Sponsored by OCTWest, Anren Biennale was founded according to the special features of Anren ancient town in ChengDu.

 

The 1st Anren Biennale will be held in October 2017 in Anren ancient town in ChengDu. In the light of history and culture situations of Anren, as well as its future planning, the theme of Anren Biennale will be dedicated to an open dialogue between history, contemporary and future. This perspective leads Anren Biennale to a sample survey that unfolds over the context of globalization and territoriality. The academic discussion on historical memory and contemporary questions will be vitalized and pluralized through non-symbolic and non-flattening art creation that penetrates prejudices against contemporary art. In the meantime, Anren Biennale tries to offer multiple perspectives to see contemporary art, and tries to examine the potential influence on current visual art brought by both globalization and localization. Under a global vision, Anren Biennale means to present a decentralized dynamic structure of World-China-ChengDu-Anren, and to analyze regional features in the realm of historical diversity and complexity.

 

The 1st Anren Biennale would be a beginning to build an academic ground for exhibiting and exchanging for artists from different countries and generations. It will continue to enhance sustainable cultural landscape and impact of Anren through the biennial exhibition and related activities.

 

Today’s Yesterday is the theme of the 1st Anren Biennale. Nowadays our society has been regarded as a Society of Spectacle (Guy Debord) and of image consumption. Globalization has been offering a growing space of imagination to the spectacle, which has created multiple questions and relevant thinking of the problem. Today’s Yesterday is a strongly reflective theme, and re-proposes to us the question of What Is Today, What Is Art of Today. Furthermore, the biennale also inquiry into What Is Art of Today in history, How does Art of Today constitute history, and point to the historical sense of art.

 

Anren Biennale adopts international practices of recruiting curator team chaired by a chief curator: art historian LV Peng. Abide by professional, academic and international standards, the curator team will formulate exhibition theme and structure, drew up participating artist list, select artworks, guarantee academic function and influence of the biennale. Curator team is composed of four groups, namely LAN Qingwei + DU Xiyun, LIU Ding + Carol Yinghua Lu, LIU Jie + LV Jing, Marco Soctini. Under the theme of Today’s Yesterday /今日之往昔, four different units will be launched and presented by the whole curator team.

 

Besides, the 1st Anren Biennale includes a special unit of invitational exhibition, which distributes in different venues and works as an organic compliment to the main exhibition. The relationship between biennale and local community will be strengthened through various art forms.

 

This time, Anren Biennale will cover nearly 100 invited artists from more than 20 countries, and will lead to a pluralism of expressions: painting, photography, installation, motion pictures, sculpture etc.. Except the unique landscape of Anren, main venue of the 1st biennale, also the permanent exhibiting hall will be built out of Anren’s old workshop in order to accommodate the exhibition spaces.