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As the forces of globalization and explosive growth constantly
change Chinese cities, some artists have focused on the lost past,
with painted or photographed memories of disappearing alleyways or
architecture of antiquity.
The first Guangzhou Triennial, held in 2002, included some of
these retro-artworks. But this year's second Triennial is aimed in
the opposite direction of time. The cross-cultural coalition of
curators organizing the show have brought together a global mix of
artists, architects, digital directors and musicians to co-create
the future.
China's race into "urbanization is probably the world's most
spectacular," said Hou Hanru, an internationally respected curator
and expert on the growth of mega-cities based in Paris.
And the Pearl River Delta, a cluster of southern Chinese cities
that stretch from Hong Kong and Shenzhen to Zhuhai, Macao and
Guangzhou, is becoming "the globe's biggest lab for globalization
and fast-paced urbanization," added Hou.
"In the Pearl River Delta, everything is dynamic (and) artists
have more freedom to create in these new conditions," said Hou, who
was born in Guangzhou but now teaches at universities and curates
cutting-edge shows across Europe.
Hou said he and the other curators of the second Guangzhou
Triennial wanted to create a globe-spanning, interactive platform
for designers of everything from books or buildings to cinema or
cities to meet and together chart out alternative futures for the
delta.
To that end, organizers of the triennial have set up a series of
workshops that involve the long-term collaboration of more than 50
international and Chinese artists and architects, and the entire
city has been transformed into a vast canvas for their works.
The triennial's Chinese and European curators have also created
a world-class website, in Chinese and English, at www.gztriennial.org to link
the workshops and exhibitions up with participants and fans across
the planet.
"By hosting a series of regular workshops with local and
international practitioners from different disciplines as markers
for rethinking the triennial as a viable platform for artistic
production, we hope to generate lively discussions and related
publications on imaginative visions of the future," Hou said.
The mobile workshops, which have been moved from Guangzhou,
Beijing and Hong Kong since being launched almost a year ago, focus
on how "cultural creatives" can use the experimental space that is
emerging in ever-expanding Chinese cities or the widening webs
linking them with countless cosmopolitan centres worldwide.
Joining the workshops are leading architecture studios, magazine
editors, urban think-tanks and digerati from China and Europe.
Yung Ho Chang, who studied building design at the University of
California at Berkeley before setting up his Atelier Feichang
Jianzhu and heading Beijing University's Graduate Centre for
Architecture, "teamed up with local students to probe how dense a
city can become," said Hou. Chang is also working with a
Guangzhou-based artist on an exhibition for the triennial.
The editor of Domus (www.domusweb.it/), an Italian
magazine on art, building and city design, is helping sponsor the
triennial as well as joining it. Domus' Stefano Boeri focuses on
how ever-morphing geographies, whether in Europe or China, affect
individual identities.
Evolving Cities
During a recent Guangzhou Triennial workshop held at the
Millennium Art Museum in Beijing, Dutch architect Neville Mars
talked about how China's economic, population and building boom is
speeding ahead of efforts to plan the evolution of cities across
the country.
"Almost all city planning is constantly behind reality due to
the immense scale and pace of urbanization in China," Mars
said.
To track and explore alternatives on the emergence of
mega-cities here, Mars and fellow Netherlands native Saskia Vendel
helped start a Beijing-headquartered think-tank called the Dynamic
City Foundation (www.dynamiccity.org).
The group, which now includes a mix of urban planners,
engineers, graphic designers, artists and photographers stretching
from Beijing to Amsterdam to London, will preview its upcoming
book, "The Chinese Dream: A Society Under Construction," at the
Guangzhou Triennial.
Mars explained that the book will be launched simultaneously
with a new, hyper-interactive Web-based platform designed to enable
architects, artists and utopians across the world to work with
counterparts here to ponder and paint the future.
He added that members of Dynamic City and of the triennial are
investigating new ways to keep up with the speed of change here. He
says both groups aim to use "a cross-media approach and new ways of
thinking to match the scale of urbanization in China."
D-Lab
Hou Hanru said the Guangdong Museum of Art (www.gdmoa.org/), the main
organizer of and venue for the triennial, has similarly created a
"Delta Laboratory, which bridges art, architecture, urban study and
cultural activism."
He added that the D-Lab and workshops offer a dynamic stage for
"evolving research, creation and cultural exchanges (that)
fundamentally subverts conventional exhibition curatorial
models."
The museum's director, Wang Huangsheng, said he hopes the
triennial will broaden the art centre's matrix of cross-cultural
exchanges and speed up its mission of generating and collecting
contemporary art, architecture, photography and film.
The second triennial's main exhibition will open in mid-November
and run through mid-January of 2006.
Museum curator Guo Xiaoyan, also one of the main organizers of
the Guangzhou Triennial, said that since opening in 1997, the
Guangdong Museum of Art has launched twin drives to showcase modern
Chinese art and exhibit major works from the West.
The museum's 300-plus exhibitions, she added, have included
"Piet Mondrian in China," "The Master's Mind: Picasso's Prints,"
"Salvador Dali: A Journey into Fantasy," and "The Thinker: Rodin's
Art Exhibition."
Curator Hou, meanwhile, said that the winds of globalization,
modernization and urbanization now rushing across China "are
similar to those propelling Europe's opening during the
Renaissance."
"In the West, it took hundreds of years for the Renaissance to
take off in China, the Renaissance will be much faster, and will
unfold in decades rather than centuries."
(China Daily November 3, 2005)
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