Research and Curatorial Practice: Symposium on May 17, 2019

In the field of Chinese contemporary art, discussions on curatorial practice have been weakening in recent years. Due to the formation of new economic, cultural and social realities in China, the re-configuration of the art market and a general disdain for research in the art industry, attention has been shifted away from critical curatorial practice to other trends in the art world. In some Chinese public art museums, the positions and roles of curators are faced with marginalization or suspension. Public art institutions are indulging, explicitly or not, in commercialisation by focusing predominantly on entertainment and popularisation whilst they are trying to maintain their position within systems of power. They develop a particular type of visual spectacle that is tied to practices of consumption and social power exemplified in private VIP events aimed at socializing and trade. Research, critical writing, and discussion about curatorial practice are overshadowed by the new wave of investment, urban development and the production of artistic spectacle.

Under these circumstances, tensions in Chinese cultural production are becoming evident: anxiety related to the power relationship between the artist and the curator rooted in the 1990s has re-emerged. Artists have become distrustful of curatorial practice and, in order to maintain their artistic independence, many of them question research-based curatorial methodologies and language, especially when these are affiliated with institutions. Chinese independent curators with international exposure, are frequently met with scepticism due to concerns related to the transferability of knowledge and experience gained in Western cultural contexts. The magnitude of this phenomenon and the risk to curatorial practice is alarming. There is an urgent need to integrate research and curatorial practice, in order to reinvigorate the relationship between art and society, explore and understand contemporaneity within its historical context, and overcome commercial globalisation by reconnecting the local and the global from a different perspective.

Alongside the rapid expansion of China’s museum sector there has also been a global transformation within curatorial practice in the form of the ‘art biennial’. Chinese cities are becoming the meeting point for global art systems, with an overall aim to create a dialogue between the local and the global; to foster international collaborations between curators and artists, but also sponsors and collectors; to explore the concept of contemporaneity through new commissions, novel approaches and transcultural interactions. However, the task of these meetings to invent a new locality in relation to globality is often challenging and the risk of reduction to self-referential artistic gatherings should not be underestimated. This symposium proposes to address some of these concerns by bringing together curators and scholars operating within a global art system. 

This symposium is co-organized by Inside-Out Art Museum (IOAM), Beijing, and the Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art (CFCCA), Manchester,. With this symposium, we would like to emphasize the close relationship between research and curatorial practice both in China and internationally, and discuss the rich dimensions and potential of theoretical and artistic research through the creative application of curatorial language. Through the dialogue between curators and scholars we want to re-consider the political power of curatorial praxis and its role in knowledge production. By exploring China’s complex global exchanges in the field of cultural production we aim to unpick the particularities of transcultural curatorial practice and its role in interrogating Western narratives of modernity.