Tag Archives: biljana Ciric

ArtSlant: An Act of Critique

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One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: Us and Institution, Us as Institution

Guangdong Times Museum, Times Rose Garden, Huang Bian Bei Lu, Bai Yun Da Dao, Guangzhou, China

29 July – 11 August, 2013

As the various flavours of institutional critique have now become “institutionalised” as part of the practice of contemporary artists, One Step Forward, Two Steps Back curated by Biljana Ciric at the Guangdong Times Museum in Guangzhou aims to reassess the origins, methodologies and effects of this practice.

It can be said that One Step Forward… builds on the work of the curatorial team within the Times Museum (and those of its invited curators) since its formal opening in 2009. They have approached their practice with a self-awareness that has consistently led to exhibitions, symposia, and publications that have productively investigated the ideas and roles of the institution as a structural body within the art system – in a way performing their own institutional critique through their daily work.

This exhibition deliberately moves the focus away from a canon of western artists associated with the development of institutional critique, onto artists and groups from other parts of the world who develop out of it and/or trace parallel trajectories to it.

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ArtSlant: Interview with Li Ran

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Aike-Dellarco Gallery, at Art Basel Hong Kong (Hall 1, Booth 1D50)

23 – 26 May, 2013

Interviewer: Edward Sanderson
Interviewee: Li Ran

Li Ran is a Chinese artist working with performance and video to create “mockumentaries” around fictional (or part-fictional) characters. Over the last year Li has had solo shows at Beijing’s Magician Space and Shanghai’s Aike Dellarco Gallery, and was included in the Shenzhen and Gwangju Biennales. Li took part in curator Biljana Ciric’s “Alternatives to Ritual” exhibition at the Goethe Institute Open Space in Shanghai, and ON/OFF, a major survey of young Chinese artists in Beijing’s Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art (UCCA). Currently he has new work on show at Shenzhen’s OCT and has just appeared in a group show focusing on reassessing performance art in China (curated by Su Wei at Beijing’s Star Gallery). For Art Basel Hong Kong, Li has been commissioned by Aike Dellarco to create a new piece for the gallery’s space in the “Discoveries” section of the fair.

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艺术界LEAP: No Ground Underneath: Curating on the Nexus of Changes

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Guangdong Times Museum, Guangzhou

2–4 July, 2012

Curating needs a bit of a shake down in China. The term has become a cliché to describe pretty much any situation in which one can point to a modicum of organisation, and is often characterised as a perfunctory look at the issues raised. Seminars that take a long hard look at the subject, and successfully integrate local and international resources and audiences, are also pretty rare in this context. So, despite the Summer heat in Guangzhou, we couldn’t refuse the invitation of the Guangdong Times Museum to attend their “No Ground Underneath: Curating on the Nexus of Changes” which brought together practitioners from near and far in an extended forum over three days of intensive presentations and discussions.

Nikita Yingqian Cai, curator of the Times Museum, in collaboration with the seemingly ubiquitous independent curator and critic Carol Yinghua Lu, co-curated this event as a prelude to a new series of books on the general subject of curation, to be published by the Museum beginning later this year.

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ArtSlant: Sehgal’s Antics come to China

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Taking the Stage OVER presents – Tino Sehgal

Minsheng Art Museum, Bldg F, No.570 West Huaihai Road, Shanghai

16 July – 14 August, 2011

In amongst the videos and installations by Zhang Peili at the Minsheng Art Museum (which I reviewed here last week), I also had a surprise encounter with the work of Tino Sehgal, whose works of performed discussions as institutional critique added an unusual perspective to the display of new media work.

Under the collective title “Taking the Stage Over,” curator Biljana Ciric has organised a year-long series of events for Shanghai. From July to September she has arranged for Sehgal to present pieces at MOCA Shanghai, then the Minsheng Art Museum, and finally the Rockbund Art Museum. On my visit to the Minsheng, “This is New” and “This is Exchange” had been “installed” in the reception area and in one of the galleries.

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