sarat Maharaj, Chang Tsong-zung

Research Curators: Dorothee Albrecht, Sopawan Boonnimitra, Stina
Edblom, Tamar Guimaraes, Guo Xiaoyan, Steven Lam, Khaled D. Ramadan

Organiser: Guangdong Museum of Art

Co-Presenter: Hong Kong Arts Development Council

1. Concept：Farewell to Post-Colonialism

For the curatorial discourse of this Triennial, we propose to say
'Farewell to Post-Colonialism'. This represents the theoretical
basis from which we hope to explore our critical vision. 'Farewell
to Post-colonialism' is not a denial of the importance and rewards
of this intellectual tradition; in the real world, the political
conditions criticised by post-colonialism have not receded, but in
many ways are even further entrenched under the machinery of
globalisation. However, as a leading discourse for art curatorial
practice and criticism, post-colonialism is showing its limitations
in being increasingly institutionalised as an ideological concept.
Not only is it losing its edge as a critical tool, it has generated
its own restrictions that hinder the emergence of artistic creativity
and fresh theoretical interface. To say 'Farewell to Post-
Colonialism' is not simply a departure, but a re-visit and a re-start.

2008 will be forty years since the heady days of 1968. In four
decades, waves of new social movement and multi-cultural theories
have woven a tapestry of rich and clashing colours out of the
world's changing social realities. International contemporary art
has also benefited from the attention to socio-political issues
surrounding identity, race, gender and class. But over the years,
revolutionary concepts have also transformed into leading discourses
safely guarded by 'political correctness'. Post-colonial
discourse's analysis of the power structure within cultural
expressions has triggered a series of cultural resistance, as well as
guided the construction of the self as a Subject in relation to the
Other. However, these forms of analysis and construction have also
adversely developed an institutionalised pluralistic landscape (a
multi-cultural 'managerialism') that has today turned into a new
form of stereotyping. In this Triennial we wish to draw attention to
the 'political correctness at large' that is the result of the
power play of multi-culturalism, identity politics and post-colonial
discourse. Urgent issues facing curatorial practice today are: How do
we establish an 'ethics of difference' within the framework of
difference in cultural production? How do we prevent a 'tyranny of
the Other' without sacrificing the grounds already gained against
the power status quo?

For some years major international contemporary exhibitions around
the world have worked towards building up 'discursive sites for a
cacophony of voices' and 'negotiated spaces of diverse values',
emphasising 'correctness' in cultural politics; these have
inadvertently triumphed to the neglect of independent pursuit of
artistic creativity and alternative imaginative worlds. Concepts of
identity, multiplicity and difference are now slowly losing their
edge to become new restrictions for artistic practice, succumbing to
the phenomena of 'false representation' and 'multi-cultural
managerialism'. In response to this, the curatorial project of the
Third Guangzhou Triennial centres on mulling over multi-culturalism
and its limits within the larger perspective of 'Farewell to Post-
Colonialism'.

The 'Farewell' calls for the renovation of the theoretical
interface of contemporary art, in order to depart from its all
pervasive socio-political discourse in an endeavour to work together
with artists and critics to discover new modes of thinking and fresh
analytical tools for today's world. The curators hope this Triennial
will be a process of discovery for ourselves, and not just the
fleshing out and illustrating of readymade theories and preconceived
ideas. In trying to explore what this Triennial 'is', we wish to
carry out a parallel inquiry into what it should not be. In this
sense, this Triennial may be understood as a locus of questions for
all of us involved in the international art world, starting with an
Exercise in Negation. We hope to uncover, with the help of artists
and thinkers, elements of the paradoxical reality veiled by
contemporary cultural discourse, to make contact with realms that
slip through the cracks of well-worn concepts such as class, gender,
tribe and hybridity. We hope to think together with artists and
critics, and investigate through their practices and projects to find
what new modes and imaginative worlds are possible for art beyond
those already heavily mapped out by socio-political discourses.

Yellow Box Project and Chinese Aesthetics

Yellow Box Project and Chinese Aethetics
By Prof. Gao Shiming

“Yellow Box” is a project initiated by the Visual Culture Research
Centre of China Academy of Art. This project intends to investigate
issues of connoisseurship and display that are embedded in Chinese
traditional spaces; meanwhile it also intends to reinterpret
traditional literati spirit in light of contemporary art. In 2005, the
first exhibition of “Yellow Box” subtitled “Contemporary Calligraphy
and Painting in Taiwan” was held at the Taipei Fine Art Museum. That
exhibition experimented with solutions for displaying the subtlety of
literati art within the sterile “white cube” by either building
mediating structures or setting up viewing procedures. Based on that
exhibition’s experiment, the present “Yellow Box” project continues the
research in exhibition practice by studying contemporary art and
architecture. In September 2006, “Yellow Box” project takes the Xiao
Ximen (Minor West Gate) group of traditional vernacular buildings in
Qingpu district as the subject of investigation and experimental space
for contemporary art, seeking to discover hidden potentials for
different artistic media in such a place of living and working, while
also keeping in mind the parameter of Chinese daily activities. This
project hopes to stimulate new creative attitudes for contemporary art
and bring to fore the implicit cultural significance hidden in
vernacular architectural spaces. This is done by building a bridge
linking traditional culture and the creative industries, so as to
uncover the mechanics of interdependence between native resources and
cultural creativity.

At present there is a rage of building art galleries and art museums
throughout China. It is therefore important to ask questions such as:
Does the space of museums have to follow the canonical spectator
regime? Will the traditional culture of intimate appreciation still
retain its charm in the museum system? What is the significance of the
classical experience in art appreciation to the configuration of space
in contemporary architecture? How do we retain traditional visual
memories, and at the same time endow them with fresh significance and
activity. These are the questions that the “Yellow Box” hopes to
illuminate.

Prof. Gao Shiming of China Academy of Art will present the research of
“Yellow box” project, which is concerned with the relationship between
Chinese traditional culture of appreciation and museum-based
spectatorship regime.