Art News

Summary of the 7th Shanghai Biennale

The 7th Shanghai Biennale opened at the Shanghai Art Museum on September 8 through November 16. The biennale realized its expected academic and social goals, receiving high acclaim from both the domestic and foreign art community. The success of this year's Shanghai Biennale not only levels up its fame at the international art stage, but also promotes the contemporary art in Eastern Asia via a certain cultural strategy. Today Shanghai Biennale has become the most influential international contemporary art exhibition in Asia. It turns out to be a cultural icon for Shanghai, China and even Asia.

The Shanghai Art Museum, the main venue of this year's biennale, showcased around 110 artworks created by 58 artists and artist groups from 21 countries and regions. The biennale attracted a total number of 270,000 visitors. The average number of visitors during each weekend was estimated around 5,000 to 6,000. During the National Chinese Holidays in October, the biennale received a total number of 41,409 visitors. In the past two months, the biennale also received nearly 200 government officials, consul generals, cultural officers and industrial insiders from 20 countries and regions.

They either came for visit or for future collaboration, such as Okwui Enwezor, the world renowned curator, Daniel Birnbaum, the curator for the 53rd Venice Biennale, Sarat Maharaj, co-curator Guangzhou Triennial, and Fan Dian, the director of the China National Museum of Fine Arts. All of them give positive comments on this year's Shanghai Biennale and recognized its organizing work and academic contributions.

Daniel Birnbaum thinks that the 7th Shanghai Biennale is fused with a unique curatorial theme, veteran arrangement and with no competitor in its academic concept in Asia. He is particularly moved to see the long line queuing outside the museum's entrance gate. He says, "Many kindergarten kids, primary-school and middle-school students are sitting in a circle in the exhibition hall to have lessons. They experience the spirit and energy radiated from the art pieces." At the same time, he surprisingly finds that curating mode to some extent coincides with his, such as the documentary study and a re-inspection of the relationship between tradition and modernity.

A similar remark was made by Sarat Maharaj. He said he was very pleased to see that the 7th Shanghai Biennale showed a lot of interesting research-based contributions.

Fan Di'an, the Director at the China National Museum of Fine Arts comments that the biennale conjures up a visual wonder and amazement in the angle of planning and exhibiting. "This year, many participating Chinese artists created new pieces, such as Jin Shijian, Yue Mingjun and Yin Xiuzhen. These people are the best artists in China. The works created by the Chinese artists are quite outstanding. But it still leaves some space for the Shanghai Biennale to find the top artists outside China. True, the Shanghai Biennale explores a pioneering theme, but it doesn't mean that the biennale pursues the extremeness and the cutting-edge among every piece. The academic selection promises the artworks with certain artistic quality. These artworks also explore at its uttermost the communication and dialogue between the visitors. In regard with its theme, the biennale gradually shows its humanistic concern on the condition of the people living in the urban environments. The Shanghai Biennale has become a cultural icon of the city," he summarised.

Perhaps the participating artists of the biennale are making art for the art sake, but as a non-profit, academic exhibition, the Shanghai Biennale always insists on the notion that art is for life, on the concern of the realistic society, on the humanistic care to people, on the contribution to the prosperity of the city's cultural scene, on the attracting of more Chinese visitors to museum, on the nurturing of young Chinese people to focus on contemporary art.