The Power Station of Art (PSA) has announced the list of 64 artists participating in the 13th Shanghai Biennale, Bodies of Water. This edition of the biennale has navigated the pandemic by stretching over three ‘phases’: the first, a ‘wet-run rehearsal’ that took the form of a five-day ‘inaugural programme’, was followed by phase two, ‘An Ecosystem of Alliances’, which ‘allowed the artists, thinkers and curators involved in the Biennale to develop their work in close collaboration with the City of Shanghai, its people, networks of activism, organizations, and institutions’ over a period of five months.
The culmination of the 13th Shanghai Biennale – the main exhibition – will take place at PSA and other venues in Shanghai from 17 April to 25 July.
A press release describes this edition’s theme of Bodies of Water: ‘From bodies to other bodies, climates, ecosystems and technologies, all life forms are inextricably interconnected and interdependent. Bodies of Water asks us to examine this living collectivity at a time when the earth is facing unprecedented challenges, from the accelerating climate crisis to the current global pandemic. The participating artists and collectives present artworks that explore caring-based approaches which negotiate our entanglement in extended ecosystems of interdependency. A significant number of these works, 33 in total, have been specifically commissioned and conceived for the space and times of the Biennale.’
The participating artists are:
Alberto Baraya
Ana Mendieta
Antoni Muntadas*
Astrida Neimanis
Aunty Rhonda Dixon-Grovenor and Clare Britton*
Ayesha Tan Jones*
Cao Minghao and Chen Jianjun*
Carlos Casas*
Carlos Irijalba*
Cecilia Vicuña
Cheng Xinyi
Cooking Sections (Daniel Fernández Pascual and Alon Schwabe)
Dai Chenlian*
Debajo del Sombrero (participating artists: Andrés Fernández, José Manuel Egea, Miguel García, María Lapastora and Belén Sánchez)
Diakron and Emil Rønn Andersen*
Diane Severin Nguyen*
Feliciano Centurión
Guo Fengyi
Heather Phillipson*
Hylozoic/Desires (Himali Singh Soin + David Soin Tappeser)*
Ibiye Camp*
Itziar Okariz*
Jenna Sutela
Joan Jonas*
Karrabing Film Collective
Kyriaki Goni*
Liam Young
Michael Wang*
Nerea Calvillo (C+arquitectas)*
P Staff in collaboration with Basse Stittgen*
Pan Daijing*
Pepe Espaliú
Pu Yingwei*
ReUnion X DMAS*
Revital Cohen and Tuur Van Balen
Sun Xiaoxing, Qiu Zhen, Zhao Kunfang and Huang Siyao*
Tabita Rézaire
Torkwase Dyson*
Vera Frenkel
WORKac (Amale Andraos and Dan Wood)
Zadie Xa and Benito Mayor Vallejo*
Zheng Mahler (Royce Ng and Daisy Bisenieks)
*new commissions.
Bodies of Water chief curator Andrés Jaque has said in a statement: ‘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’.
