The 9th edition examines how contemporary art adresses the new contract between human beings, animals, vegetals, machines, products and objects. How does today's art define and represent our space-time? The exhibition highlights the way artists focus on links, chainings, connections and mutations.
Taipei Fine Arts Museum is delighted to announce Nicolas Bourriaud as the curator for Taipei
Biennial 2014. The 9th Taipei Biennial will be taken place in the middle of September, 2014.
The French art scholar, curator, Nicolas Bourriaud, born in
1965, is currently the director of Ecole des Beaux-Arts,
Paris (ENSBA). His arts theory book, Relational Aesthetics,
published in 1998 has been translated in twelve different
languages around the world. He therefore becomes one of
the most influential arts critics in the Western contemporary
arts world. Bourriaud co-founded the Palais de Tokyo, the center of contemporary arts in
Paris, with Jérôme Sans, and was co-director from 1999 to 2006. In 2007, He was invited to
be the Gulbenkian Curator of Contemporary Art at Tate Britain and curator of "Altermodern"
the fourth Tate Triennial (2009). He has been the director of ENSBA since 2012, and
organized exhibitions for the Palais des Beaux-arts, which were "The Angel of History" and
"CookBook". He curated for the first and second edition of Moscow Biennale (co-curator in
2005, 2007), and the Lyon Biennale (co-curator, 2005) and the Athens Biennial (2011).
He had visited Taipei Biennial in 2000 and 2012, as well as observed the local arts scene
constantly. In his recent visit in last December, he released an article to share with local public
his idea concept about Taipei Biennial 2014. He used The Great Acceleration as a prolog to
elaborate the arts in the anthropocene. The full text of the article is listed below.
52 artists and collectives
c
will
w appear oon the scene:
Harold
Anccart (Belgiuum); Charles Avery (U
UK); Gilless Barbier (F
France); Aliisa
Barremboym (U
USA); Neïll Beloufa (A
Algeria / Fraance); Peterr
Bugggenhout (B
Belgium); Roberto
R
Caabot (Brazill); Patrick Van
V
Caeeckenbergh
h (Belgium)); En-Man C
Chang (Taiiwan); Ian
Cheeng (USA); Ching-Hu
ui Chou (Taaiwan); Chu
un-Teng Ch
hu (Taiwann); Shezad
Daw
wood (UK);; David Douard (Frannce); Camillle Henrot (France); Rooger
Hioorns (UK); Xiao-Yuan
X
n Hu(China)); Po-Chih Huang (Taaiwan); Joann
Jon
nas (USA); Hudinilson
H
n Jr. (Brazill); Tetsumii Kudo (Jap
pan); Surasii
Kussolwong (T
Thailand); An-My
A
Lê (V
Vietnam / USA);
U
Kuo--Wei Lin (T
Taiwan); Maria
M
Lob
boda (Germ
many / Polan
nd); Jonah F
Freeman & Justin Lo
owe (USA);; Jr-Shih
Luoo (Taiwan); Tala Mada
ani (Iran / U
USA); Abu-Bakarr Mansaray
M
(SSierra Leonee /
Nethherlands); Josephine
J
Meckseper
M
(Germany)); Nathaniel Mellors (U
UK); Marliie
Mu
ul (Netherlannds); Henriik Olesen (D
Denmark) ; OPAVIVA
ARÁ! (Braazil); Ola
Peh
hrson (Swedden); Hung
g-Chih Pengg (Taiwan);; Matheus Rocha
R
Pittta (Brazil); Laure Prou
uvost (Frannce / UK); Rachel
R
Rose (USA); Paamela
Rossenkranz (S
Switzerland
d); Mika Roottenberg (A
Argentina); Sterling
Rub
by (USA); Timur
T
Si-Q
Qin (German
any); Shima
abuku (Japan); Peter
Stäm
mpfli (Swittzerland) ; Nicolás
N
Uriiburu (Argeentina); Yu--Chen Wanng (Taiwan /
UK)); Chien-Ying Wu (Taaiwan); Chu
uan-Lun Wu
W (Taiwan);Inga Svalla Thórsdó
óttir
&W
Wu Shanzh
huan (Chinaa / Iceland);; Haegue Yang
Y
(Koreaa); Anicka Y
Yi (USA)
THE GREAT ACCELERATION
ART IN THE ANTHROPOCENE
Nicolas Bourriaud
Human activity has been transforming the planet for millennia. All the ecosystems now bear
the mark of human presence, but the scale and speed of change in the last 60 years, called by
scientists The Great Acceleration, also led them to name anthropocene this new geological
epoch — an era marked by the strong impact of human activities upon the atmospherical and
geological evolution of planet earth.
