Academic Sessions: London 2008
Multiculturalism, Migration, and the Mega-Exhibition: Considering the Impacts of Contemporary Festivals, Biennales, and Documentas
Session Convenors:
Elsa Chen, University of California, Los Angeles, elsahcchen@gmail.com
Royce W. Smith, Wichita State University, royce.smith@wichita.edu
Speakers:
Isobel Whitelegg (University of Essex) Biennales contra Biennales
Rafal Niemojewski (The Hayward Gallery, UK) Venice or Havana? A polemic on the model of the contemporary biennial
Raul Moarquech Ferrera-Balanquet (Executive Curator) Arte Nuevo InteractivA
Royce W. Smith (College of Fine Arts, Wichita State University ) Reinscriptions and Aestheticisations of the Periphery: The contemporary biennale as an agent of marginalisation
Javier Gimeno Martinez (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven/FWO-Flanders) The Periphery of Art: Forging the 1980s concept of design at Documenta
8 (1987)
Nick Waterlow (University of New South Wales) The Biennale of Sydney: 1973 to today
Elizabeth Rankin (University of Auckland) Between Biennale and Triennial: Locating New Zealand in the contemporary art scene
Sally Butler (University of Queensland) 21st Century Fringe Dwellers?: Inclusivity and equity in the Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art
Felicity Fenner (Ivan Dougherty Gallery and Centre for Contemporary Art and Politics, University of New South Wales) My Place or Yours? Concepts of place in recurrent nationally and regionally focused exhibitions
Britta Erickson (Independent Curator, United States) Periodical Exhibitions in China: Diversity of Motivation and Format
Kuiyi Shen (University of California) Construction and Expansion of Contemporary Art – The Third Chengdu Biennale
Chien Hui Kao (Independent Curator) The Complexity of Identity in the Beijing Biennale and Taipei Biennale
Sohl Lee (University of Rochester) Producing Globalization of Culture: Producing and Transforming the Gwanjgu Biennale
Elsa Hsiang-chun Chen (University of California, Los Angeles) The Imagined TransAsia Community and the Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale
Session Abstract:
Described by Tim Griffin as events ‘endowed with a transnational circuitry’, contemporary festivals, biennales, triennials, and other large-scale exhibitions have served as increasingly prevalent fora for creative, cultural, and scholarly exchanges. Yet, these exhibitions have also complicated the ways in which critics consider the elements, roles, and effects of artistic production and exhibition. While large-scale exhibitions have amplified concerns about ‘curatorial dictatorships’ and the potential homogenisation of cultural expression, they have also enabled a greater visibility of projects and approaches outside the mainstream and have challenged the viability of ‘centre/periphery’ thinking in a global art market.
To illustrate a specific example, new biennales in Asia have been established and promoted by enthusiastic governmental agencies and privately funded institutions. Consequently, two distinct ideological types of biennale have been created: those that focus on art in and from particular regions or by their respective diasporas (such as the Asia-Pacific Triennial and the Chengdu Biennale) and those that predominantly aim to make host countries, cities, and participating institutions into new ‘hubs’ for international art discourse (such as the Guangzhou Triennial and the Taipei Biennale). This influx of biennales certainly raises issues specific to the regions in which they are held: How have these biennales represented and promoted Asia and Asian art? What kind of dialogues with Europe and America and Asian art worlds do these biennales generate? What impact have these Asian biennales had on existing Asian art systems and contemporary practices?
From a broader point of view, questions also arise regarding the soundness of the conceptual threads that link curatorial initiatives, disparate creative processes, diverse viewerships, and the site-specificities of all large-scale exhibition projects: Can large-scale, transnational exhibitions adequately explore complex rhetorics of globalisation whilst maintaining relevance to exhibitions’ unique localities and specific cultural contexts? Do festivals and biennales meaningfully investigate, inevitably alter, or altogether ignore the visual, material, and historical sensibilities and traditions that uniquely inform each artist’s practice? Do mega-exhibitions facilitate what Okwui Enwezor calls ‘greater methodological and discursive flexibility’, or do they become ‘cultural safaris’– succumbing to the disadvantages of and disorientations caused by their sheer size and sprawl? This session explores the critical, cultural, commercial, geopolitical, and aesthetic debates that have surfaced with respect to large-scale, transnational exhibition programming. We wish to examine the effectiveness of such exhibitions’ mediations of global and local concerns and their overall ability to establish sustainable connections between the museum, the academy, the studio, and the viewer. Given the growing influence and popularity of the mega-exhibition, this panel also speculates holistically on the futures of documentation, historicisation, and interaction given the new relational dynamics established by various festival and biennale ‘cultures’.
