Jul 03 2019

Highlights From the First Guangzhou Airport Biennale

by Pamela Wong

Since Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms in the late 1970s, urbanization has been rife in China’s Pearl River Delta area. The phenomenon has entailed the migration of people from the region’s rural outskirts to industrial centers like Shenzhen and Guangzhou, and, following this, the abandonment of buildings on the cities’ fringes. Titled “Extreme Mix,” the first Guangzhou Airport Biennale spotlighted one such locale in the Pearl River Delta region that had been left to decay amid the country’s rapid economic development—Fenghe Village.

HE DUOLING’s inflatable sculpture The Thinking Rabbit (2019) greeted visitors at the village’s entrance, which is close to a metro station.

The biennale’s team, led by co-curators Lu Mingjun and Jiang Ning, had spent three years refurbishing Fenghe, located next to Guangzhou’s Baiyun International Airport, with the goal of reconfiguring the site for locals and visitors alike. The sprawling biennale was a strategy to draw visitors to the revamped area. It included over 100 artworks, loosely divided into four sections—named Section A, B, C, and D—each of which tackled a mix of topics, ranging from the aviation industry and transnational identities to urban development.

The village provided ample room for the co-curators and participating artists to experiment. However, the sections weren’t equally successful. Section A, housed in an ancestral shrine where, in the past, villagers worshipped their ancestors and gods, included works by art superstars such as Yayoi Kusama and Olafur Eliasson. With little connection to the site, the agenda behind the inclusion of these presentations—to draw visitors to the event—was transparent. Other sections foregrounded and utilized the village’s qualities more effectively, most notably Sections C and D, in derelict brick structures and centuries-old houses, where projects were deliberately anchored to their surroundings.

Here are some highlights from the biennale.

The village’s ancestral shrine was refurbished into an art space for Section A, which included “masterpieces” such as YAYOI KUSAMA’s iconic dotted PUMPKIN (2017), surrounded by mirrors.

On the third floor of the ancestral shrine was ZHAO YAO’s carpet. The work depicts an aerial view of Xinjiang’s Urumqi Airport, which is undergoing expansion.

LAI SIO KIT’s oil on canvas Single Moment (2018) recalls the patterns on the ancestral shrine’s traditional ceramic tiles.

“Hand-shake buildings” (woshoulou) are frequently seen in urban villages, where neighbors can shake hands with each other through open windows. Here, FAN BO’s site-specific sculpture Boundary (2019) illustrates the meaning of this term and the density of buildings in Guangzhou.

This seven-floor building was rented out to factory workers as an apartment before it was abandoned. It is difficult to tell that it has been transformed into an art space from its exterior.

In the building, which was part of Section C, piles of white A4 paper were strewn across the ground floor. The display is part of HE JIER’s A Blank in the Art History (2018), which continued on the fifth floor with two televisions playing videos of a man and a woman, respectively. These figures read aloud artists’ profiles and explanations of art terms as a critique of art history.

XU ZHEN’s wounded maneki-neko, I’m Fine! (2019) could be seen through the dusty windows of the building.

TATSUO MIYAJIMA’s LED installation Life (le corps sans organes) No. 15 (2013) was displayed on the top floor of the building, in a dark room with sealed windows.

XIAO KEGANG’s sculptures, part of Open-mindedness Violates Ethics and Morality (2018), were hidden the woods, among the ruins of what was a house.

Section D unfolded in centuries-old brick houses where a handful of residents still live. There was an undeniably voyeuristic quality to the viewing experience of this portion of the show.

LIN WANSHAN’s white cyborg-figurine GENGHUNYI (2019) sat on a grain of rice in front of an altar, as if it were worshipping the gods. The combination of Daoist rituals and AI created an uncanny atmosphere in the space.

WANG XIN framed the doors and walls of a house with green LED lights, turning the space into a Self-Service Station for Happiness (2019). Viewers could experience the VR component of the work in the living room.

TONG YIXIN’s two-channel video Garden (2010), of scenes in Vancouver’s Stanley Park, was projected on the wall of a house in Section D. Sounds of ocean waves were played on loop, creating a sense of lost in the space.