Chief curator of 10th Shanghai Biennale announced

The organising committee of  the Shanghai Biennale has announced the selection of Anselm Franke as the chief curator of the 10th edition of the biennale, which takes place from 22 November 2014 to 31 March 2015 at Shanghai's Powerstation of Art. Franke is currently head of visual art and film art at Berlin's House of World Culture and curated the 2012 Taipei Biennial Modern Monsters / Death and Life of Fiction.
Image: Anslem Franke

Shanghai has a new art fair

ShContemporary's sabbatical has paved the way for a new art fair in Shanghai. ART021 was launched at the end of November and, although modestly scaled, it attracted some prominent galleries from China and further afield including: Beijing Commune, Vitamin Creative Space, Long March Space, Chambers Fine Art, James Cohen, White Cube and Galerie Perrotin. All eyes are now on ShContemporary to see whether it can stage a come-back in 2014.

Rubells reveal a new strand in their collection

Best known for supporting the work of young American artists, Don and Mera Rubell have revealed another strand in their collection. Over the past decade they have been visiting China seeking out artists and galleries in Shanghai, Beijing and other cities. A new exhibition at their Miami museum (staged to coincide with Art Basel Miami Beach) displays for the first time their acquisitions from six trips to China. Read more...

Image: He Xiangyu's My Fantasy (detail)

Arthub Asia announces new director

Charles Esche has been announced as the new director of Arthub Asia, a not-for-profit organisation supporting contemporary art creation in China and the rest of Asia. A curator and writer, Esche is the Director of the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, Netherlands and Editorial Director of Afterall Journal and Books in London. This follows his recent appointment as Curator of the upcoming Sao Paulo Biennial.
Image: Charles Esche

Art meets luxury shopping in Shanghai

Chinese billionaire and art patron Adrian Cheng unveiled a new retail concept in Shanghai last week - a mall where art meets luxury shopping. He launched his new K11 mall (which includes a dedicated art space) with a 45 minute multimedia performance by Ryoji Akeda, saying "sound art is very avant garde."

Cheng plans to roll out 19 art/shopping malls over the next five years, despite a slowdown in the Chinese economy and a government-led austerity drive that has led some analysts to caution against expansion. He says China's luxury market is multi-layered and the ultra-luxury market, which he is targeting with his new retail concept, is resilient.

His faith in the ultra-luxury market was evident at Art Basel Hong Kong where, with Modern Media's Thomas Shao, he hosted a champagne-fueled, celebrity-studded post-vernissage party at the Grand Hyatt.
Image: Ryoji Akeda's performance at the K11 shopping mall, Shanghai

Starkwhite presents immortalisation project at Art Basel Hong Kong

We'll be at Art Basel Hong Kong this week presenting THE IMMORTALISATION OF BILLY APPLE®, a ground-breaking project by artist Billy Apple® and artist/scientist Craig Hilton where art is in the service of science — Apple’s immortalised cell line is being used in studies that will directly benefit cancer and immunology research — and science serves the artist to enhance and protect the artist’s brand by immortalising his biological tissue in perpetuity. This transaction ensures that the brand (and the artist) can last forever, unconstrained by death. Read more...

Our presentation at Art Basel Hong Kong is with the assistance of Creative New Zealand.

International Award for Public Art launched in Shanghai

Initiated by Shanghai University and co-founded by the two magazines Public Art (China) and Public Art Review (USA), the International Award for Public Art (IAPA) was launched in Shanghai last month with the aim of propagating knowledge about the practice of public art globally.

The theme of the first award was place-making and 141 projects from around the world were researched, including temporary and permanent projects. Six projects were shortlisted by an international jury with the award going to Venezuela's Tiuna el Fuerte Cultural Park, which the jurors described as "a vibrant work of creative genius."

The jurors for the inaugural award were: Lewis Biggs, chair of the organising committee of the IAPA and former director of the Liverpool Biennale; Jacker Becker, director of Forecast and publisher of Public Art Review; Fulya Erdemci, former director of SKOR/Foundation for Art and Public Domain and artistic director of the 2013 Instanbul Biennale; Yuko Hasegawa, chief curator at the Museum of Contemporary art in Tokyo and curator of the 2013 Sharjah Biennale; Katia Canton, professor of art theory and criticism/curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, University of Sao Paulo; and professor Wang Dawei, dean of the Fine Arts College, Shanghai University and chief editor of Public Art (China).
Image: Tiuna el Fuerte Cultural Park, Caracas, Venezuela

Shanghai's international art fair cancelled or postponed?

