Launch of Cosmos Cinema: 14th Shanghai Biennale exhibition catalogue

Please join us at The New Institute Centre for Environmental Humanities on Thursday, April 18 from 5–7pm for the launch of the catalogue accompanying the 14th Shanghai Biennale, Cosmos Cinema. 

The publication reproduces in book form an exhibition widely acclaimed for its innovative narrative structure, with high-quality reproductions of work by more than 80 artists complemented by chapters dedicated to the parallel film program and newly commissioned texts by writers including Christina Kiaer and Ekaterina Kulinicheva, Xin Wang, Elena Vogman, Zhen Zhang, Jonas Staal and Arseny Zhilyaev alongside contributions by the curatorial team. Co-published by Sternberg Press and the Power Station of Art in Shanghai, Cosmos Cinema is a document of the exhibition and an elaboration on its key themes. As such, it serves not only as an archival resource but as a compilation of ideas and subject matters that might provoke new responses among artists, curators, and thinkers interested in the new ways of figuring the relationship of individuals to the systems, orders, and harmonies that organize our experience of the world. As chief curator Anton Vidokle envisaged an "exhibition as film" for the 14th Shanghai Biennale, so this publication brings the same principles of montage, storytelling, and temporal disjuncture to the production of a book designed by Mengyi Qian and NONPLACE studio. 

The 14th Shanghai Biennale was curated by Anton Vidokle with Hallie Ayres, Lukas Brasiskis, Zairong Xiang and Ben Eastham. It has received more than 200,000 visitors since it opened on November 9 and has been widely and positively reviewed, with Kunstforum calling it "a masterpiece [...] perhaps the best and most exciting biennial of the last years worldwide.” The event will feature an introduction by the curatorial team to the form and content of both exhibition and catalogue, with a short introduction by Francesca Tarocco and Matteo Pasquinelli. 

Address
THE NEW INSTITUTE Centre for Environmental Humanities 
Ca' Bottacin,
Dorsoduro 3911,
30123 Venice

5–7pm. Space for the event is strictly limited, so please RSVP to lauren@e-flux.com. 

Copies of the catalogue will be available to purchase, as will copies of its sister publication, the Cosmos Cinema Reader, which compiles essays on the theme by eminent thinkers from Elizabeth Povinelli to Alexander Kluge. 

Reviews of Cosmos Cinema
"One of the best biennials I have seen in a long time." —Hans Ulrich Obrist in Weltkunst

"This fascinating exhibition explores not only the continued impact of last century’s space race but the sense of earthly alienation left in its wake." —Paul Han in Frieze

"Cosmos Cinema lays out a melancholy utopia." —Stephanie Bailey in Art Monthly

“A timely exhibition on the discrepancy between people and power structures." —Alex Yiu in ArtAsiaPacific

"Well-structured and tightly wound." —Mark Rappolt in ArtReview

"A chance to think about how we narrate the world around us through both art and science." —Emily Watlington in Art in America

"What emerges from these nine palaces [...] is that cinema can become a tool for recoding our connection with the universe." —Elisa Giuliano in Nero

"One of the best exhibitions in the world." —Heinz-Norbert Joncks in kunstforum

"A reminder that the universe and our world are still miracles, if we’d only look." —Kimberly Bradley in Hyperallergic

The fully illustrated catalogue is co-published by Sternberg Press and Power Station of Art in English and Chinese editions. The English language version runs to 424pp, with high-resolution images of work by every artist included in the exhibition, and will be distributed by MIT Press, Art Data, Idea Books, and Les presses du réel under the ISBN 978-1-915609-60-1.