Art fairs on our side of the world are engaged in a tussle to become the Art Basel of Asia. We're less interested in whether there is a clear winner - we hope several emerge in the Asia/Pacific region with the potential to rival the great fairs of Europe - than the moves they make to raise the stakes.
What is Contemporary Art? is the subject of a conference organised by Anton Vidokle for ShContemporary09. The conference will be structured as a four-day series of short lectures and contents will be published in e-flux journal. The lineup of speakers includes: Hu Fang, Hal Foster, Boris Groys, Jeorg Heiser, Raqs Media Collective, Carol Yinghua Lu, Cuauhtemoc Medina, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Martha Rosler, Gao Shiming and Jan Verwoert. The lecture series takes place as part of the special section Discoveries, an exhibition curated by Wang Jianwei and Mami Katoka that includes artists such as Marina Abramovic, Heman Chong, Joseph Kosuth, Susan Norrie, Shinji Ohmaki, Martha Rosler, Anri Sala, Fiona Tan, Xu Zhen and others. The conference programme description and schedule is published here.
Image: Shanghai Exhibition Centre and venue for ShContemporary09
