Biennale set for Shanghai

Following a year in which official taste was resurgent in Chinese institutions but ever more confidently flouted in independent venues [see "Focus: China," A.i.A., June/July '04], critical anticipation is now building for the fifth Shanghai Biennale, scheduled to run Sept. 28-Nov. 28 at the Shanghai Art Museum. Only the third installment to be truly international in scope, this year's event, titled "Techniques of the Visible," will examine links between art, science and technology. Works will range from shadow plays and dance through painting, sculpture and installation to photography, film, video and computer art.

Though a recent upswing of Western interest in Chinese contemporary art is expected to deliver a greater-than-ever number of foreign visitors, and though local hopes are high for a crop of feisty nonaffiliated shows, the Biennale's organizational structure itself remains solidly mainstream. Of the four members of the curatorial team, only one is from abroad: Argentinean-born Sebastian Lopez, currently director of the Gate Foundation, Amsterdam, which gathers and disseminates information on non-Western visual arts. Xu Jiang, a widely exhibited painter who is president of the China Academy of Art and vice chairman of the Chinese Artists Association, serves as head curator. Rounding out the group are Zheng Shengtian, an independent curator and managing editor of the English-language contemporary Chinese art journal Yishu, and Zhang Qing, a Shanghai Art Museum curator who also sits on the editorial board of the bimonthly Art China.

As we go to press in early August, no list of participating artists has yet been announced. (Last-minute release of information to press and public is a standard practice in official Chinese art circles.) Updates can be found on-line at www.shanghaibiennale.com.

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