2010.10.24-2011.01.23
Rehearsal: The 8th Shanghai Biennale was curated by Gao Shiming, Fan Di’an, and Li Lei, with ICAST students Liu Xiao, Ma Nan, Ye Si, Tang Suo, Tang Xiaolin, Zhang Jianling and Liu Tian participating in the exhibition production.
This biennale, which adopted the theme of ‘rehearsal’ emphasized the curatorial context and unfolding process of the exhibition, with a focus on creation and awareness. The curatorial team invited influential academic curatorial organizations such as Performa, Long March Projects and the international curatorial group WHW to form an ‘Action Committee’ and jointly participate in the international Rehearsal program of the Biennale.
The main exhibition responded to the convoluted historical relationships between Shanghai, the Soviet Union, New York, and Spain in the 1920s and 1930s in five acts: Ho Chi Minh Trail, A Guiding Light, Rehearsal—Main Exhibition, Theory and Practice of Socialist Self-Management: The Yugoslav Case, and Western Heavens: India-China Summit on Social Thought. They re-examined the complex relationships between the revolution and the avant-garde, revolution and internationalism, internationalism and the nation-state, the nation-state and violence, politics and violence, politics and art, art and the avant-garde revolution. Eighty years on, it paid tribute to that grand era through another international ‘rehearsal.’
In the months following the exhibition opening, a series of scholars, artists and artist groups were invited to China Academy of Art to conduct lectures and workshops, continuing to reflect on the ‘rehearsal.’