Life> Kaleidoscope

Shanghai Biennale takes a global perspective

By Zhu Linyong (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-06-29 09:08

"How to attract enough attention in a post-Expo Shanghai is a daunting task for us," says Xu Jiang, founder and key organizer of the Eighth 2010 Shanghai Biennale, slated to run from Oct 24 through Feb 28, 2011.

While the Seventh Shanghai Biennale, held in 2008, with the theme of Trans-locomotion, reportedly attracted over 3 million visitors, two times more than previous biennales, "the timing for this year's biennale is unique", says Gao Shiming, an executive curator for the event.

To retain the popularity of the eighth biennale, the curatorial team has come up with a novel approach, kick starting the event with the somewhat abstract theme of "Rehearsal", Gao says.

The theme accentuates the sense of presence and action and divides the curatorial work of Shanghai Biennale 2010 into two parts, "Exposition" and "Recapitulation", he says.

"Exposition" refers to the series of so-called rehearsal events which started last week and runs until October, just right before the biennale begins.

"Recapitulation" brings the rehearsal tournaments back to the main body of the exhibition at Shanghai Art Museum, with three tournaments comprising its core content and groundwork.

The Rehearsal events, as the preliminary projects of the biennale, will bring together numerous works by many international artists at different localities across the globe, Gao says.

Artists, art dealers, scholars, and others involved in the art world will be invited to participate in the Rehearsal events, to be staged at different localities in the United States, Spain, Vietnam, and Laos over the coming four months.

"The biennale's attempt to reach out is commendable. The worldwide rehearsals help break the geographic barriers, and open new possibilities for the still young biennale," says Fan Di'an, dean of National Art Museum of China in Beijing and a key member of the biennale's curatorial board.

The first of the preliminary, rehearsal events for the biennale kicked off last week in Vietnam, centering on the Ho Chi Minh trail.

The trail is a vital logistical system that ran from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam to the Republic of Vietnam through Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam War (1959-1975).

"Chinese artists and Vietnamese artists and scholars will trek the old routes, and create artistic works and hold discussions over a period of several weeks," says Lu Jie, an organizer of the Ho Chi Minh Trail Rehearsal events.

The various outcomes of the rehearsals - photos, paintings, installations, writings, videos and multi-media works, will all be brought back to the final stage of Shanghai Art Museum, the main venue for the biennale.

And "the most intriguing part is that nobody knows what it is going to be like when the biennale officially opens," says museum vice-director Zhang Qing.