For those counting, the Guangzhou Triennial has lost its tri-annual rhythm. In fact the latest installment comes not three but four years after Gao Shiming’s “Farewell to Postcolonialism” of 2008. This fuzzy math was reconciled with a series of precursor exhibitions that began with “Meta Question—Back to the Museum Per Se,” a title that aptly…

ALTHOUGH THE 2012 Taipei Biennale “Modern Monsters/Death and Life of Fiction” exhibition did not become a hot topic of conversation, it did, however, have an intellectual and avant-garde vision. Some said that the exhibition was very boring, or that the general public may have needed a degree of specialized knowledge to understand it, but I…

Twenty years on from its first edition, the 7th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT7) continued to provide audiences with an unsurpassed opportunity to view a diverse selection of work by artists from across the Asia Pacific region. As a core program of the Queensland Art Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA), the APT has…

This gesture sets an example: Hauser & Wirth Zürich shows 17 brand-new canvases by a Chinese painter. A major part of the 2012 production of the Shanghai-based Zhang Enli, these are taken directly from the studio to the eyes of the viewer, who smells the fresh oil paint in the space. For Zhang, this exhibition…

For this report, LEAP sent surveys to more than a dozen public and private museums on the Mainland, through the results attempting to gain insight into the state of museum collection in China today. Due to busy schedules or administrative reasons, a few of these institutions tactfully declined or demonstrated it was inconvenient to participate…

These new works by Zhan Wang continue his explorations of the nature of the universe and the forms that make up our understanding of it. Long March’s galleries have been divided into two areas, which might be characterized as a light space and a dark space. The light space presents floor- and wall-mounted panels of…

AS WE DROVE from Taipei to the suburb of Xinbei, our host, the artist Chen Chieh-jen, delivered a nonstop monologue from the front seat, narrating the passing scenery. For example, there were some high-profile development projects, a leper colony that had been fighting demolition for years, and so on. Chen’s tone quickly grew severe. The…

Upon entering Matthias Küper, one can easily be baffled by the show’s half-installed state. A roll of foam-wrap sits in the corner while several photographs rest against the room’s walls, ready to be hung. Cai Dongdong invites the viewer into a fragmented realm, one not yet done but not quite undone; his use of carefully…

Traditionally, public art museums are expected to conduct a certain amount of public education. However, due to China’s emphasis on systematized education, public education programs in public art museums have failed to cast off the traditional educational model of training and lectures. In recent years, private museums have devoted more resources to and employed more…

“Not Included” suggests to the viewer a program for contemporary art to follow, which is to continuously transform questions about its operating mechanisms into artworks. In this sense, “Not Included” is focused on providing a candid description of the ambiguous boundaries in Lu Pingyuan’s relationship with his creations. This is not the type of inclusive…

2012 WAS MULTIPLE years for me. It was seven years, but not lived consecutively. It was a year that played out with seven ways of pushing each day. Each day, I carried seven levels of responsibility— seven new friends and seven things forgotten. Seven potential opportunities and seven turned down. Seven victories and seventy challenges….

Curated by Biljana Ciric, the series “Alternatives to Ritual” takes the idea of artists’ museums from Documenta 5 as its departure point. Six artists were invited to show their works throughout the Goethe-Institut offices as a group exhibition. Each artist also takes turns exhibiting a solo project in the public Open Space. Additionally, special events…

Asked by LEAP to reflect on my curatorial role and on exhibition making as an independent curator, I proposed a discussion with Jens Hoffmann on his experience curating the Shanghai Biennale. As seen in the dialogue, it is very difficult for an international curator to understand the complexity of the local context in China. What…

I traveled from Beijing to Guangzhou, and hopped on a four-hour bus ride back north. The subtropical scenery outside the window speeding past was no longer a novelty for this secondtime guest from the north, and I was drowsy all the way. It has been eight years since curator Duan Yuting signed his ten-year contract…

Spanning 30 years, “Material-ism” is a comprehensive retrospective of Yung Ho Chang and his architecture atelier’s body of work. The exhibition includes 6 installation modules, 40 models and 270 drawings and blueprints. The result is a full picture of Chang’s practice and explorations of architecture, culture, and art. A majority of Yong Ho Chang’s drawings…

Roughly speaking, so-called contemporary art has existed in China for more than 30 years. Any list of its representative artists would include Wang Guangyi, who has certainly become— in his own words— “an artist of significance.” So as a retrospective of his works, “Thing-In-Itself: Utopia, Pop, and Personal Theology” must face questions such as these:…

This discussion between co-curator of the Shanghai Biennale Jens Hoffmann, independent curator Biljana Ciric, and artist Hu Yun reflects on Hoffmann’s curatorial involvement in the 2012 Shanghai Biennale, and on the role of exhibition makers in Chinese institutional structures. Specifically, it aimed to initiate dialogue on the institutional models that can work in a China-specific…

BERLINDE DE BRUYCKERE seems to be something of a sage. She has not left her hometown of Ghent for more than 20 years; she was born there, grew up there, got married and started a family there, all the while creating new artworks at her studio in the harbor district. She chose to open her…

A CALL FOR ACTION IN 2013—WITHDRAWAL TO WITHDRAW MEANS to, within a set of existing regulations that are commonly known by names, go into shock. The withdrawal I propose refers to something different from the classical understandings of breakthrough or flee, for today it is futile to seek creative possibilities in the world of forms….

BOOM Concurrent with China’s rapid urbanization over the past three decades is an equally unprecedented museum-building boom. On average, nearly 100 new museums are being built annually across the country. During 2011, that figure reached a staggering 386 new museums— more than one per day. To better gauge the magnitude of this growth, at the…