Shanghai Shows to See During West Bund and ART021 2023
Tan Jing, Floor Tiles and Flowers (2023) (detail). Makrut lime leaf, lemongrass, galangal, gypsum, silt, aroma essence, patterned fabric, tin foil. Courtesy the artist.
From 9 to 12 November Shanghai's flagship art fairs, ART021 Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair and West Bund Art & Design, return for their 11th and 10th editions respectively following their premature Covid-related closure last year. Ocula recommends exhibitions worth a visit during the fairs and beyond, from the long-awaited 14th Shanghai Biennale at the Power Station of Art to Liu Chuang's new film at Antenna Space.
14th Shanghai Biennale: Cosmos Cinema
Power Station of Art, 200 Hua Yuan Gang Road
9 November 2023–31 March 2024
Expect: a journey of learning about the universe in its entirety in order to foster nuanced approaches to today's global challenges.
The 14th Shanghai Biennale delves into cosmic influences on human existence, from the interpretations of stars and planets that have shaped religions and civilisations, to the impact of celestial forces like tides and solar flares.
Curated by Anton Vidokle, Zairong Xiang, Hallie Ayres, and Lukas Brasiskis, Cosmos Cinema explores the intriguing connections between the fundamental elements of cinema—light, shadow, and time—and our experience of the cosmos. It challenges us to see cinema not merely as a storytelling medium but as a cosmic phenomenon capable of reshaping our comprehension of the universe.
Featuring more than 80 artists from China and around the world, the Biennale showcases artworks that represent a wide spectrum of cosmologies and microcosmic realities to prompt contemplation on how humanity fits into the intricate fabric of space and time. Reflecting Shanghai's cosmopolitan heritage, Cosmos Cinema celebrates diversity within the broader unity of humankind's shared fascination with the cosmos.
As Vidokle said to Ocula Magazine, 'to consider our place in the cosmos is not an alternative to thinking about issues such as climate change, income inequality, and so on—it is a way of framing them.'
Shubigi Rao: These Petrified Paths
Tan Jing: Inlet of Arid Dreams
Rockbund Art Museum, 20 Huqiu Road
8 November 2023–25 February 2024
Expect: books, written and spoken words, fragrance, and old windows adorned with Chinese crabapple patterns.
Since X Zhu-Nowell's appointment as artistic director, the Rockbund Art Museum's programme has largely focused on supporting emerging and mid-career artists with interdisciplinary practices that respond to non-mainstream identities and diasporic experiences. Two solo exhibitions by Shubigi Rao and Tan Jing continue this trend.
Artist and writer Shubigi Rao, who represented Singapore at the 59th Venice Biennale with her ten-year project, Pulp III: A Short Biography of the Banished Book, delves into themes such as the exclusion of women from art history and contemporary spaces, the vanishing of marginalised languages, and the displacement of minority communities. For her first solo exhibition in China, Rao presents a group of 12-metre-tall phylogenetic pylon 'trees' whose outstretched branches connect ideas around knowledge, storytelling, power, and violence. Also on show is a new feature-length film These Petrified Paths (2023). Filmed in 2022 amidst the outbreak of war in Armenia, Rao intertwines the recollections of Armenian communities with everyday dialogue, as well as written and spoken word.
Like Rao, Tan Jing explores diasporic experiences through archival research of folklore and oral recollections of memories, conjuring a dreamscape that incorporates plants, architectural elements, and personal memoir. Many of her works in the exhibition trace her family history, focusing on her grandparents' migration from Thailand to Southern China in the 1950s. Included is Floor Tiles and Flowers (2023), an installation that invites the viewer to step on fragile floor tiles to release the aroma of lemongrass, among other scents of Southeast Asian cuisine.
Paraventi
Prada Rong Zhai, No. 186 North Shaan Xi Road
3 November 2023–21 January 2024
Expect: traditional Chinese folding screens meet contemporary artistic interpretation in a historical Italian-inspired garden villa.
Paraventi is a complementary parallel showing of Paraventi: Folding Screens from the 17th to 21st Centuries (26 October 2023–26 February 2024) at Fondazione Prada, Milan. Curated by Nicholas Cullinan, Prada's Milan exhibition offers a comprehensive exploration of the histories and semantics of folding screens, tracing cross-cultural influences with collaborative efforts between designers and artists.
In Prada's exquisitely restored 1918 villa in Shanghai, Paraventi presents five newly commissioned works by Tony Cokes, John Stezaker, Li Shuang, Wu Tsang, and Cao Fei. These are set in contrast to two antique Chinese folding screens. One is a small, lacquered wooden screen that rests upon a desk, while the other, a large 12-panel screen, gracefully intersects the room.
With the five new works, the narrative shifts to the contemporary, delving into the connections between traditional folding screens and the digital experience. The artists investigate various aspects of the screen, from its contradictory functions of revealing and concealing, to its potential for creating alternate realities.
Zhang Enli: Expression
8 November 2023–14 January 2024
Huang Yuxing: Under the Vault of Heaven
26 October 2023–1 January 2024
Gao Ludi: Overwrite
29 October 2023–1 January 2024
Long Museum (West Bund), 3398 Longteng Avenue
Expect: a one-stop journey through broad explorations in figurative and abstract painting by three Chinese painters.
Famous for his fluid, gestural style, Zhang Enli paints portraits, urban scenes, and abstractions. Lines breathe life into his paintings to convey emotions through colour, direction, and thickness. Zhang's Long Museum survey follows his major exhibition earlier this year at He Art Museum, Shunde. With nearly 100 works on display, Expression journeys through Zhang's artistic evolution, traversing portraiture, banquet and dance scenes, and rich arrays of everyday objects.
