13th Shanghai Biennale reaches a climax at Power Station of Art
The final phase of the 13th Shanghai Biennale culminates with a mammoth show examining our entanglement with climates, ecosystems and technologies
The 13th Shanghai Biennale has unveiled its ultimate exhibition, ‘Bodies of Water’, featuring 64 participating artists and 33 new commissions.
The biennial kicked off in November 2020 with ‘Phase 01: *A* Wet-run Rehearsal’, a five-day inaugural programme, followed by ‘Phase 02: An Ecosystem Of Alliances’, five months of activity and programming. This staggered approach enabled artists, thinkers and curators involved in the biennal to develop their work in close collaboration with the City of Shanghai, its people, networks of activism, organisations, and institutions.
Launched in 1996 as the first international biennial of contemporary art in mainland China, the event sets Shanghai as its primary locus, while positioning itself as a hub for global contemporary art exchange.
The 13th edition is seeking to shake up the traditional biennial format and explore the participant-public divide. Unravelling over nine months, the ‘in crescendo' event reaches a climax with ‘Bodies of Water’, an exhibition dissecting how climates, ecosystems, technologies, and life in all its forms are inextricably interconnected.
In line with the biennial’s ethos, ‘Bodies of Water’ will be in dialogue with the history, geography and vernacular of Shanghai. Unfolding across other locations in the city, including the historic Sunke Villa, the event will begin at the Power Station of Art (PSA), China’s first state-run contemporary art museum and a venue with an intriguing past life as a former coal-electric plant that fuelled the industrialisation of the Huangpu River.
In harmony with the themes of Earth Day (22 April 2021), participating artists and collectives present artworks that negotiate our entanglement in extended ecosystems of interdependency. A significant number of these works, 33 in total, have been commissioned and conceived for the space. Featured artists include Joan Jonas, Pan Daijing, Diakron and Emil Rønn Andersen, Torkwase Dyson, Tabita Rézaire, Jenna Sutela, Carlos Irijalba and Cecilia Vicuña.
‘The 13th Shanghai Biennale advocates for the momentous contribution that art plays in the reconstruction of a world shaped by environmental, social and political distress. The Biennale is sensitive to the way art constitutes and infiltrates life itself, and to its capacities for bodied reparation, transformation and dissidence,’ says chief curator Andrés Jaque.
‘Bodies of Water’ urges viewers to examine living collectivity at a time when the Earth is facing unprecedented challenges, from the swelling climate crisis to the ongoing global pandemic.
INFORMATION
'Bodies of Water', the 13th Shanghai Biennale's main exhibition, until 25 July 2021, at Power Station of Art (PSA)
shanghaibiennale.org
ADDRESS
200 Hua Yuan Gang Lu, Huangpu Qu
Shanghai, 200231
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
Harriet Lloyd-Smith was the Arts Editor of Wallpaper*, responsible for the art pages across digital and print, including profiles, exhibition reviews, and contemporary art collaborations. She started at Wallpaper* in 2017 and has written for leading contemporary art publications, auction houses and arts charities, and lectured on review writing and art journalism. When she’s not writing about art, she’s making her own.
-
Watch: Jamie Dornan takes a bath in Le Courbusier’s villa for Loewe Perfumes
Jamie Dornan stars alongside Sophie Wilde in the new Loewe Perfumes 2024 campaign, shot by David Sims in Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye
By Hannah Tindle Published
-
One to watch: Casey Zablocki’s Rocky Mountain surroundings feed into his vast sculptural work
Montana-based artist Casey Zablocki uses one of America’s largest kilns to create monumental ceramic, functional sculptures
By Dan Howarth Published
-
Es Devlin’s large-scale choral installation celebrates London’s displaced population
Es Devlin has partnered with UK for UNHCR on a free and open-to-all exhibition, ‘Congregation’, in London from 3-9 October 2024
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Cui Jie revisits past utopian architectures in her retro-futuristic cityscapes
Cui Jie responds to the ‘Cosmos Cinema’ theme of the Shanghai Biennale 2023
By Finn Blythe Published
-
Remote Antarctica research base now houses a striking new art installation
In Antarctica, Kyiv-based architecture studio Balbek Bureau has unveiled ‘Home. Memories’, a poignant art installation at the remote, penguin-inhabited Vernadsky Research Base
By Harriet Lloyd-Smith Published
-
Ryoji Ikeda and Grönlund-Nisunen saturate Berlin gallery in sound, vision and visceral sensation
At Esther Schipper gallery Berlin, artists Ryoji Ikeda and Grönlund-Nisunen draw on the elemental forces of sound and light in a meditative and disorienting joint exhibition
By Harriet Lloyd-Smith Published
-
Cecilia Vicuña’s ‘Brain Forest Quipu’ wins Best Art Installation in the 2023 Wallpaper* Design Awards
Brain Forest Quipu, Cecilia Vicuña's Hyundai Commission at Tate Modern, has been crowned 'Best Art Installation' in the 2023 Wallpaper* Design Awards
By Harriet Lloyd-Smith Published
-
Michael Heizer’s Nevada ‘City’: the land art masterpiece that took 50 years to conceive
Michael Heizer’s City in the Nevada Desert (1972-2022) has been awarded ‘Best eighth wonder’ in the 2023 Wallpaper* design awards. We explore how this staggering example of land art came to be
By Harriet Lloyd-Smith Published
-
Cerith Wyn Evans: ‘I love nothing more than neon in direct sunlight. It’s heartbreakingly beautiful’
Cerith Wyn Evans reflects on his largest show in the UK to date, at Mostyn, Wales – a multisensory, neon-charged fantasia of mind, body and language
By Harriet Lloyd-Smith Published
-
The best 7 Christmas installations in London for art lovers
As London decks its halls for the festive season, explore our pick of the best Christmas installations for the art-, design- and fashion-minded
By Harriet Lloyd-Smith Published
-
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s Pulse Topology in Miami is powered by heartbeats
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer brings heart and human connection to Miami Art Week 2022 with Pulse Topology, an interactive light installation at Superblue Miami in collaboration with BMW i
By Fiona Mahon Last updated