Issue 15 - Pdf Ctrl+P - CTRL+P: a journal of contemporary art

Installation view “Best of Discovery”,
SHcontemporary08 art fair, Shanghai
Photo credits: Gina Fairley
Jing Shijian (China).“Express
Train: Shanghai Biennale Station”
(2008). Train car, rail, sleepers,
video, 45 tonnes. Installation view
7th Shanghai Biennale, 2008
Photo credits: Gina Fairley
This explosion is not specific to China. Between 2006 and 2008 the number of art
fairs rocketed with 50 held in 2008 alone; 21 of those were held in Asia. Former Editor
at Art Asia Pacific Andrew Maerkle notes that, “…galleries from the Asia-Pacific region
still represent less than 1% of international art fair exhibitors.” 5
While this statistic may be true it does not reflect the number
of Asian artists shown at these events, regardless of the location
of the gallery.
What is more interesting than the global power structures
of art fairs is the way they are redefining themselves, bridging
if you like, biennales and auctions with curated components
and commissioned works by ‘celebrity artists’ featured within
their selling halls. Shanghai’s SHContemporary, for example,
calls theirs “Best of Discovery.” The choice of name says it all
playing off the speculation or savvy discovery of the new that
has skewed the market of recent years. It is a curious tension
between elite market drivers and popular interest.
And with the growing trend of biennales and triennials
to commission work for institutional collections—one only
has to recall that the Fifth Asia Pacific Triennial commissioned
or acquired 70% of its works prior to the exhibition’s
opening—one ponders whether next we will have the ‘buying
biennale’? One might even ask whether the biennale has
hijacked contemporary art making, so thoroughly massaged and hyped that they have
backed themselves into a corner of staged dialogues and price tickets, and art fairs are
quickly filling the fissures.
A further interesting trend is the shift in several of these Asian events from a locally
focused survey of the ‘new’ addressing their own art scene to become International exhibitions
turning towards global trends. Shanghai, Guangzhou, Taipei, Busan, Gwangju,
Yogyakarta and Jakarta have all made this shift, the most recent being the XIII Jakarta
Biennale just this February despite starting in the 1960s as a painting show. It indicates
to me where these art scenes are setting their sites.
Yongwoo Lee of last year’s Gwangju Biennale, however, disagrees. He speaks
of Korea’s embrace of this biennalisation: “The biennale culture of Korea has already
accumulated 13 years of experience and is constantly expanding, quantitatively. I do
not believe that it comes from the system of the biennale or structure
of global production it conveys...I anticipate the emergence of a new
ideology and international styles of art in the niches of the economic
crisis and recess.” 6
Lee believes the needs and local desires of individual nations are
driving this beast. If the impact of the GEC can be weathered by these
events and offer a reshuffling the deck of speculators, their 2010 versions
will be the real barometer to their longevity as a vital curatorial model.
It begs the old question to again be asked: Who really are these Asian
biennales for and how do we filter their curatorial choices?
Remapping/geopolitics
2008 was the year to catch the Asian biennale and I managed to do
my share, regularly opting to see these exhibitions outside the ‘opening
week caravan.’ What became apparent to me were two very different
experiences of the same exhibition: One attempting to satisfy global art
vernacular; the other trying to grow these events to a local population.
What currency does the voice of the nomadic curator have to this
local population, where he or she steps centre stage for a short moment?
As ‘the biennale’ has been deployed across cities and regions, these events
increasingly are brokered on themes of social responsibility as witness to
12 Ctrl+P September 2009