Stellar Shanghai

AS WORKERS RAN around frantically trying to prop up a sagging arch made of plastic Coca-Cola bottles, one sarcastic onlooker asked: 'Is this performance art?'

If blame for the structural malfunction that opened 2002's Shanghai Art Biennial could have been somewhere in the blueprints drawn by notoriously exacting Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, the spectacle at least lent some comic relief - and an unfortunate amateur quality - to Shanghai's last attempt at a major visual arts event.

Don't expect any such chaos at Shanghai's fifth Art Biennial, which opens on Tuesday at various venues around the city. Co-curator Shengtian Zheng has an established reputation and is a board member of the Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art. His three co-curators are: Jiang Xu, president of the China Academy of Art; Sebastian Lopez, who comes to Shanghai from the Netherlands by way of Argentina; and Qing Zhang, named by CCTV as one of China's best curators in 2000.

Organisers of this year's biennial, entitled Techniques of the Visible, 'will focus on the close relationship between art, science and technology - in particular, how art has revealed the interdependent social and political forces that produce and suppress technology and humanity'. Expect pieces to include the sort of tech-based video-art installations now dominating shows in China and abroad.

Zheng, who has been a close observer of the biennial since its inception in 1996 and served on the event's academic committee, says 'there are a lot of gaps that need to be filled' in China's museum system, but that Shanghai's biennial has come a long way. 'The progress is tremendous,' he says. 'In 2000, we didn't even think the biennial would come together because there wasn't an established tradition of showing international contemporary artists in China's large museums. In fact, the director couldn't be certain if the government would come in and close the show or not'.

From these uncertain times, the biennial emerges into a new era. Zheng says this biennial enjoys the full support of the government and, although the budget has grown to double that of the last biennial, all of the funding was settled well in advance.

The committee has expanded its roster. With 120 artists, this is Shanghai's largest biennial, split almost 50-50 between foreigners and locals. 'It's tremendous that in such a short time the biennial has become truly international,' Zheng says. The list of artists includes its share of stars. Zheng says that, although it's sometimes difficult to attract better-known artists, 'we got most of the artists we wanted. We chose them because they reflect the historical development of the medium. Yoko Ono and Cindy Sherman were real pioneers in photography and new media, and we wanted to bring these pioneers to the show. Now China will see the originals and learn how they played a tremendous role in the development of the art form.'

At least part of the attraction for such high-profile artists may be the allure of the city. 'Chinese art excites because China excites,' Zheng says. 'All the artists are interested in Shanghai because it's a hot spot where people want to go and see what happens.'

Smaller venues around Shanghai are hoping to ride the event's coat tails with their own exhibits. The recently opened Shanghai Gallery of Art (SGA) at the Three on the Bund complex will launch a large-scale exhibition entitled Odyssey(s) 2004, to open in tandem with the biennial. According to SGA's staff, the show will be the largest in China of Chinese-born artists now working in France.

Zheng says the SGA, the new Duolan Museum of Modern Art and other spaces running independent exhibitions 'are all organising very good shows. Shanghai will be the site of an art festival and that's great. It's what the city needs.'

The Biennial committee is keen to spread the benefits of the show. Already it has organised a visit by a group of artists to Yanchuan County, in the northwestern province of Shanxi. The artists worked with local farmers to learn about paper-cutting techniques and how the art form evolved. 'In this way, the biennial is taken outside of the city first and brought into the rural area of China,' says Zheng.

Although not all Shanghai citizens will take the time to visit the Shanghai Art Museum, few visitors or commuters switching lines on the metro will be able to avoid People's Park, where some of the biennial activities will be held. 'This biennial tried not to limit itself to Shanghai or the Shanghai Art Museum,' he says. 'The exhibition space extends onto Nanjing Road and the People's Park, where there's much more flexibility in the open space.' Among other exhibits planned for the park is a temporary gallery to show photos and historic photographic memorabilia. The ephemeral quality of the structure will reinforce the need for something permanent, and the curators hope the city will recognise this and build a museum dedicated to photography.

The Shanghai Biennial curators practise such subtle persuasion with great skill. Rather than boldly overstepping the boundaries of acceptability, they've selected pieces that will test, but not offend.

While luminaries such as Sherman will bring their work to Shanghai, don't expect to find her famous rape pieces hanging on the walls. This is a government-sponsored event, after all.

'The list has to be sent to the government,' Zheng says. 'Otherwise, you'll never have an international show.' Nonetheless, he says there has been no censorship, and no artists were rejected.

Any censoring seems to have been done by the curators. 'Artists must first submit their work to us, and then we screen or lead them towards presenting other work,' Zheng says. 'Some pieces are fitting for Hong Kong, but not Shanghai; some for Vancouver, but not Montreal.' They also don't want repeats if possible. It's one thing to invite famous local names who might lend a painting to a show, but it's another to get them to execute exhibition specific pieces. 'Of course we'd invite someone like Yang Fudong, but we don't want to see something he's already shown,' says Zheng. 'So, Yang proposed a collaboration with other artists resulting in Steps to Heaven.'

Steps to Heaven was executed in collaboration with Chen Xiaoyun in Hangzhou, Cao Fei in Guangzhou and Jiang Zhi in Shenzhen. Each of the four created an eight-minute film, based on the common theme of desire in an urban context. They'll be shown together for the first time at the biennial.

Xu Zhen executed an original piece entitled Dang Dang Dang Dang. It takes the clock tower at the Shanghai Art Museum as a medium and alters its movements to work at high-speed. At midnight on the Mid-Autumn festival, the clock will chime, accompanied by the music of Red East, marking the opening of yet another international biennial.

Asked whether he thinks the growing number of Chinese biennials in recent years may dilute the force and importance of Shanghai's, co-curator Qing Zhang says: 'That's like asking if the sky is too full of stars. The more lights in the sky, the more beautiful the constellation, right?'

Shanghai Biennial 2004, Shanghai Art Museum, 325 Nan Jin Xi Lu, and other venues. Sep 29-Nov 27. More information at www.shanghaibiennale.com/2004/