Shanghai Biennale, Worldwide Innovation
By admin on 2015-01-12

The 8th Shanghai Biennale will be a worldwide artistic experimentation, presenting about 70 artists from 23 countries and regions in the world, organizers announced Friday, at the National Art Museum of China.

For the first time, a wide range of art projects will be accomplished in different venues in different countries around the world, including US, Spain, Vietnam and Laos, with the various outcomes - paintings, installations, video and multime-dia works to finally be displayed in Shanghai.

"This is an innovation to organize the Shanghai Biennale," said Zhang Qing, vice director of Shanghai Art Museum, organizer of the biennale. "We hope to broaden our eyesight by operating it worldwide, to break the limits of localization."

Fan Di'an, director of the National Art Museum of China, also one of the curators of the large-scale biennale, spoke highly of the innovative project, saying that it will offer both artists and art lovers a new way to approach international art.

This year's Shanghai Biennale is aimed at exploring the problems caused during the process of urbanization and trying to offer a solution in an artistic way, said Xu Jiang, director of China Academy of Art and one of the founders of the event.

Initiated in 1994, Shanghai Biennale has been devoted to artistic innovation and shorting the gap between everyday people and contemporary art and has made great achievements in both aspects, according to Xu.

The last Shanghai Biennale held in 2008, with the theme of Translocalmotion, received more than 300,000 attendees, far more than previous biennales, Xu said.

"As an international city, Shanghai people are getting more and more internationalized and their taste of art is getting better and better," he added.

The exhibition is scheduled to be held from October 24 to February 28 at Shanghai Art Museum with the art projects to be displayed in the city being executed worldwide from June to October.