-
2010.10.24-2011.01.25
Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, ChinaThe 8th Shanghai Biennale defines itself as a “rehearsal” and as a reflective space of performance. “Rehearsal” is not only a strategy or a special form of exhibition. It’s travelling art and opening to all the audience. “Rehearsal” focuses on the full process of exhibition and on creativity itself. The exhibition hall is not only the medium for the artworks, but also a changing space that can trigger creativity.
The “Rehearsal” of the 8th Shanghai Biennale unfolds across five acts and an interlude: The past Decade of Chinese Live Art. The five acts are, ActⅠ. Ho Chi Minh Trail, in cooperation with the Long March Project; Act Ⅱ. A Guiding Light, in cooperation with PERFORMA; Act Ⅲ. Rehearsal, in Shanghai Art Museum; Act Ⅳ. Theory and Practice of Socialist Self-Management: Yugoslav Case, in cooperation with the radical curatorial group WHW; Act Ⅴ.West Heavens: India-China Summit on Social Thought.
Though the Five Acts, the Biennale brings together around 80 thinkers, artists and curators in an attempt to bring about a convergence of discourse and visual production. For the 8th Shanghai Biennale, “Rehearsal” is not a metaphor for a form of exhibition, but a way of thinking and operating strategy. What the Biennale aims to achieve is to invite a wide range of participants – artists, curators, critics, collectors, museum directors, and members of the audience – to rehearse in Biennale, a fertile theatre to reflect on the relations between art experimentation and the art system, between individual creativity and the public domain.