Fragments of Culture and Art from Contemporary China
April 1–29, 2021
Pirelli HangarBicocca, throughout the month of April, presents “Eternal Misunderstanding: Fragments of Culture and Art from Contemporary China,” a program of digital talks taking place every Thursday at 7pm [GMT+2]. The series is part of the public program devoted to the exhibition Short-circuits by the artist Chen Zhen, and is scheduled in five appointments delving into the philosophical and cultural background of Chen’s artistic and existential journey.
Conceived as a series of digital conversations and lectures, “Eternal Misunderstanding” is a thorough exploration of the philosophical and cultural conditions that made Chen Zhen artistic and existential path possible. The program also offers a fresh perspective on the development of the contemporary art scene between China and the Western world in the last 30 years, with a specific emphasis on mutual influences and crossovers.
The title of the series—“Eternal Misunderstanding”—is drawn from an expression that Chen Zhen (born Shanghai 1955–died Paris 2000) used to refer to the excessive simplifications with which Chinese culture and contemporary art have been represented in the European and North American sphere. The artist, however, often uses words such as “misunderstanding” and “short-circuit” in a positive manner, meant as paths towards new creative and meaningful spaces outside of any defined and monolithic identities.
Taking as a starting point some of the themes underlying Chen Zhen’s research and the show Short-circuits, the series develops through five appointments involving international scholars and curators from different geographical and disciplinary backgrounds: university scholar and expert of intercultural philosophy Marcello Ghilardi; curator and art historian Davide Quadrio, who has been working between Italy and China for over 25 years; New York-based critic and curator Wang Xin; scholar and history professor Franziska Koch; Beijing-based art historian and curator Mia Yu; and Daoism expert and scholar Elena Valussi, who lives and teaches in Chicago.
The appointments
The first two talks are dedicated to the thorough exploration of some of the philosophical and cultural grounds that are fundamental to Chen Zhen’s poetics.
Then the program unfolds through three conversations curated by Davide Quadrio—who is also serving as moderator—devised to outline how Chinese contemporary art has been received, narrated, and historicized in Europe and in the USA as well as in China. The curators and scholars involved in the conversations, who have worked and lived in both contexts, aim to redraw a broader and more layered perspective on the current art scene and its cultural and geopolitical implications, starting from the generation of Chen Zhen—who established themselves in Europe in the 1980s—to the most recent years.
Thursday, April 1, 2021, at 7pm [GMT+2], Marcello Ghilardi, professor of Aesthetics at Università degli Studi di Padova, speaks about “Altri spazi, altri tempi. Forme dell’estetica tra Europa e Cina” [“Other spaces, other times. Forms of aesthetics between Europe and China”]
Thursday, April 8, 2021, at 7pm [GMT+2], Elena Valussi, Senior Lecturer, History Department, Loyola University, Chicago explores “La concezione del corpo nel Daoismo e nella medicina cinese in conversazione con l’arte di Chen Zhen” [“The concept of the body in Daoism and Chinese medicine in dialogue with the art of Chen Zhen”]
Thursday, April 15, 2021, at 7pm [GMT+2], Wang Xin, art historian and curator based in New York, talks about “Spirituality (and its Misunderstandings) as Cosmotechnics”
Thursday, April 22, 2021, at 7pm [GMT+2] Franziska Koch, Assistant Professor of Global Art History at the Heidelberg Centre for Advanced Transcultural Studies of Heidelberg University lectures on “Group exhibitions mediating contemporary art from China in the post-Mao era”
Thursday, April 29, 2021, at 7pm [GMT+2] Mia Yu, a Beijing-based art historian and curator specialized in Asian contemporary art, talks about “Engaging ‘Global China’: Then and Now”
The conferences composing “Eternal Misunderstanding: Fragments of Culture and Art from Contemporary China” are digitally broadcasted on pirellihangarbicocca.org, with English or Italian subtitles. The lectures can be freely joined by clicking on the Bubble Experience button on the dedicated event page, encouraging the audience to discover the new digital mode specifically designed by Pirelli HangarBicocca for releasing live-streamed events.
The exhibition
The exhibition Short-circuits, curated by Vicente Todolí, and held at Pirelli HangarBicocca until June 6, 2021, is conceived as an immersive exploration bringing together for the first time some of Chen Zhen’s most significant works from 1991 to 2000. The show is accompanied by a catalogue that includes essays by art historian and curator Alexandra Munroe, by critic and curator Marco Scotini, along with a text by Vicente Todolí introducing key-concepts coined by the artist, illustrated through extracts of the artist’s own writings.
Access to Short-circuits might vary in accordance with the government prescriptions on the current health situation. To schedule a visit it is recommended to refer to the constantly updated information on Pirelli HangarBicocca website.
