Guangzhou Triennial 2023 Is an Opus to Change

Cao Fei, Cosplayers (2004). Single channel vide, 9'12". Courtesy the artist and Guangzhou Triennial.

By Michael Irwin – 19 January 2023, Guangzhou

The seventh Guangzhou Triennial will officially open at the Guangdong Museum of Art on 10 February after being delayed by China’s spiking Covid-19 cases.

It will continue through 10 April.

Miao Xiaochun, The Spatial Form Shaped By Continuous Movement - Cycle (2022). 3D printed sculpture in photosensitive resin. 160 x 160 x 100 cm. Courtesy the artist.

This year’s edition, entitled SYMPHONY OF ALL THE CHANGES, ‘heralds the unveiling of a new and contemporary landscape of change within change’, said Wang Shaoqiang, Chief Curator of the Triennial and Director of the Guangdong Museum of Art.

More broadly, the Triennial exists within a landscape of transformations brought about by a global health crisis that Shaoquang explains ‘has shattered our expectations of a continued trajectory of development resulting from globalisation’.

Joana Vasconcelos, White Snake (2015). Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro faience painted with ceramic glaze, Azores crocheted lace. 14 x 50 x 67 cm. Courtesy the artist.

Works by 59 artists—including over a dozen new commissions by artists such as Francis Upritchard, Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, and Wang Lijun—will address notions of change across four thematic sections within the show: ‘Bumps on the Edges’, ‘In Praise of Slow Art’, ‘Touch Screen / Me’, and ‘Immanence’.

‘Touch Screen / Me’ explores transformations of the human body brought about by technological change. In this section, Sui Jianguo‘s 3D-printed photosensitive resin piece The Garden in Data Cloud — 24 Moments forms a centre-piece in the Museum’s lobby.

Chun Kwang Young, Aggregation (2015). Mixed media with mulberry paper. 300 x 200 x 180 cm. Courtesy CKW studio and Tang Contemporary Art.

Korean sculptor Chun Kwang Young, British ceramic and conceptual artist Edmund de Waal, and New York filmmaker Marc Lafia present artworks in the ‘Slow Art’ section, which is attentive to the effects our actions have on each other and the natural world, as opposed to the market.

Bumps on Edges brings looks at marginalised art forms through the lenses of Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke and artist Cao Fei, who spent time with the cosplay community in southern China.

The Bai E Tan Greater Bay Art Centre under construction. Courtesy Guangzhou Triennial.

Immanence, meanwhile, draws out the core distinct interweaving threads in contemporary Chinese art through a dialogue with artists such as Hu Jieming, Zhang Xiaogang, and Zhang Ding.

SYMPHONY OF ALL THE CHANGES precedes the Guangdong Museum of Art’s move upriver to the new Bai E Tan Greater Bay Art Centre, scheduled for late this year, which Shaoqiang described as ‘the end of an era and a new beginning for the museum.’ —[O]