“Discovering Contemporary” and Launch the Collector Development Programme
ShContemporary, the grand bridge between eastern and western contemporary art, will launch its third edition in Shanghai Exhibition Centre on September 9, 2009.
A New Artistic Direction
This year, in order to confirm ShContemporary’s place as Asia’s top art fair, the new Fair Director Colin Chinnery will lead a skilled team of curators and professionals to bring professional and unique visual feast to Shanghai. With a strong focus on artistic content, Shcontemporary 2009 will launch an important initiative that engages with emerging collectors from the region.
Colin Chinnery, fair director. He was the former Chief Curator and Deputy Director at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA) in Beijing. He has devoted himself in the contemporary art for many years and created the first sound art project in China. As the curator, he brought the fist exhibition of Young British Artists to China.
BEST OF GALLERIES, the main section of ShContemporary, will present invited galleries from around the world on the basis of projects and special presentations. The best galleries from the entire Asian region, exhibiting along a carefully selected group of galleries from Europe and the Americas, will show the most interesting contemporary talent, with a special focus on Asian contemporary art.
DISCOVERIES: DISCOVER CONTEMPORARY
This project includes two parts: one is a curated exhibition to showcase works by some of the most significant artists who came to international attention during these past two decades as well as some of the most promising emerging art in a spectacular 2000m2 arched hall; and the other is a forum of international experts to address, through a series of public lectures and round tables, the urgent question being currently discussed throughout the centers of international art world: What precisely is Contemporary Art?
The exhibition is curated by Mami Kataoka and Wang Jianwei; and the lecture series is organized by Anton Vidokle, with guest speakers including Hu Fang, Boris Groys, Gao Shiming, Jan Verwoert, Carol Yinghua Lu and Joerg Heiser, among many others. The forum will be structured as a series of short lectures and one or two panels, the contents of which will be subsequently published in the Fall issue of e-flux journal.
• Mami Kataoka, Chief Curator at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo and International Associate Curator at the Hayward Gallery in London. She is currently the curator of a major solo exhibition of Ai Weiwei: According to What? at the Mori Art Museum as well as co-curator for Walking in My Mind at Hayward Gallery and Platform09 in Seoul.
• Anton Vidokle, writer, artist and curator, founder of e-flux, co-curator of Manifesta 6 and creator of a yearlong project, Unitednationsplaza in Berlin. As an artist, Vidokle’s work has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale, Lyon Biennial and at Tate Modern, UCLA Hammer, Haus Der Kunst, P.S.1, among others.
• Wang Jianwei is one of the most versatile and consistently experimental artists in China. He was the first Chinese artist to show at Documenta, had a solo exhibition at the Walker Art Center in 2003, and last year received the prestigious Foundation for Contemporary Arts grant.
The new PLATFORM section, gives galleries representing emerging artists the opportunity for exposure. Each booth will showcase a maximum of two artists presenting work produced in the last two years, introducing a fresh new generation of artists in the Asia Pacific region and beyond.
CDP—Launch of the Asia Pacific Collector Development Programme
ShContemporary is the only international art fair situated in China, and as such it is best positioned to bring the knowledge and resources both inside and outside of China together. Based on its special position, “Asia Pacific Collector Development Programme” has been started with two questions :
1. How can an art fair facilitate an emerging art market?
2. In what way has the financial crisis created new opportunities?
This year, Shcontemporary has created a team whose sole purpose is to engage with emerging collectors in the China region and create opportunities for learning and networking for those collectors. Colin Chinnery, the fair director said: “We have resources larger than those of individual galleries or independent advisors, and we want to put these resources to use all year round instead of just the few days during an annual art fair, to create a powerful means for the stimulation of the market.”
More specifically, the Asia Pacific Collector Development Programme is engaging in the following activities:
• To create quality market research that allows us to more accurately understand the potential of the market in China.
• To create a Collectors Club that will provide networking activities for emerging Chinese collectors to meet each other and meet collectors from other countries.
• To work with independent organizations in China that are engaging with emerging collectors, and to provide them with new opportunities.
• To work with top art schools in creating learning opportunities for collectors to better engage with the art market.
