intro, day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4, day 5, last word
There is an odd, silver blob floating in the Yellow Sea, just off the Chinese coast. A couple of meters across, this blob would be a compelling sight if ever you encountered it. Its amorphous shape would suggest that it had formed naturally, but its reflective silver surface has an idealized, alien feel. Sail closer and you would find that it is a stainless steel cast of a large rock - or philosopher's stone - the kind commonly featured in traditional Chinese art. Haul it out of the water and you would see that it has some text written on it in five different languages. This text states that the object is in fact an artwork, and politely requests that it be returned to the open sea. It is enigmatic and undeniably beautiful, and was made by the Chinese artist Zhan Wang.
This work, Traveling 12 Nautical Miles - Float Stone Adrift On The Open Sea, is presented in the museum as a large photograph, a video, a map and a text. The text explains that twelve miles is the limit of national claims to the sea; everything beyond this distance is designated 'international waters'. The sculpture, then, is drifting endlessly in no-man's land. It is a poetic piece, given a sharp edge by the political context in which it was produced.
So the artist has sent a message in a bottle, but what is his message? That wisdom and beauty belong to no one and should remain free? To reduce the artwork to a simple line about human freedom is to do it a disservice, but it's clear that this is the spirit that the work was produced within. Such a deliberately 'internationalist' artwork is exactly the kind of thing I was expecting this biennale to be brimming with.
However, there aren't actually that many other works that take internationalism as their explicit inspiration. Another piece that does so is Zhang Peili's Let's Watch, an installation of 23 TVs, each of which shows a broadcast from a country within a different time zone. But they're not just any old broadcasts; these are the last few hours leading up to the millennium. It's a piece concerned with comparisons and contrasts - whilst one TV sparkles with millennial fireworks, another prosaically covers the sports news.
While both of these works appear cautiously optimistic and place faith in mankind's universal understanding, another series of works presents an opposing perspective on global relations. Hong Hao's silkscreen prints show misshapen world maps with fractured texts, images and pseudo-military markings painted onto them. The technological and political paranoia that they express is as bleak - and darkly comic - as Stanley Kubrick's classic Cold War film Dr Strangelove.
Which way is this biennale to be understood? Is it optimistic - believing in the common nature of mankind - or is it more pessimistic? Perhaps the two-day conference could begin to answer this...
Presenting 44 speakers over two days (including live translations), the frighteningly intensive conference is almost as ambitious as the exhibition itself. Like the rest of the biennale, it is a mix of traditional and contemporary Chinese thought, and contemporary Western thought. What is immediately intriguing during the first morning session is that, while the traditional Chinese critics defend their position, the younger generation of Chinese thinkers are celebrating Western philosophies, and the Western-based participants are in turn critiquing Western practices.
Oddly enough, it turns out that the two speakers who really seem to articulate the problems that Shanghai is about to face are Wu Hong, a Chinese academic based in the US, and Gilane Tawadros, the Director of the London-based Institute of International Visual Arts.
The complexities of the speaker's arguments cannot be covered here, but one of Tawadros' key points was that the newly rediscovered 'spirit of internationalism' - which everyone is broadly welcoming - to a large extent involves opening Shanghai's economy to Western capitalism. Tawadros was of the opinion that allowing multinationals to further spread their influence is not necessarily a good thing.
Strangely, no one mentioned the fact that, when foreign capitalism last flourished in Shanghai, it was so punitive to the local workers that they founded the Chinese Communist Party and, ultimately, brought about a revolution. Surely there is enough history in this town to suggest that extremist positions don't work, and the very danger of such rapid market liberalization is precisely such an extremist economy?
These general points about the dangers of following Western models were addressed in a highly specific manner by Wu Hong. His thoroughly researched presentation discussed the role of the museum within a city's development, in particular the Western museum model. Wu Hong argued that, while Western museums have increasingly presented so-called 'blockbuster' exhibitions, their ensuing reliance on populism and fashion meant that the experimental nature of art was being left behind in the rush to the cash registers. He concluded that 'Chinese museums should not follow the Western model,' before adding, 'but what model they should follow I cannot say; it is still a dream.'
Walking round the exhibition afterwards, the idea of floating a beautiful silver rock on the high seas seemed like the most fitting gesture possible. The question such an action asks, of course, is who will pick it up? And will they repay our trust by returning it safely? Thankfully, as Tawadros put it, 'Contemporary art should ask these questions, not answer them'.
So tomorrow I'll try to draw out some other themes from the exhibition by looking at another set of works. Meanwhile, the conference continues and, on top of all this, there are several unofficial 'off-biennale' projects, organized by local young artists, which need to be seen. Apparently, these exhibitions give a much more abrasive perspective on Shanghai culture, concerned as they are with the present reality rather than some imagined future. I'm told they are not for the squeamish.
intro, day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4, day 5, last word— End —