Shanghai Biennale

The Shanghai Biennale is the highest-profile contemporary art event in Shanghai and the most established art biennale in China. Initially held in the Shanghai Art Museum, from 2012 on it has been hosted in Power Station of Art, the first state-run museum dedicated to contemporary art in mainland China. Shanghai Biennale gives artists the occasion to meet and exchange ideas about their works, projects, inspirations and experiences, and offers the chance to reunite curators, writers and art supporters from all over the world in order to create a space of dialogue on the international art market. Shanghai Biennale especially highlights the achievements of Asian artistic production by emphasizing the possibilities of these artworks to challenge the conventional division of the world between East and West. Aside from its main museum show, it also includes talks, lectures and installations in various venues throughout the city.

Launched in 1996, Shanghai Biennale has been hosted in the Shanghai Art Museum for eight editions before switching to Power Station of Art. It is arranged each couple of years with a different theme and a lot of activities and events taking place in the museum as well as in the most important landmarks of the city. The first edition of Shanghai (Fine Art) Biennale was approved by the Ministry of Culture and Shanghai Municipal Administration and lasted from March 18 to April 7, 1996. Its theme was named “Open Space” in order to highlight the new opening of the country towards the development of many cultural fields. This edition was attended by 29 artists and displayed a total of 160 artworks including sculptures, installations, video art products and paintings.

The second edition of Shanghai Biennale was jointly organized by the Shanghai Art Museum and Annie Wong Art Foundation. Displayed from October 10 to November 20, 1998 the exhibition focused on “Inheritance and Expansion” and collected a total of 256 works realized through the use of oil, ink, and watercolor paintings, the most traditional techniques. The main object of this edition was to contextualize the development of ink art even in the contemporary production of artworks and to explore new possibilities of its employment.

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