“Asia Time”
Edited by Gong Haiying
Dirt and Road, installation, installation, dimensions variable, 2015, by Yu Xuhong, China
National Budget, installation dimensions variable, 2010, by Jan Simon, collection of Muzeum Sztuki in Lodz, Poland
Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, has been hailed as hotbed for artists thanks to its special geographical location on the Pearl River Delta. As the starting point of China’s Maritime Silk Road, its port has facilitated foreign trade for over 2,000 years and enjoyed privilege of introducing elements of Western culture to the rest of China.
Guangzhou’s history is rich; it was the only port open to the outside world during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), giving it a singular cultural mix of iconic elements of China’s southeastern coastal areas, Central Plains, and the West.
On December 11, 2015, Guangdong Museum of Art (GMA) in Guangzhou welcomed visitors to its 1st Asia Biennial and the 5th Guangzhou Triennial, themed “Asia Time” and influenced by the initiatives of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21stCentury Maritime Silk Road (the Belt and Road). The event features 47 artists from over 20 countries, including China, South Korea, India, and Japan, who brought works ranging from installations and videos to paintings and photographs. A global event, it is the city’s first biennial and already one of the largest of its kind in Asia.
The exhibition was presented thanks to two years of painstaking efforts by a curatorial team consisting of seven members: Luo Yiping, director of the GMA, Henk Slager, dean of MaHKU and research professor from the University of the Arts Utrecht in the Netherlands, Zhang Qing, head of the Curatorial and Research Department of the National Art Museum of China, Kim Hong-Hee, director of Seoul Museum of Art in South Korea, Cura-tor Ute Meta Bauer, founding director of Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA) in Singapore, Sun Ge, researcher at the Institute of Literature, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and Sarah Wilson, professor at Courtauld Institute in London, UK.
With a global vision, planners themed the exhibition “Asia Time” to inspire commentary on the relationship, conflicts and interdependence between the East and West. It acknowledges World Time in the West highlighted by excessive modernity, uber-capitalism, knowledge production, and economics, which accelerate visibly, dry up, and operate at high speed. At the same time, the exhibition interprets Asia Time featuring modernity, calm, deliberation, focus, and diversification, as well as values and wisdom.
Such fusion and collision between regional and global trends, both traditional and modern, have blazed paths for new characteristics in Asian art and Chinese discourse, reshaping the discovery and perception of time in modern Asia.
Based on such perspectives, the exhibition focuses on the comprehension of “Asia Time” with local vision, presenting a horizontal dimension spanning the agrarian age, urbanization in Asia, and the march to post-modernity, digitalization, and media saturation. Vertically, it probes the relationship between China and the countries along the Belt and Road, presenting core Asian propositions diachronically, including identity, feminism, race, religion, and community, while showcasing basic opinions about Asia’s history, current situation, and future.
The exhibition also translates themes through a variety of media including installation, photography, painting, and performance, and interacts from visitors’ perspectives. The multiple dimensions can lead anyone deep into the vivid realm of Asian arts. It pinpoints the poles of Asia, linking “Asia Time” to the grand course of time and the timeliness of each country’s own culture along the Belt and Road, as well as highlighting differences in culture and ideology to celebrate the future development in Asia regardless of such differences.
During the exhibition, seminars have been arranged to serve as platforms to facilitate social and scientific communication between scholars and modern artists, thereby injecting academia into art practice and exhibition and deeply exploring the profound nature of modern art.
The exhibition closes April 10, 2016.
Michael, video 16’02”, 2015, by Adel Abidin, courtesy of the artist, work commissioned by Qatar Museums Authority, Iraq
Plate It with Silver, video 00’34”, 2015, by Nasrin Tabatabai & Babak Afrassiabi, co-commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation, SB 12, Iran
De Paso, sound installation dimensions variable, 2013, by Natasha Sadr Haghian, Germany
Potential Trust, neon, installation, 95×150×15cm, 2014, by Esther Shalev-Gerz, Lithuania
Post-Industrial Era, photographic installation dimensions variable, 2015, by Fu Wenjun, China
Continuity, video, 39’22”, 2012, by Omer Fast, a production of the Filmgalerie 451 commissioned by Documenta (13 edition) and Thyssen — Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Israel, U.S.
Relief 1, installation, wood, books and cassette tapes, 712 hours, registration: February 1, 2006- March 24, 2009, 140 x 200 x 30cm, by Job Koelewijin, the Netherlands