Crossing Borders: China at the Venice Biennale

2015-05-06  Source: chinaculture.org

Installation work The Phoenix Project by Xu Bing is the biggest single art work in the Venice Biennale.

As one of the oldest and most important exhibitions of contemporary art in the world, the 56th Venice Biennale will take place from May 9th to November 22nd. Four Chinese artists' works will appear in the main pavilion, while transcending the borders of contemporary art will be the most obvious feature for the China Pavilion this year.

Ever since its foundation in 1895, the Venice Biennale, also known as La Biennale di Venezia, gradually developed into a prestigious cultural gala, promoting new artistic trends and organizing international events concerning contemporary arts. Since 2005, Chinese artists have partaken in this arts exhibition, and aroused more and more interest from the international art community.

For this year, the theme of the exhibition is "All the World's Future". Okwui Enwezor, chief curator of the Venice Biennale, said that he wished to collect the wisdom and thoughts of artists from different fields in the world, and show the current development as well as main characteristics of humanity’s situation in different countries or areas.

Enwezor selected Qiu Zhijie’s installation work Light Colors in Lantern Festival as a display for the main pavilion when it was on show in the Red Brick Museum in Beijing. The installation took a Ming Dynasty painting as the script, and restored a scene with a lantern, goldfish bowl, cradle, string bag as well as other materials in order to explain the social relations showed in the painting.

Paintings by Ji Dachun, a spatial model La Town by Cao Fei, and installation work The Phoenix Project by Xu Bing were also chosen to be displayed in the main pavilion. The Phoenix Project was the biggest single work of art in the Biennale, and has been exhibited in several countries before.

Screenshot from documentary China Villager Documentary Project by Wu Wenguan.

For this year, the theme of the China Pavilion is "Other Future". Cui Qiao, director of the Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation, who acted as the curator for the Chinese Pavilion, told this journalist recently that most of the art works in the China Pavilion concerned folk life, intangible cultural heritage and rural constructions in China.

"All the artists we selected had epic creative processes in China. They went to the people, lived with the people, and learnt from the people. It’s really helpful to show the great tension and expanding soul of Chinese art. People from other countries may see an all-embracing China from the art works," Cui said.

Conductor and composer Tan Dun, architect and writer Liu Jiakun, modern artists Lu Yang, dancer Wen Hui with her Living Dance Studio, and documentary director Wu Wenguang with his Caochangdi Work Station were selected to reveal the diversity, maturity and culture of contemporary art in China through their works.

In terms of media, except for Lu Yang, all the artists or organizations are not involved in the field of typical modern art. Thus, crossing borders will be a theme for the China Pavilion this year. According to Cui Qiao, all the artists they selected were explorers in the field of arts. They made breakthroughs in their subjects as well as the dividing line in the world of art.”

"hy must the Venice Biennale be a contemporary art exhibition? Why can' we offer a more open, more wide-ranging platform? We wish that through the exhibition, we can discus more about how to break through the border of art, and how to make boundary-crossing art." Cui added.

Screenshot from Documentary Dancing with the Third Grandmother by Living Dance Studio.

Screenshot from visual music & performance Living in Future by Tan Dun.