Saturday, May 22, 2010
SIngapore Biennale as Cultural Globalization
In this respect, Singapore biennale offers an illustration of how globalization, as reflected in global cities rankings, in being favoured for global summits and conferences, and in the growth of service and cultural industries, translates into changing positioning on the global map of contemporary art (Tang 2007: 365). Even though following from governmental cultural policy, it is the economic globalization of Singapore, drawing international investment and tourist flows in its wake (Chow 2006), that gave a decisive impetus to the inauguration of Singapore biennale in 2006 more oriented to the global benefit it might give to the local cultural industry than to the political credit or corporate advertisement that would accrue from it (Tang 2007: 365).
International Art Biennials in Asia
Among art institutions, art biennials are among the more global, inclusive and popular, as they can be staged in any city allocating sufficient funds for an international art exhibition, as biennials are able to represent local artists alongside their international counterparts, and as biennials help less well known cities, such as Gwangju, to enter into international spotlight that global artists and curators bring to these events (Wu 2007: 379). As Asia became more represented internationally with more than ten art biennials over the 1990s and the next decade, so did grow the participation of Western curators and artists at Asian art exhibition and of their Asian counterparts at Western venues respectively (Wu 2007: 379). However, as Wu (2007: 379-380) points out, depending on their either Western or Asian geographic location, international art biennials perform different functions with the former biennials seeking to connect to global peripheries of the art worlds by inviting Asian artists and curators, whereas the latter biennials seek to establish ties to Western art institutions and curators by West-oriented scheduling and programming that would integrate them into the global rather than a regional circuit of art exhibitions, Singapore, Shanghai and Gwangju biennials coordinating openings of their shows being the case in point.
This extension of the art world map to Asia has been accompanied by the increased representation of Asian artists at Western art exhibitions, so that the pavilions the Venice Biennale has added in 1995 from Taiwan, in 2001 from Hong Kong and Singapore, in 2005 from the mainland China, and in 2007 from Macao reflect the corresponding efforts by Asian cities, such as Singapore and Hong Kong, to project a global identity internationally (Wu 2007: 380-381). Reflective of the rising interest in Asian, and more specifically Chinese, contemporary art, the new pavilions at the Venice biennial not only attest to the inclusion of Asian art into the international map of the global art world but also reflect the evolving relations within Asia that its respective pavilions represent (Wu 2007: 381-382). However, the differences between the regional and global positioning of Macao, Hong Kong and Taiwan, for example, do not necessarily translate directly into their respective participation at international art exhibitions, as the separate representation of Hong Kong and Macao at the Venice biennial only after becoming special administrative regions attests (Wu 2007: 381, 383).
Chinese contemporary art in being represented not only internationally but also regionally takes place in the context of interregional relations between different Asian art biennials as much as it does in the context of those between global centers and peripheries of the art world (Wu 2007: 383). In fact, art biennials provide important stages for articulating individual and collective identities in the overlapping frameworks of governmental institutions, discursive regimes and international norms that create the cultural maps onto which artists and curators projects their identities and those of others (Wu 2007: 383). More importantly, art biennials offer opportunities for artists and curators to stage interventions into exhibition, urban and institutional spaces that critically reflect on the artistic and curatorial practices that give rise to these events (Wu 2007: 383-384). Correspondingly, while art biennials increasingly acquire the status of international institutions governed by an evolving set of norms and discourses within the framework of international cooperation across different cultures, they do not escape the influence of international relations that structure exhibitions practices locally and globally, relative importance of global cities, and mutual mapping of centers and peripheries (Wu 2007: 384-385).
This extension of the art world map to Asia has been accompanied by the increased representation of Asian artists at Western art exhibitions, so that the pavilions the Venice Biennale has added in 1995 from Taiwan, in 2001 from Hong Kong and Singapore, in 2005 from the mainland China, and in 2007 from Macao reflect the corresponding efforts by Asian cities, such as Singapore and Hong Kong, to project a global identity internationally (Wu 2007: 380-381). Reflective of the rising interest in Asian, and more specifically Chinese, contemporary art, the new pavilions at the Venice biennial not only attest to the inclusion of Asian art into the international map of the global art world but also reflect the evolving relations within Asia that its respective pavilions represent (Wu 2007: 381-382). However, the differences between the regional and global positioning of Macao, Hong Kong and Taiwan, for example, do not necessarily translate directly into their respective participation at international art exhibitions, as the separate representation of Hong Kong and Macao at the Venice biennial only after becoming special administrative regions attests (Wu 2007: 381, 383).
Chinese contemporary art in being represented not only internationally but also regionally takes place in the context of interregional relations between different Asian art biennials as much as it does in the context of those between global centers and peripheries of the art world (Wu 2007: 383). In fact, art biennials provide important stages for articulating individual and collective identities in the overlapping frameworks of governmental institutions, discursive regimes and international norms that create the cultural maps onto which artists and curators projects their identities and those of others (Wu 2007: 383). More importantly, art biennials offer opportunities for artists and curators to stage interventions into exhibition, urban and institutional spaces that critically reflect on the artistic and curatorial practices that give rise to these events (Wu 2007: 383-384). Correspondingly, while art biennials increasingly acquire the status of international institutions governed by an evolving set of norms and discourses within the framework of international cooperation across different cultures, they do not escape the influence of international relations that structure exhibitions practices locally and globally, relative importance of global cities, and mutual mapping of centers and peripheries (Wu 2007: 384-385).
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