China’s pavilion bringing the innovative ideas of Chinese artists at the 56th International Art Exhibition, or Venice Art Biennale 2015. The Chinese pavilion is themed “Civil Future”, it means “everything is among the people and points to the future” .

The main theme not only covers broad areas but also offers freer space of demonstration for artists. Meanwhile, the “Civil Future” theme put forward by the team of China Pavilion guides viewers to explore the art spirit shown by Chinese artists through the forms of painting, music, video and installation art.

At the Chinese pavilion, artists Liu Jiakun, Lu Yang, Tan Dun, Wen Hui and Wu Wenguang all showcase a personal view on public subjects. Together, they show how the Chinese society has been shaped in recent history and how Chinese masses are publicly impacting the future of the country. The range of backgrounds and interests of the artists map a rich and complex past.

Concept
The order of the world should not be determined by a few.As time goes by, the behavior of the masses creates order, direction and the future in a seemingly unconscious movement. The developments of digital technology and media technology are increasingly facilitating this process. The impact every individual can make on the future of the world is becoming more and more apparent.

“Civil” is not just a geographical concept, it embodies the spirit of more openness and tolerance. “Civil” implies pluralistic possibilities, which include not just the more conservative voice, but voices that are full of vitality, spontaneity and those not manipulated by commercial interests.

The focus was set on deal with the past in a simple but sincere manner. Artists should focus more on content and building an audience, not only technique. But most multimedia works don’t have topics, just technique. The choices made for this exhibition point toward a civil future. It involves the existence of every individual social member who is unique.

Civil Future, also represents open-mindedness and tolerance, taking a rather challenging stance in modern China, one of spontaneity, non-mainstream pursuits and creativity, and the enjoyment of the freedom of creativity.

The Exhibition
Chinese culture is arriving on the world stage, At such an influential event, the exhibition feel the diversity of Chinese culture, both traditional and modern. It seems that China has become a focal point everywhere. A way to maintains a positive, healthy and constructive image.

China Pavilion themed “Civil Future” at the 56th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia. Dozens of violins and water show complemented works of Chinese artists Liu Jiakun, Lu Yan, Wen Hui, and Wu Wenguang, creating an artistic cornucopia with Chinese flavor.

“Civil Future” stresses the concept of a “public sphere” beyond any limits of individuals, each of whom is independent and uncategorized, and whose value is not decided by a small, elite group. The “public sphere” also represents a spirit of civil society in China that is more open and accepting, but at the same time very challenging ¨C it inspires desire for creativity that is natural, automatic, motivational, and outside the mainstream, showing great vitality even after social change.

Five Chinese artists were invited to display their works at the exhibition. The kinetic art of Liu Jiakun investigates the relationship between human beings and nature and the environment, similar to the divinely humorous and provocative work by Lu Yang. A musical installation is the work of renowned conductor Tan Dun, presenting the collective memory of a disappearing language created and exclusively used by women who were otherwise forbidden formal education. The constant interaction between past and future is also the basis of a dance performance by the Living Dance Studio, which touches on the lives of migrant workers and their memories. Issues of urbanization and political reform in China are also at the center of a video project by Wu Wenguang, in which farmers both direct and appear in a documentary about village autonomy.

Alongside the exhibition, the China Pavilion will also offer events like non-profit concerts and art salons to create an international cultural platform to promote mutual understanding. Presenting a wide variety of art, Chinese artists are inviting the audience to look, listen, feel and communicate with the creations in hopes of helping them better understand the real and vigorously progressing China as well as the challenges and opportunities it is facing. 

Highlights

China has lined up a strikingly interdisciplinary list of participants for their 2015 pavilion, among them filmmaker Wu Wenguang, choreographer Wen Hui, composer Tan Dun, artist Lu Yang, and architect Liu Jiakun. The performance art to position pieces both inside and outside of the physical structure on a series of stages with multimedia projections serving as a backdrop.

Xu Bing
Xu Bing (b. 1955) is one of the leading Chinese contemporary artists from the avant-garde movement of the late 1980’s. Xu created two impressive giant and magnificent sculptures, the “Phoenix Project 2015” from the debris of construction sites across China. This legendary installation was situated above the limpid green water in the docks of the Arsenale venue. The artist poses a question using a symbolic language as a creative way to capture the multifarious enquiries about the contemporary realm. Phoenix has been a Chinese mythic symbol that recalls the long-lived Chinese cultural tradition spanned over centuries. The artist uses this artistic medium to create a bond through a critical dialogue between the traditional and modern motifs to produce a stimulating platform for further cultural and philosophical exchange between the generations. This enormous art piece draws the attention and makes someone recall it all the way through this art event.

