Shanghai Jing’an International Sculpture Project Exhibition
Date uploaded: December 5, 2012
2012 China · Shanghai Jing'an International Sculpture Exhibition
20th September - 20th November 2012
2012 Jing’an International Sculpture Project (JISP) Shanghai, China chose ‘Pride of City’ as its theme and sought to explore stories about today’s cities, whose history, modernity, creativity and visual representations are a source of pride and inspiration for their inhabitants.
The 2012 exhibition continued the effort to build a permanent outdoor sculpture collection for the Jing’An district in central Shanghai, which began two years ago when the first biennial was held to coincide with the city’s World Expo, exploring the theme ‘City Fantasy’. During the 2010 biennial, works by artists including Jim Dine, Arman and Jan Fabre were displayed around the 110 acres of the Jing’An park. Over 20 of these sculptures were then purchased by the district and remained on permanent display. These included Red Beacon by the Belgian artist Arne Quinze - a wooden pavilion rising on stilts, unfolding into a complex form that weaves through the treetops.
The 2012 exhibition addressed urban experience, aesthetics of daily life, and human personality and creativity. 18 artists from 10 countries – China, South Korea, Australia, Israel, India, Belgium, Colombia, Turkey, Singapore and Spain – were invited to exhibit, bringing with them 59 sculptures, which were divided into 23 groups. Sculptures by Belgian artist Wim Delvoye, Indian artist Subodh Gupta, Chinese artist Ding Yi, South Korean artist Kim Byong-Ho and Spanish sculptor and conceptual artist Jaume Plensa among many others went on display in a public park in Shanghai. Subodh Gupta, a contemporary artist from India, is known for incorporating everyday objects into his creations. Through the use of ordinary items, he expresses his sympathy for the vulnerable and his reverence for traditional Indian values. In his work Ray (pictured here), a giant steel bucket with a cascade of smaller ones falling out of it, the artist sought to explore the tensions between urban and rural, rich and poor, and traditional and modern, reflecting on the social breakdown that India has experienced on its quest for modernisation against the backdrop of globalisation.
According to Natacha Xu of the Purple Roof Art Gallery, which helped to plan the show and represented many of the artists included in it, several sculptures from the 2012 biennial will also be purchased by the city and remain in the park permanently. The show has been organised by Huang Du, an independent curator based in Beijing, whose previous projects include the Chinese pavilions at the Venice Biennale in 2003 and the São Paulo Biennial the following year.
‘Pride of City’ was a further development of the 2010 Expo JISP, with the goal of improving regional/community culture and contributing to making Shanghai a better platform for international cultural exchange. JISP aimed to set an example of how to create a successful public art experience within the city, with the artists being asked to delineate their interpretation of the theme ‘Pride of City’, giving the public easy access to enjoy and to engage more with public art.
