Shanghai Biennale theme

The Shanghai Biennale explain the theme of the 2008 programme:

Our era sees an unprecedented scale of urban growth, especially in the developing world. In this process, cities grow in number, urban populations increase in size, and the proportion of the population living in urban areas rises. Urbanization is often the result of socio-economic development as an agricultural society transitions to a modern one. The theme of the 2010 Shanghai World Exposition, “Better city, better life”,? testifies to the importance of the reform and urban development agenda to China’s rise in the twenty-first century.

The curatorial team of the 2008 edition proposes to focus on people and their conditions in the dynamic urban space. The Biennale reflects on the socio-economic and cultural implications of urbanization on both the local and global levels, including the issues of migration and identity. It investigates the spatial and social boundaries between the rural and urban populations, migrants and citizens, guests and hosts. Is the fruitful interaction between them possible? Can cities make our life better?

Liverpool Biennial theme

This is the text from the Liverpool Biennial 2008 Press release:

LIVERPOOL BIENNIAL 2008
20 September – 30 November 2008

The fifth Liverpool Biennial: it’s all MADE UP!

Celebrating the tenth anniversary of its foundation by James Moores, the fifth edition of Liverpool Biennial will be even more impressive in scale and ambition than its predecessors, and a key event in Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture 2008.

MADE UP is the title of the 2008 Biennial’s International exhibition, an exploration of the ecology of the artistic imagination. MADE UP will include narrative, fantasy, myths, lies, prophesies, subversion, spectacle, and the ambiguous territory between the real and unreal. It is a reaction to the pervasive documentary focus of much contemporary art, highlighting the emotional charge within artistic imagination and our fascination with and need for ‘making things up’.

Liverpool’s cumulative experience of curating exhibitions by commissioning ambitious and challenging new artworks by leading international artists for gallery and public spaces enables it to realise exhibitions of a scale and ambition not to be found elsewhere in the UK. This has made Liverpool Biennial an example to others worldwide and a magnet to art lovers and professionals.

Consisting of around 40 new projects by leading and emerging international artists – principally new commissions alongside a few works previously unseen in the UK - MADE UP will be presented across multiple venues: Tate Liverpool, the Bluecoat, FACT (Foundation for Art & Creative Technology) and Open Eye, with half the exhibition sited in public spaces across the city. The curators for MADE UP are drawn from each of the partner venues and led by Liverpool Biennial Artistic Director, Lewis Biggs.

Liverpool Biennial continues to place an emphasis on commissioning new work from leading and emerging international artists. Artists commissioned for MADE UP include:

Ai Weiwei (China), David Altmejd (Canada), Atelier Bow Wow (Japan), Guy Ben-Ner (Israel), Manfredi Beninati (Italy), David Blandy (UK), U-Ram Choe (Korea), Adam Cvijanovic (USA), Nancy Davenport (Canada), Diller Scofidio + Renfro (USA), Leandro Erlich (Argentina), Omer Fast (Israel), Adrian Ghenie (Romania), Rodney Graham (Canada), Tue Greenfort (Denmark), Hubbard & Birchler (Ireland/Switzerland), Alison Jackson (UK), Jesper Just (Denmark), Otto Karvonen (Finland), Yayoi Kusama (Japan), Ulf Langheinrich (Germany), Luisa Lambri (Italy), Gabriel Lester (Netherlands), Annette Messager (France), Tracey Moffatt (Australia), Ged Quinn (UK), Khalil Rabah (Palestine), Royal Art Lodge (Canada), Sarah Sze (USA), Tomas Saraceno (Argentina), Richard Woods (UK).

Other lead programmes in the 2008 Liverpool Biennial festival will be:

John Moores 25 Exhibition of Contemporary Painting: celebrating its 50th year as the UK's most prestigious national open painting competition. Organised by National Museums Liverpool and supported by John Moores Liverpool Exhibition Trust and A Foundation, the exhibition has been hosted by the Walker Art Gallery since 1957. Celebrating the vitality of contemporary British painting, it is open to artists living and working in the UK and in 2008 offers a first prize of £25,000. The jurors are art critic and curator Sacha Craddock, artists Jake and Dinos Chapman, Graham Crowley, and Paul Morrison.

Questions

A recent message from Hangfeng with the following questions provokes the setting up of this blog. Look to pages that explain what we are exploring together during the next few weeks using the Liverpool Biennial and Shanghai Biennale themes as a starting point for the creation of artworks.

I would like to discuss about some issue in general here:

1. Why we having so many biennial these days?

2. What's the visitors reaction towards the Biennial?

Questions about Liverpool Biennial, it would be great if somebody can give me a clue:

1. What is the topic mean by MADE UP? is there anything to do with the city of Liverpool?

2. How much money they spend?

3. Why Biennial choice almost half of the venue which is in public space? Is the audience appreciate those venues?

What we want to do

The background to our idea is very simple. Shanghai has been a sister city to Liverpool since 1999, and people there are fascinated to find out more about Shanghai and for those interested in art, what is happening. Liverpool has this really established biennial international and there was a lot of effort made a couple of years ago to see if there was a possibility of developing links between the Liverpool Biennial and the Shanghai Biennale that would be beneficial in stimulating ideas and debates concerning lots of different kinds of art, and different ways of making art. We thought this was a great idea as some of us have had a chance to see the last three Shanghai Biennales. So we came up with this idea, we being a group of artists and an architect living and/or working in Liverpool and Shanghai, and interested in the way art can be as much about the process of exchange and dialogue as making object or images. We use video streaming to make live links from art venues, more recently and again with this project, at the Bluecoat in Liverpool, which has a strong national and international reputation, and will host some of the Liverpool Biennial exhibits.

We are calling this process the e-space lab international.

The Shanghai based artist Hangfeng suggests we call the collective work Made Up the Translocalmotion, a mashing together of the the themes of the Liverpool and Shanghai Biennials now exhibiting.

We thought about using this concept as a way of instigating an exchange of ideas and impressions about both the Shanghai and Liverpool programmes. This would take place as a live video link 4-5 Oct between artists and us in Liverpool and Shanghai. We plan to re-visit the themes of both biennials on any basis we want, keeping in contact through links and our blog, and making a work over the following weeks that could be presented later in digital format on 1-2 November at the Bluecoat. It is a very open process that can include interpretation and critique, or something different designed to complement what is going on with the artists and themes, or even a completely new idea to help put the artwork in both cities in a context. Mashing the work and ideas is also a relevant approach.

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