As Shanghai continues to roll out new museums like the China Palace of Art and Powerstation (another 15 will open by 2015) SH Contemporary seemed poised to capitalise on the city's ambition to become a new global cultural hub. But a notice on ChinaExhibtion.com stating the 7th edition scheduled for September has been cancelled has raised questions about the future of the fair. A spokesperson for Bologna Fiere, which organises the show, told Art Radar Asia there are scheduling problems with when and where to hold the event, but offered no further detail saying updates would be posted on the event website at a later date.
Image: SH Contemporary 2012

The Guggenheim Museum turns to Asia with a new initiative

In partnership with the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation (and with a USD10 million Foundation grant), the Guggenheim Museum has launched a project to commission works by contemporary artists born in mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, to feature in three exhibitions between 2014 and 2017. The project follows two previous collaborations between the Guggenheim and the Robert H. N. Ho Foundation  - the exhibitions Cai Guo-Chiang:  I want to Believe (2008) and The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860-1869.
Image: Cai Guo-Qiang, I want to Believe, installation view, Guggenheim Museum, 2008

UCCA surveys a generation of young Chinese artists born after the end of the Cultural Revolution

Beijing's Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art has opened up its entire space for its current show On / Off: China's Young Artists in Theory and Practice. Curated by Bao Dong and Sun Dongdong, the exhibition brings together commissioned works from 50 artists born after 1975. This generation  of artists emerged while Chinese contemporary art practice was shifting from the underground scene of the 1990s to the more commercial and institutionalised art world seen today. Read more...
Image:  Yang Jian, Sooner or Later, Lightning Will Strike us all, 2011-2012, video installation

Museumfication of China continues at a surreal pace

As museum building and expansion slows to a crawl in the United States and state-financed institutions go begging for cash in Europe, the fiscal sun is shining in China where museums are opening on a surreal scale. The NYT reports on the museumification of China. Read more...
Image: Shanghai's China Art Palace 

Chasing the Chinese Dragon

Lehmann Maupin is the latest international arrival on Hong Kong's burgeoning gallery scene joining Gagosian, White Cube and Galerie Perrotin. The Arts Newspaper reports on how things are panning out for galleries chasing the Chinese Dragon. Read more...

Art museums to watch out for in Shanghai

Over the past few years private art institutions, like the Minsheng Art Museum and the Rockbund Art Museum, have been leading the way in Shanghai, building their institutional profiles at home and abroad on the back of first-rate, curatorially-driven programming. However with the arrival of new state institutions in 2012 the landscape is shifting, providing even greater scope for contemporary art in the city. According the ARTINFO the contenders for 2013 are: Power Station of Art, Rockbund Museum, Minsheng Art Museum, China Art Palace and OCT Contemporary Art Terminal. Read more...
Image: Shanghai's Power Station of Art

Centre Pompidou sends Electric Fields - Surrealism and Beyond to Shanghai's Power Station of Art

Paris' Centre Pompidu has joined the international lineup of institutions sending collection-based exhibitions to Shanghai's new art museums. The exhibition, Electric Fields: Surrealism and Beyond - La Collection du Centre Pompidou, opened recently at the Power Station of Art as part of the Shanghai Biennale. It follows presentations at the China Museum of Art including: contemporary works from the collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa; American masters from the Whitney Museum; Vermneer masterpieces from the Rijksmuseum; works from the collections of Maison de Victor Hugo in Paris, the Museo National de San Carlos in Mexico city and the British Museum; and the exhibition Naturalism in France.from the Musee d'Orsay.
Image: visitors at Electric Fields: Surrealism and Beyond, Power Station of Art, Shanghai

China's Ministry of Culture rejects Warhol's Mao works

Andy Warhol's images of Chairman Mao won't be part of a traveling exhibition of his work when it goes to China. According to Bloomberg, the Mao works have been rejected by the Ministry of Culture. If mainland fans of Warhol want to see silkscreens of the great helmsman they will have to catch the Hong Kong leg of Andy Warhol: 15 Minutes Eternal. Read more...
Image: Andy Warhol's Mao

Pritzker prize winner challenges the direction of contemporary architecture in China

