randian - “subtle levels of involvement” the 8th shenzhen sculpture biennale

14/8/14 randian - Subtle Levels of Involvement: the 8th Shenzhen Sculpture Biennale

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2014.06.13Fri,byZianChenTranslatedby:FeiWu

SubtleLevelsofInvolvement:the8thShenzhenSculptureBiennale

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The 8th Shenzhen Sculpture Biennale: We Have Never Participated

OCT Contemporary Art Terminal (OCAT Hall A, Hall B, and OCT LoftB10, Enping Road, Overseas Chinese Town, Nanshan, ShenzhenMay16Aug 31, 2014

Situated at the center of the exhibition venue of the Shenzhen SculptureBiennale, the Research Station is a comfortable reading space speciallydesigned by Sheila Pepe. You stand in the center of it, barefoot, flippingthrough some literature on the exhibitions off-site projects; on theadjacent bookshelf are some thirty books related to participatory art andsocial art interventions. Of three indoor venues at the Shenzhen SculptureBiennale, the Research Station also houses documents related to Ahmett, Zheng Bo, and others. You could say this colorful woven textilepiece is the heart of the exhibition; it is more than a simple spatialinstallation, symbolizing the nerve center of the entire biennale. ThroughPepes work, the curator emphasizes the essential connections bindingconceptually oriented political aesthetics with an aesthetics of materialitybased on artistry. Meanwhile, at the other end of the site, ChenShaoxiongs Ink Media has been installed at a vantage point highenough to broadcast the artists video work throughout the entireexhibition hall, underlining the political tenor of his piece. When you raiseyour head to watch this animated work on street protests, you arereminded that underlying Joseph Beuyss concept of social sculpture,referred to in the exhibition, there is a layer that is linked to directdemocracy.



Sheila Pepe, For the People, installation, 20142014

Though previous curators for the Shenzhen Sculpture Biennale have expanded upon the definition of sculpture, in thiseighth Biennale, the curator Marko Daniel still symbolically chose to build his curatorial discourse around the term socialsculpture as a point of departure in exploring artistic creation in post-participatory art. The reason Daniels curatorialgesture can be called symbolic is that the curator appears not to have restricted each piece into a dialogue with the theme.

Perhaps the piece that best fits the definition of participatory art at the biennale is Qiu Zhijie and Song Zhens The SocietyDiankou, Villager Furniture, in which the artists invited students from China Academy of Art to be sent down to thecountryside. Fifteen wooden benches placed in front of the Research Station are the physical manifestations of thisundertaking; the table belongs to the village committee, while the benches themselves were provided by the villagers. Thecrux of this project was the construction of a space for dialogue between the local officials and the villagers. In the two-waycommunication organized by the art group between government officials and the villagers, the officials wrote downinchalkon the table all the promises they made, while the villagers, with the artists, preserved the sentences as relief carvingsas evidence of the art event.

If the above piece is a model example of an art intervention into the realm of reality, then the works situated nearby do nothave such distinctive involvement or participation. The title of Meiro Koizumis video work Theatre Dreams of a BeautifulAfternoon immediately labels the work as one founded outside o reality. The piece is a dual-channel video shot on thesubway; the male and female protagonists are seated on the left and right sides of the subway car. The way their gazes keepglancing off each other is somewhat reminiscent of a Japanese television drama, while the audio track intermingles theirexistential internal monologues. Only when the male protagonists quiet weeping gradually turns into an upheaval of loudsobbing do we, on the other side of the screen, realize the extent to which these actors actions have taken over the entiresubway car. Nearby, Cheng Rans multi-channel video installation also emphasizes how artistic techniques can be deployedto attract and then to involve the audience in the narrative of a piece. Worth mentioning is the way the curatorial statementfor the biennale makes a shift by replacing participation with the term involvement in its final paragraph; this subtledistinction constitutes a liberal interpretation of the theme We Have Never Participatedwhen an audience is involved ina piece, it is not just participating in or using the work on the surface.



Qiu Zhijie and Song Zhen with Diankou residents and Total Art Studio, The Society DiankouVillager Furniture, installation, 15 carved tables and 60 chairs, 2012 15602012

Cheng Ran, Always I Trust, HD video, light boxes, installation, 20142014

As the viewer becomes more familiar with the layout of the exhibition, you get the sense that the pieces most in dialogue arescattered throughout the venue. For example, the exhibitions most introspective piece appears at the end of the long andnarrow exhibition Hall B, where Chen Yufan and Chen Yujun have comprehensively laid out their own studio. Meanwhile, inanother exhibition space, Jia Chuns nearly all white narcissus installation also manifests the inclination towards totalindividualization. To the artist, this space delineated by six panes of glass is completely independent from the outside world.This internal perspective can perhaps find some connection to what lies outside in Youns Rahmouns installation wherein acomposite timber room is set apart by a set of automatic screen doors designed by Hctor Zamora; isolated and toweringabove the ground, its dimensions are based on a room in Rahmouns own home, and the room serves as a reflection on



private spaces. The doors leading to the installation also open towards the holy city of Mecca, which recalls how the spiritualconnects the individual and the collective.

My impression of viewers vague consensus of the exhibition was that everyone was in search of the meaning of We HaveNever Participated in the various threads dispersed throughout. In this vein, the title of Li Mings piece provides a usefulcipher. Through various techniques marked with his personal style, the artist inserts Nothing Happened Today into acoherent series of everyday milieux, forging a paradoxical space for reflection. The curator might be attempting to preserveprecisely this type of reflective space by giving the Biennale its earworm of a title. We Have Never Participated may notdirectly relate to the pieces on show, nor is participation obviously present in every piece, and yet, as in Li Mings self-contradictory pronouncement, juxtaposition happens to be one technique used to question existing systems. In a way, WeHave Never Participated relies on the audience to fill in the gaps in meaning.

[correction note: an editing error mentioned Pepe as the curator in one instance. This has now been correctedthe curatoris, of course, Marko Daniel]

Hctor Zamora, Opening Up, installation, moving automated barriers, custom electronics, politicalslogans, 20142014

randian - “subtle levels of involvement” the 8th shenzhen sculpture biennale

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