The Phoenix is an impressive work by the Chinese-born artist Xu Bing, installed in the Gaggiandre basin at the Arsenale.Commissioned by an Hong Kong’s building developer, the first version of this installation, entirely made of construction site debris, was realized in 2010, and has been exposed in many locations across the world thereafter.

Alluding to the frantic urban development in China – which reached its apex in 2008 on the occasion of the Beijing Olympics – and to the related consumption of human and material resources; Xu Bing has transfigured construction site debris into a couple of the mythological birds Feng and Huang, thus making them a symbol of the complex relationships between labor, matter and culture.

Qiu Zhijie
Qiu Zhijie (b. 1969) belongs to a younger generation dealing with video and photography as a new medium. His project is titled “The Historical Circular” and talks about how history is circulated from time to time. The display seems to be very crowded, quite hard to comprehend but aesthetically balanced. Zhijie raises philosophical concerns about how same facts are possible to take place constantly over and over again. How and why, though? The artist needed five to six years to realize this idea that was based mainly on historical research. To elaborate his scope, he installed a mixed media display inciting some video screenings through a lantern depicting how dreams can happen repetitively during a night. He interprets the repetition motif, which seems to have a significant importance for this Chinese artist, placing objects such as glasses, goldfish bowls or cradles to create a more theatrical atmosphere.

Ji Dachun
Ji Dachun (b. 1968) showcases the multifaceted relationship between East and West faces of China in his eight paintings.

Cao Fei
Cao Fei (b. 1978), who is the youngest artist at this exhibition, presents her video work “La Town”. Cao is internationally known for her multimedia artworks as an attempt to raise her social and political questions on China.

Liu Jiakun
With the Wind 2015 – Its your call is a site-specific installation by Liu Jiakun housed into the “Maidens’ Garden” at the Arsenale.The key-point of this work is its capability to define a space, almost an abode, by using a series of discrete and flimsy elements, by their nature unstable, moved back and forth by the wind.

For Liu Jiakun, this state of fragility and precarious equilibrium symbolizes the balance between nature and human development. Visitors temporarily “inhabiting” this space can interact with the installation by writing messages and attaching them to it through small magnets, thus adding a counterweight and modifying the balance of the structure.

Venice Biennale 2015
The 2015 Art Biennale closes a sort of trilogy that began with the exhibition curated by Bice Curiger in 2011, Illuminations, and continued with the Encyclopedic Palace of Massimiliano Gioni (2013). With All The World’s Futures, La Biennale continues its research on useful references for making aesthetic judgments on contemporary art, a “critical” issue after the end of the avant-garde and “non-art” art.

Through the exhibition curated by Okwui Enwezor, La Biennale returns to observe the relationship between art and the development of human, social and political reality, in the pressing of external forces and phenomena: the ways in which, that is, the tensions of the external world solicit the sensitivities, the vital and expressive energies of the artists, their desires, the motions of the soul (their inner song ).

La Biennale di Venezia was founded in 1895. Paolo Baratta has been its President since 2008, and before that from 1998 to 2001. La Biennale, who stands at the forefront of research and promotion of new contemporary art trends, organizes exhibitions, festivals and researches in all its specific sectors: Arts (1895), Architecture (1980), Cinema (1932), Dance (1999), Music (1930), and Theatre (1934). Its activities are documented at the Historical Archives of Contemporary Arts (ASAC) that recently has been completely renovated.

The relationship with the local community has been strengthened through Educational activities and guided visits, with the participation of a growing number of schools from the Veneto region and beyond. This spreads the creativity on the new generation (3,000 teachers and 30,000 pupils involved in 2014). These activities have been supported by the Venice Chamber of Commerce. A cooperation with Universities and research institutes making special tours and stays at the exhibitions has also been established. In the three years from 2012-2014, 227 universities (79 Italian and 148 international) have joined the Biennale Sessions project.

In all sectors there have been more research and production opportunities addressed to the younger generation of artists, directly in contact with renowned teachers; this has become more systematic and continuous through the international project Biennale College, now running in the Dance, Theatre, Music, and Cinema sections.