Taipei Biennial 2014 uses this image in order to examine how contemporary art adresses this
new contract between human beings, animals, vegetals, machines, products and objects. How
does today’s art define and represent our space-time ? The exhibition will highlight the way
artists focus on links, chainings, connections and mutations : how they envision planet earth as
a huge network, where new states of matter and new forms of relations appear...
To describe capitalism in the 19th century, Karl Marx talked about a “ghost dance” pulling
along the humans, their products and their environment. Reification on one side (the
transformation of the living into an object) and prosopopeia on the other (a figure of speech
that represents an object or a dead person speaking) are the two major patterns of the new «
ghost dance » of global economy. But in addition to these two figures, we could add montage,
as a connection principle between heterogeneous realities.
The sphere of inter-human relations cannot be conceived anymore without its environmental
and technological sides. Since the beginning of the XXIst century, contemporary artists tend
to renegotiate their relationships with both technosphere and biosphere, exploring the knots
that link the living and the object, the machine and the body, the technological and the social –
and experiencing their interdependence.
The uprising of a new « global spirituality » in art appears in the focus made on outsiders and
occult forms in the last Venice Biennial, or in the recent calls for an « animist » state of mind
in the arts. In the theoretical field, Bruno Latour calls for a « parliament of things », while a
recent philosophical movement, « Speculative realism », criticizes anthropocentrism and the
notion of « human finitude » so present in western thought : for those philosophers, thinking
and being are not correlated, and the human individual does not have any preeminent position
in the access to being. Quentin Meillassoux even rejects the necessity of all physical laws of
nature, and Graham Harman considers everything as an object, whether physical, fictional, living or inert. Others, like François Jullien, reexamines western philosophy in a critical way,
by confronting its basic concepts to chinese thought, in which he identifies new
potentialities.
This movement of cross-pollenization, both cultural and techno-scientific, might lead us to a
possible global refoundation of aesthetics, and it will be at the heart of Taipei Biennial 2014.
The exhibition will adress the cross-overs appearing in the art of the anthropocene ; it will
focus on artists for whom objects, products, computers, screens, chemistry, natural elements
or living organisms are interconnected with humans, and can be used by them for a critical
analysis of contemporary world.
About TFAM
Taiwan’s first modern and contemporary art museum, TFAM was officially opened to the
public on 24 December 1983. Located in Taipei’s Yuanshan district, the museum occupies
over 20,000 square meters of space, of which 11,741 square meters are devoted to exhibition
space. TFAM is fulfilling its mission to promote contemporary art in Taiwan by planning
exhibitions, collection art works from Taiwan and abroad, and encouraging arts education.
TFAM also promotes international exchange, providing a point of contact within Taiwan and
its sponsorship of Taiwanese art exhibitions abroad.
TFAM’s exhibitions of modern and contemporary art enhance the cultural life of Taipei, a
cosmopolitan and international city moving from the 20th into the 21st century. The museum
building, whose walls of glass offer wrap-around views of both the natural landscape and the
surrounding cityscape, merges interior and exterior space, is a landmark and symbol of Taipei.
Besides serving as a space for art exhibitions and education, the TFAM also offers space for
conversation, and contemplation in its food court and bookstores. The TFAM is a place for
artful living and the living arts.
For Taipei Biennial general inquiries: info@taipeibiennial.org
For Taipei Biennial press inquiries: press@taipeibiennial.org
Opeening Septeember 12, 2014
Address 181, Sec. 3, ZhongShan N. Rd. Taipei, Taiwan
Open Hours Tuesday—Sunday 09: 30—17: 30
Saturday 09: 30—20: 30