Elsa Chen, University of California, Los Angeles, elsahcchen@gmail.com
Royce W. Smith, Wichita State University, royce.smith@wichita.edu
Speakers:
Isobel Whitelegg (University of Essex) Biennales contra Biennales
Rafal Niemojewski (The Hayward Gallery, UK) Venice or Havana? A polemic on the model of the contemporary biennial
Raul Moarquech Ferrera-Balanquet (Executive Curator) Arte Nuevo InteractivA
Royce W. Smith (College of Fine Arts, Wichita State University ) Reinscriptions and Aestheticisations of the Periphery: The contemporary biennale as an agent of marginalisation
Javier Gimeno Martinez (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven/FWO-Flanders) The Periphery of Art: Forging the 1980s concept of design at Documenta
8 (1987)
Nick Waterlow (University of New South Wales) The Biennale of Sydney: 1973 to today
Elizabeth Rankin (University of Auckland) Between Biennale and Triennial: Locating New Zealand in the contemporary art scene
Sally Butler (University of Queensland) 21st Century Fringe Dwellers?: Inclusivity and equity in the Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art
Felicity Fenner (Ivan Dougherty Gallery and Centre for Contemporary Art and Politics, University of New South Wales) My Place or Yours? Concepts of place in recurrent nationally and regionally focused exhibitions
Britta Erickson (Independent Curator, United States) Periodical Exhibitions in China: Diversity of Motivation and Format
Kuiyi Shen (University of California) Construction and Expansion of Contemporary Art – The Third Chengdu Biennale
Chien Hui Kao (Independent Curator) The Complexity of Identity in the Beijing Biennale and Taipei Biennale
Sohl Lee (University of Rochester) Producing Globalization of Culture: Producing and Transforming the Gwanjgu Biennale
Elsa Hsiang-chun Chen (University of California, Los Angeles) The Imagined TransAsia Community and the Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale
Session Abstract:
Described by Tim Griffin as events ‘endowed with a transnational circuitry’, contemporary festivals, biennales, triennials, and other large-scale exhibitions have served as increasingly prevalent fora for creative, cultural, and scholarly exchanges. Yet, these exhibitions have also complicated the ways in which critics consider the elements, roles, and effects of artistic production and exhibition. While large-scale exhibitions have amplified concerns about ‘curatorial dictatorships’ and the potential homogenisation of cultural expression, they have also enabled a greater visibility of projects and approaches outside the mainstream and have challenged the viability of ‘centre/periphery’ thinking in a global art market.
To illustrate a specific example, new biennales in Asia have been established and promoted by enthusiastic governmental agencies and privately funded institutions. Consequently, two distinct ideological types of biennale have been created: those that focus on art in and from particular regions or by their respective diasporas (such as the Asia-Pacific Triennial and the Chengdu Biennale) and those that predominantly aim to make host countries, cities, and participating institutions into new ‘hubs’ for international art discourse (such as the Guangzhou Triennial and the Taipei Biennale). This influx of biennales certainly raises issues specific to the regions in which they are held: How have these biennales represented and promoted Asia and Asian art? What kind of dialogues with Europe and America and Asian art worlds do these biennales generate? What impact have these Asian biennales had on existing Asian art systems and contemporary practices?
From a broader point of view, questions also arise regarding the soundness of the conceptual threads that link curatorial initiatives, disparate creative processes, diverse viewerships, and the site-specificities of all large-scale exhibition projects: Can large-scale, transnational exhibitions adequately explore complex rhetorics of globalisation whilst maintaining relevance to exhibitions’ unique localities and specific cultural contexts? Do festivals and biennales meaningfully investigate, inevitably alter, or altogether ignore the visual, material, and historical sensibilities and traditions that uniquely inform each artist’s practice? Do mega-exhibitions facilitate what Okwui Enwezor calls ‘greater methodological and discursive flexibility’, or do they become ‘cultural safaris’– succumbing to the disadvantages of and disorientations caused by their sheer size and sprawl? This session explores the critical, cultural, commercial, geopolitical, and aesthetic debates that have surfaced with respect to large-scale, transnational exhibition programming. We wish to examine the effectiveness of such exhibitions’ mediations of global and local concerns and their overall ability to establish sustainable connections between the museum, the academy, the studio, and the viewer. Given the growing influence and popularity of the mega-exhibition, this panel also speculates holistically on the futures of documentation, historicisation, and interaction given the new relational dynamics established by various festival and biennale ‘cultures’.