• To create customized tours at ShContemporary09 in the understanding of individual interests and potential of collectors who are associated with the Collector Development Programme.
• To encourge Chinese collectors to underestand contemporary art in the wider world; and galleries from outside of China will greatly benefit from our new approach.
• To provide support to international collectors who want to engage with the China region; and provide help to Chinese collectors who wish to engage with the wider world of contemporary art.
CDP--The Asia Pacific Collector Development Programme aims to provide the engagement this region needs to grow into a strong and stable contemporary art market, and will actively reaches out to potential and emerging collectors by working with selected new partners.
First partners in a brand new programme: Central Academy of Fine Art (CAFA), United Art Collection Corporation (UACC) and Artron.net, to name just a few. Many other partners are in negotiation with ShContemporary to be part of its Asia Pacific Collector Development Programme. We shall keep you updated.
September 9th: the Collectors Night
On the evening of September 9th, collectors will have the first-hand opportunity to view the displayed works and procure the pieces of utmost interest in the prestigious context of the renowned Shanghai Exhibition Centre.
There will be many exciting events happening during the period of ShContemporary. Taking place in the iconic Oriental Pearl Tower, the Shanghai eArts Festival is a major exhibition that focuses on electronic and new media art; the largest group show of 2009 in China, "Bourgeoisified Proletariate", will consist of newly commissioned work by some of the biggest names in Chinese contemporary art; Liang Shaoji’s solo show at the Zendai MoMA will feature large scale and poetic installation by a recently ‘rediscovered’ master; not to mention the cocktail receptions and parties every day to make Shanghai the art destination in September 2009. It's a summer you can’t miss!
ShContemporary is co-produced by Bolognafiere SpA; organized in co-operation with the following Chinese partners: Shanghai International Cultural communication Association (SICCA), Shanghai Art Fair Organization Committee and Eastern Shanghai International Culture Film & Television Group.
Related Materials
DISCOVERIES: DISCOVER CONTEMPORARY
Lecture Participating speakers:
Hu Fang is a fiction writer, art critic and curator as well as the Artistic Director of Vitamin Creative Space, an alternative art space in Guangzhou. He was one of the editors of Documenta 12 magazines.
Boris Groys is a philosopher, essayist, art critic, media theorist, and an internationally acclaimed expert on late-Soviet postmodern art and literature, as well as on the Russian avant-garde. Dr. Groys’s writing engages the wildly disparate traditions of French poststructuralism and modern Russian philosophy.
Raqs Media Collective is a group of three media practitioners - Jeebesh Bagchi (New Delhi, 1965), Monica Narula (New Delhi, 1969) and Shuddhabrata Sengupta (New Delhi, 1968) - based in New Delhi. Raqs has presented work at most of the major international shows, from Documenta to the Venice Biennale. The members of Raqs were co-curators of Manifesta 7, The European Biennial of Contemporary Art which took place in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, Italy in the summer of 2008.
Carol Yinghua Lu is an independent curator and art writer based in Beijing. She is the vice editor-in-chief of Contemporary Art & Investment magazine and a frequent contributor to a number of international art magazines such as Frieze, Contemporary, and Today Art.
Jan Verwoert is an art critic based in Berlin. He has been a tutor and leader of the Imagined Communities seminar at PZI since 2005. He is a contributing editor to Frieze magazine and also writes regularly about contemporary art for such art magazines as Afterall, Metropolis M, Springerin and artists’ catalogues.
Hal Foster is Professor of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University, he is an internationally renowned author of books on post-modernism in art. He later studied at Princeton and took a PhD at CUNY before becoming an instructor at the Whitney Programme - an offshoot of the Whitney Museum. His landmark 1983 edited book The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Postmodern Culture identified the end of the modern era and the arrival of postmodernism.
Martha Rosler is an artist that works in various media as well as writing about art and culture. Rosler’s work is centered on everyday life and the public sphere with recurrent concerns about the media and war as well as architecture and the built environment, from housing and homelessness to systems of transport. Her work has been seen in the Venice Biennale as well as many major international survey shows, including the Documenta exhibitions and several Whitney Biennials.
