Location: Multi-function Hall, 1/F, Shenzhen Civic Center
Time：14:00-16:00
Moderator: Pauline J. Yao
Guests: Ou Ning, Tirdad Zolghadr, Gao Shiming, Manray Hsu, Kayoko Ota，Beatrice Galilee

This panel discussion invites curators of art and architecture biennales to discuss the increasing overlap and merging in practices of the two disciplines once kept at a distance. Since its inception, the Venice Architectural Biennale has always been scheduled in alternating years with the Art Biennale, as if the two disciplines were so distinct as to warrant wholly different audiences and intellectual interests. As art biennales become increasingly replaced by art fairs and architectural practices are more like being merged with other artistic practices, how can the biennale model be re-invented and repurposed with respect to the two disciplines? What are the ways in which curators handle the task of ‘curating architecture’ vs. ‘curating art’?

Moderator

Pauline J. Yao is an independent curator and scholar based in Beijing and San Francisco. Born in the U.S., she came to China in the early 1990s to study Chinese and then returned to the States and received her M.A. degree in East Asian Studies and Art History at the University of Chicago. For five years she worked as Assistant Curator of Chinese Art at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco during which time she curated exhibitions of modern and contemporary art, published her writings in various magazines, catalogues and journal, taught master’s courses at the California College of the Arts, and frequently traveled to China for her independent researches. In 2006 she received a Fulbright Grant and relocated to Beijing. In 2007 she received the inaugural CCAA Art Critic Award and subsequently published In Production Mode: Contemporary Art in China (2008). She has curated programs and exhibitions at the Asian Art Museum, The Luggage Store Gallery, Universal Studios Beijing and the Gallery at REDCAT and sits on the editorial board of Yishu Art Journal and Contemporary Art and Investment magazine. In 2008 she co-founded Arrow Factory, a storefront art space in Beijing.

Guests

GAO Shiming, Deputy Director of the Advanced School of Art and Humanities, China Art Academy. His research interest includes visual culture research, contemporary art studies and curatorial study. He has organized many large exhibitions of academic standing, including the research project “The Migration of Asian Contemporary Art and Geo-politics” (2002-2004), “Techniques of the Visible: the 5th Shanghai Biennial” (2004), “Micrology: Micro-politics in Chinese Contemporary Art” (2005), “The Yellow Box: Contemporary Art and Architecture in a Chinese Space” (2006), “The Alchemy of Shadows: the Third International Lianzhou Photo Festival” (2007), “Farewell to Post-colonialism: the Third Guangzhou Triennial” (2008), etc. He has published several books include Visual Thinking: Intangible Dialogue between Art and Phenomenology (2002); Edges of the Earth: Migration of Contemporary Art and Geo-politics in Asia (2003); Mask and Mirror: Visual Studies on the Real and Reality(2009).

Ou Ning’s cultural practices encompass multiple disciplines. As an editor and graphic designer, Ou Ning is perhaps best known for his seminal book New Sound of Beijing (1999), which helped define the capital’s emerging rock scene. As a curator, he initiated the “Get It Louder” exhibition which tours in the major cities of China every two years. He’s also the commissioned curator of the sound art section in China Power Station, an exhibition which was presented by the Serpentine Gallery at London’s legendary Battersea Power Station and then travelled to Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo and MUDAM, Luxembourg. As an artist, Ou is known for his involvement in urban research and his archive and documentation projects such as San Yuan Li (participant of the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003) and Da Zha Lan, commissioned by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes. He is a frequent contributor of various magazines, books and exhibition catalogues and has lectured around the world. In the late 1990s, he founded U-thèque, an independent film and video society. Later, he launched Alternative Archive, a platform for alternative cultural activities. He joins the jury of the Benesse Prize at the 53rd Venice Biennale this year. He’s currently based in Beijing, China and is the Director of Shao Foundation.

Manray Hsu now lives in Taipei and Berlin and works as an independent curator and art critic. He was a co-curator of “The Sky is the Limit: 2000 Taipei Biennial”. Later, he began to shuttle between Taipei and Europe, curating exhibitions and writing art criticisms. His major curatorial work includes: “Jam Sessions: Rigo 84-23”（Centro das Artes Casa das Mudas, Portugal, 2006）, the Liverpool Biennial (2006) and “Naked Life” (Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei, 2006). He served on the international jury at the 49th Venice Biennale.

Tirdad Zolghadr is an independent writer and curator based in Berlin. He writes for frieze magazine and other publications, and teaches at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College NY. Zolghadr recently organized the UAE pavilion at the Venice Biennale 09, and the long-term exhibition project Lapdogs of the Bourgeoisie with Nav Haq.
He’s curatorial advisor to the Artist Pension Trust and the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, and editor-at-large for Cabinet magazine. Zolghadr’’s first novel Softcore was published by Telegram Books 2007 (translated into German, Italian, French). Ongoing endeavors include an exhibition project at the Mala Gallerija Ljubljana and his second novel Top Ten. Zolghadr is also organizing the Taipei Biennial 2010 with Hongjohn Lin.

Kayoko Ota became assistant to Kisho Kurokawa for organizing exhibitions and international conferences, after finishing international law studies in Tokyo. In 1987 she set up an office for cultural and educational programs on architecture and urban issues in Tokyo with Akira Suzuki, where they launched Telescope magazine and organized summer schools with the AA School of Architecture in London. Ten years later, she became independent to work on exhibitions and publications in Tokyo. In 2002 she moved to Rotterdam to join AMO, a creative thinktank of Office for Metropolitan Architecture. Starting with Content, a major retrospective exhibition of OMA and AMO, she has worked on Prada’s Waist Down and The Gulf exhibitions, while editing Post-Occupancy with Rem Koolhaas. Meanwhile, she was on the editorial board of Domus magazine in Milan for three years from 2005. Since 2008 she is based in Tokyo and Rotterdam.

Beatrice Galilee was born in London and trained as an architect in Bath. After graduating, she studied journalism and wrote for several music and fashion magazines before taking up an MA in Architectural History at the Bartlett school, UCL. She worked for two years as architecture editor of Icon, an influential archi tecture and des ign magaz ine where she interviewed some of the world’s most important figures, promoted the work of new young practices and won the Architecture Journalist of the Year award in 2008. She has sat on a number of juries and contributes to several international architecture and design titles, national newspapers and several books on contemporary architecture. She is now based in Beijing.