Faced with the groundswell of huge new building projects in China, this year's Pritzker Prize winner Wang Shu has proposed an alternative view saying they are not the only architectural products his country has to offer. The practice he runs with his wife Lu Wenyu, is concerned with such things as memory, location, craft and identity, for "real feeling between people and construction" and the ways in which they can be recognised in the extraordinary time through which China is now passing. Read more...
Image: Ningbo History Museum designed by Weng Shu

LEAP looks at the "museumification" of China

China is undergoing a "museumification" with an average of over 100 museums built across the country every year. The current issue of LEAP looks at whether the speed and scale of this construction might mark a new chapter in the history of global museum development. It also sets out to identify problems with the state of the museum in China and potential solutions. As a final touch artist Cao Fei addresses some of these issues in her satirical work of short fiction Secret Tales from the Museum.

Beijing's 798 art district to get an $8 billion makeover

Recently Shanghai signaled it's ambition to become a new global cultural hub with the launch of the China Art Palace and the Power Station of Art and plans to open another 15 museums by 2015. Now Beijing has followed suit with news that its 798 art district is get another makeover. Starting out as an underground hotbed of studios, it developed into a trendy district for galleries, boutiques and offices. Now it faces another Rmb50 billion ($8 billion) transformation into an upscale luxury and cultural area. But the scale of the development is mind boggling, even for China. "An aircraft carrier only costs Rmb10bn and a battalion Rmb50-65bn," said Fang Fang director of Beijing's Star Gallery. "What are they trying to build with 50 billion?"

Image: a space in Beijing's 798 art district

Shanghai sets its sights on becoming a new global cultural hub

As the China Art Palace and the Power Station of Art roll out their opening programmes, Jing Daily reports the city will open another 15 museums by 2015 as part of a plan to make Shanghai a new global cultural hub. And while the expansion of the sector will clearly benefit Shanghai's burgeoning cultural tourism industry, social returns are also being factored into the plans to position Shanghai as a creative city. The museums will be located throughout the city rather than clustered in tourism zones. "In future Shanghai residents will be able to find a museum or cultural venue within a 15 minute walk of their homes," said a spokesperson for the Shanghai Municipal Committee.
Image: Shanghai's new Power Station of Art, formerly the Pavilion of the Future at the 2010 World Expo

Mapping the future in Shanghai

Private art institutions, like the Minsheng Art Museum and the Rockbund Art Museum, have been leading the way in Shanghai, building their institutional profiles at home and abroad on the back of first-rate, curatorially-driven programming. With the arrival of two new state institutions - the China Art Palace and the Power Station of Art - things may be about to change as they provide even greater scope for contemporary art in the city, depending on their larger institutional projects and how they play out in their programming.

The opening programmes of both museums indicate the directions they are likely to take. The gigantic collection-based China Art Palace has opened with floors dedicated to Chinese Modern art and a "Masters Hall" dedicated to 20th-century artists like Wu Guanzhong, Qi Baishi and Lin Fengmian. The temporary shows in the opening lineup include Congratulations from the World, featuring contemporary works from the collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa; American masters from the Whitney Museum; Vermneer masterpieces from the Rijksmuseum; and works from the collections of Maison de Victor Hugo in Paris, the Museo National de San Carlos in Mexico city and the British Museum. And next month it will present an exhibition from the Musee d'Orsay focusing on Naturalism in France.

The Power Station of Art has opened with the Shanghai Biennale signaling its role as a contemporary art museum. In a statement on his theme, Reactivation, the chief curator, artist Qiu Zhijie, said he wanted to emphasise how artists interact with the public and their role in bringing about change. In addition to the presentations in the biennale, this year it also includes pavilions featuring contemporary artists from cities around the world, which the organisation hopes to make a permanent feature of the biennale. "We chose cities that are similar to Shanghai," he said, adding that he was careful to choose cities that had their own history of reactivation, of creating a dynamic new society, while exploring how artists had contributed to these changes.

Perhaps with the masterpiece-driven approach of the China Art Palace in mind, Qiu Zhijie also said: "The result (at The Power Station) is a public that is free to form their own opinion about art. Without anyone telling them what is 'good' art, they come to their own conclusions."
Image: Qiu Zhijie's Map of Utopia (detail), mapping the concepts underpinning the 9th Shanghai Biennale