Super Fusion: Composed of 8 Sectional Exhibitions

What happens when binaries break down? East and West, domestic and international, ancient and modern. When these binaries break down, we find disparate points of view seeking to fuse into new solutions and perspectives.

The 2021 Biennale is curated by Fan Di’an, the President of the China Central Academy of Fine Arts, chairman of China Artists Association, and deputy director of Art Education Committee at China’s Ministry of Education. But it’s not curated by one man alone. A biennale of this scale, filling two huge and brand new museums, is composed of 8 sectional exhibitions curated by a total of 16 curators. In this first of a series of blog entries on the Chengdu Biennale, we’ll simply outline the 8 sectional exhibitions. We’ll focus on them in blog entries. Stay tuned!

Polymorphic Co-Existence

Curators: Fan Di’an, Lu Peng, Zhang Zikang, Qiu Zhijie, Yang Wei, and Ji Shaofeng

39 artists from 12 countries

Main ideas: philosophy, society, life, media, information, space and time

Homeland Co-Habitation

Curators: Fang Zhenning, Han Tao

Nearly 50 artists and collectives

Main ideas: architecture, urban planning, human-centered design

Technological Correspondence

Curators: Qiu Zhijie, Jeffrey Shaw

32 artists from many countries

Main ideas: body, ecology, signs, cosmos, the ways in which people, cities, geographies, and digital information systems interact and exchange information with each other.

Zeitgeist Co-evolution

Curators: Ji Yujie, Zhou Bo

Main ideas: conceptual photography, illustration, conceptual design, installation and sculpture that illustrate the interconnected and symbiotic nature of contemporary art, fashion, and design

Ecological Co-Development

Curators: Wang Shaoqiang, Jia Yunbo

Main ideas: the relationship between humanity and nature as mediated through contemporary art forms, with a focus on international discussions interact with more locally inflected work by Chengdu artists.

Craft Co-operation

He Guiyan, Li Keke

Main ideas: artists from outside and within China focus in their artworks upon ways in which old cultures are activated as local traditions interact with global trends in contemporary art, with a focus on how craft and fine art interact as fields of creative praxis

Ethnic Co-creation

Curators: Wu Hongliang, Xue Jiang

Main ideas: diversity of and interface between ethnic cultures within China, interaction of Sichuan region with other regions of China

Artistic Co-Inspiration

Curators: Lu Peng, Wang Chunchen

Main ideas: 57 artist-teachers from the higher art academies of China, Britain, France, Italy, Russia, Japan, and other countries reflect the zeitgeist, diversity, and pedagogical trends out of which artworks arose

In future blog entries, we’ll engage individually with each of these sectional exhibitions, providing images of artworks, artists, curators, and installations, as well as of the Tianfu Art Museum and Chengdu Museum of Contemporary Art within which all these artworks reside over the next nearly half a year.