Another influential artist featured at Long Museum is Huang Yuxing, who is renowned for his psychedelic paintings rendered with thick, continuous curves in saturated neons. Influenced by Taoist and Buddhist philosophies, Huang's landscapes often convey a sense of emptiness under the radiant colours. Under the Vault of Heaven features nearly 30 works from each period of Huang's career over the past 30 years, from his early figurative works in muted tones, his shift towards fluorescent landscapes, and his recent return to motifs in ink.
Also on show is young artist Gao Ludi's first major institutional exhibition Overwrite, featuring recent paintings. Incorporating imagery of familiar objects and geometric forms, Gao's mixed-media paintings use a palette of bright, acidic colours. Drawing from the motifs of storage media (cassettes, CDs, DVDs, floppy disks, etc.) and masks, Gao draws parallels between the movement of paint on canvas with the physical or spiritual changes occurring within a disk or under a mask.
Zhang Ruyi: Once Remain, Once Remould
Don Gallery, 2555-9 Longteng Avenue
3 November 2023–31 January 2024
Expect: a moment of reflection on how our emotions are moulded by urban experience.
Following her solo exhibition at UCCA earlier this year, Zhang Ruyi showcases a collection of recent sculpture and two-dimensional works at Don Gallery, where her signature use of cacti, grids, and concrete can be seen.
In Once Remain, Once Remould, Zhang further investigates the relationships between body and sculpture, and the natural and urban environment by incorporating discarded objects and materials from domestic and industrial contexts.
In Perishable Modernity-2 (2023), for example, a grey cacti-pipe totem is placed on a table supported by bricks, steel bars, and a part of a broken chair, disrupting the sleekness associated with modern architecture and its interiors. Reminiscent of wall decorations, shrines, or furniture pieces, these works delineate an organic realm that undergoes weathering, solidification, metabolism, and regeneration.
Liu Chuang: Lithium Lake and Island of Polyphony
Antenna Space, Room 202, Building 17, No.50 Moganshan Road
4 November–30 December 2023
Expect: a polyphony that weaves together anthropology, field recordings, science fiction narratives, and the history of the seldom-explored region of Southwest China.
Multidisciplinary artist Liu Chuang investigates the interweaving relationships between technology, communities, government policies, and visual culture. He has explored objects from the traditional fang sheng patterns used on anti-burglary windows in Chinese apartments, to the 'Bud Blossom Restrainer No.1', a biochemical agent developed to control poplar catkins in the spring.
At Antenna Space is the premiere of Liu's latest film, Lithium Lake and Island of Polyphony (2023), a sequel to the ambitious research-based film essay, Bitcoin Mining and Field Recordings of Ethnic Minorities (2018). For this 2018 project, Liu studied the geological interconnections of bitcoin mines and hydrographic engineering projects in Southwest China, weaving the narrative with government-led recordings of the music of minority groups in the region.
Drawing references from science fiction, folk stories, and anthropology, Liu continues his research in the Southwest China region through a lens that blurs fieldwork with ghostly, fictional narratives.
Zhang Ding & Teppei Kaneuji: Two Clubs
HOW Art Museum, No.1, Lane 2277, Zuchongzhi Road
27 October 2023–31 March 2024
Expect: stages, noises, and toys in a space that defies traditional museum conventions.
The club has been a significant motif in the work of Zhang Ding and Teppei Kaneuji. Curated by Zhu Sha, the collaborative exhibition Two Clubs considers the club as an alternative to museums and domestic spaces, emphasising the performativity and affinity with pop culture evident in the practices of the two multihyphenates.
Multimedia artist Zhang Ding, who founded Control Club in 2014, has woven the identity's name and concept into his practice, be it record label, live music performance, electrifying party, or recurring art motif. A notable work in Two Clubs is SAFE HOUSE #3 (2018), an audiovisual installation consisting of five dazzling, interconnected rooms lit up by electrodeless lamps and filled with resonant white noise. Recent works, such as CARE FOR EVERY CORNER OF YOUR LIFE (2019–2022) explore technological industrialisation, juxtaposing surveillance slogans as titles with meticulously crafted jade camera sculptures.
In contrast to the deadpan nature of Zhang Ding's work, Kaneuji's works exude a vibrant, candy-coloured energy influenced by the manga and anime culture of his native Japan. With an alchemical approach, Kaneuji collects, dismantles, and recombines objects to prompt contemplation of the detritus of entertainment and consumption. Inspired by the experience of having his view of the stage obstructed by crowds during performances, Kaneuji created the ongoing series 'Teenage Fan Club' (2007–ongoing), which features uncanny monsters assembled from the removable hairpieces of plastic toys and resin figurines.
Zeng Fanzhi: Old and New (Paintings 1988–2023)
Museum of Art Pudong, No.2777 Binjiang Avenue
27 September 2023–8 March 2024
Expect: a profound exploration of Zeng Fanzhi's artistic evolution spanning 35 years.
A prominent figure in Chinese contemporary art, Zeng Fanzhi has dedicated himself to bridging Eastern and Western traditions since the 1980s. Characterised by expressionistic, erratic brushstrokes and fleshy, provocative figures, Zeng's oil paintings reflect intricate psychologies of the era of rapid urban development.
More than 60 works are grouped into four sections: 'The Early Years', 'Different Paths', 'Painting as Contemplation', and 'Monumentals'. These encompass Zeng's celebrated 'Mask' series of the 1990s, the 'Abstract Landscape' series of the 2000s, and his enduring exploration of still life and portraiture.
Old and New also features a work painted onsite by the artist, as well as experimental video and sound pieces from filmmaker Er Cheng. In conjunction with Zeng's paintings and the preserved traces of his creative process, the exhibition provides a rare behind-the-scenes look at Zeng's artistic practice. —[O]