Gao Shiming is Associate Professor in the Department of Criticism and Art History as well as the Executive Director of the Center of Visual Cultural Research of the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, China. His subject is visual culture research, contemporary art studies and curatorial practice. Curatorial practice for Gao is a kind of critical-creative action. He believes in the contemporary significance of bringing together action and subjective knowledge. He also firmly believes in curatorial work as a form of ‘writing in practice’ within the dark room of history. Gao was co-curator of the 3rd Guangzhou Triennial – Farewell to Post-Colonialism, 2008.
Hans Ulrich Obrist is a Swiss curator and art critic. In 1993, he founded the Museum Robert Walser and began to run the Migrateurs program at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris where he served as a curator for contemporary art. In 1996 he co-curated Manifesta 1, the first edition of the roving European biennial of contemporary art. He presently serves as the Co-Director, Exhibitions and Programmes and Director of International Projects at the Serpentine Gallery, Kensington Gardens, in London. Jörg Heiser is an art critic who lives and works in Berlin. Heiser is co-editor in chief of frieze and a frequent contributor to several German language newspapers. Recent publications include: Contextualize!; Richard Artschwager and Painting At the Edge of the World .
Dieter Roelstraete is a curator at the Antwerp museum of contemporary art MuHKA. Roelstraete is a founding member of experimental free-prog-death-noise outfit SPASM. He has written extensively on contemporary art and related philosophical issues.
Cuauhtémoc Medina is an art critic, curator and historian, lives and works in Mexico city. Medina is a researcher at the Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas at the National University of Mexico. Between 2002 and 2008, he was the first Associate Curator of Latin American Art Collections at Tate Modern in London. He recently curated a historical show the Age of Discrepancy: Art and Culture in Mexico 1968-1997, curated in collaboration with Olivier Debroise, Pilar García and Alvaro Vázquez.
Asia Collector Development Programme —First partners in a brand new programme:
Central Academy of Fine Art (CAFA)
The largest and most prestigious art school in China, located in Beijing. Alumni include Fang Lijun, Liu Xiaodong, and Xu Bing who now serves as Vice President.
CAFA have custom made courses on art history and the art market for new collectors who want to learn how to better understand art and navigate the art market. This includes course at one of the China’s largest private banks (CITIC Bank) and is run in association with ShContemporary’s Collector Development Programme. ShContemporary shall have privileged access to this exclusive group of new collectors, and CITIC Bank art course shall also be held at ShContemporary09.
Artron.net
China’s biggest online resource for the art market. It has extensive market research services, and provides the largest information and news source for the market. It aims also to create a new generation of collectors in China, and has been communicating directly with collectors in China through its services. Artron.net hosts China’s biggest art award that encompasses museums, auction houses, galleries, and artists.
Artron.net will create events for collectors in conjunction with ShContemporary’s Collector Development Programme whereby they bring their extensive network of collectors to the programme. They shall also host a seminar on the art market during ShContemporary09 and act as ShContemporary’s main media partner.
United Art Collection Corporation (UACC)
The UACC of Beijing is a consulting firm specializing in providing professional advice on art collecting and investment for financial institutes and private collectors.
Services include:
1. Provide the latest information and professional advice on art collecting for institutes and private collectors.
2. Artwork appraisal and investment assessment.
3. Supply customized art investment plans for clients, together with assessment of potential future value.
4. Facilitate sale of client collections.
5. Serve as intermediary in artwork transactions for both institutions and private collectors.
6. Organize related education programs and art survey tours.
In forming a close partnership with UACC, ShContemporary shall have privileged access to all members interested in art, and shall hold join events, from educational to art tours, to understand and guide the interests of their most promising new collectors.
SHContemporary09 Schedule
Preview (By invitation only):
Wednesday, September 9th, 5 to 7 p.m.
Vernissage (By invitation only):
Wednesday, September 9th, 7 to 10 p.m.
VIP days (By invitation only):
Thursday 10th & Friday 11th September, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Public days (Entry ticket):
Saturday 12th & Sunday 13th September, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Venue:
Shanghai Exhibition Center , 1000 Yan’an Middle Road 200040 Shanghai
