An art event as a ‘rehearsal’ and as a reflective space of performance

What is ‘Rehersal’? –a curatorial thinking of the 8th Shanghai Biennale:

The last two years have witnessed the latest global crisis. As if on cue, almost concurrently, an unprecedented crisis also befell contemporary art on a global scale. This one is no spiritual crisis experienced by modernists in the depths of their individual creativity, but a malarial torpor endemic to today’s world, or alternatively, a malaise of the system – the fact that the creativity of individual artists fails to match that of the system of artistic production, and by a wide margin. Artists cannot rid themselves of the sinking feeling that they are in the system’s employment, made to order by society at large.

The 8th Shanghai Biennale raises the following question:

• What is suppressing and constraining the power of the heart in the economic and political context of contemporary art?
• Is it because of the ‘invisible hand’ of the art world? Or is it because of ‘trends’ in the international art market?
• Should we blame all the identikit mega-exhibitions worldwide? Or the omni-present mass culture?
• Artists are becoming more and more constrained and boring and we are dragged into a ‘post-history’ malaise. So how should we describe this state clearly? How can we get out of the dilemma of creation in the context of an art system constituted by seamless and endless international dialogue, mega exhibitions, art fairs and transnational capital?
• How do we identify the internal frontiers of the ‘art world’ hijacked by global capitalism while we are ourselves part of it? Is contemporary artistic practice capable of generating a new system of production beyond the throttles of institutional critique and social participation?

The 8th Shanghai Biennale defines itself as a ‘rehearsal’ and as a reflective space of performance. The responsibility of the curators is to differentiate, organize and then mobilize. Today many exhibitions are restricted in the theatre, but for this biennale, the theatre and rehearsal are not only spaces for exhibition, but methods of creation, exhibition and communication.

The biennale looks to promote interaction between artists. The elements of venue, narration and social participation have become key concepts in contemporary visual art, so the curators hope that they can explore these areas in the mode of ‘rehearsal’.

(Information courtesy: Shanghai Biennale official note)