The Curation Workshop II

The Curation Workshop is essentially a creative exhibition whose primary purpose is to promote new curatorial methods and languages. Its debut in 2019 aroused a real buzz in the art community, launching a new wave of research on curation. The Curation Workshop brings together a new generation of curators in China, who are familiar with the language of curation that is more straightforward, professional, and systematic, and enjoy broader perspectives and independence. The delivery of the workshop series intends to engage more young people and showcase the most up-to-date language of curation and the latest exhibition trends. While providing inspiration to the industry, the event has the vision to become a classroom for generations of curators to experiment with their artistic ambition.

The second Curation Workshop, co-initiated by the curator Cui Cancan and Feng Feng, Executive Director of OCT Art & Design Gallery, embraces a significant change in 2020. Co-organized by OCAT Shenzhen and OCT Art & Design Gallery, the project incorporates two parallel exhibitions that will be held at their respective venues: The Curation Workshop II: Story and Structure, will be housed in OCT Art & Design Gallery, following the same format as its prior edition: 41 artists and projects of different genres are invited, and a larger cohort of 19 curators are recruited to create 19 new stories with different structures; The Curation Workshop II: Sample Cases from OCAT, will be presented at the Exhibition Hall A of OCAT Shenzhen, as a fresh perspective added to the event by selecting and reviewing the projects with the most typical and experimental languages of curation that have been staged in the five venues and one sub-venue of OCAT in recent years. On this basis, it will examine the intricate relationships between China’s largest art terminal and curation and takes a closer look at different approaches to curation, their current developments, and the innovative responses made.

In The Curation Workshop II: Sample Cases from OCAT, we focus on OCAT, the largest contemporary art museum group in China. Established in 2005, OCAT now consists of five art museums and seven exhibition sites, which have housed hundreds of exhibitions. For this exhibition, we have analyzed the priorities and research directions of each venue and exhibition area, and sampled eight curation projects that best represent the experimental and pioneering spirit. They will be displayed in six rooms, each of which stands for one art museum or exhibition site of OCAT.

The Fiction Art from OCAT Shenzhen allows us to rethink the relationship between text and visuals and echoes the other sub-topic of this year’s Curation Workshop, Story and Structure. Another Way to Design, organized by OCT Art & Design Gallery, with a special focus on design, tries to break through the boundaries of exhibitions and emphasizes the uniqueness of curatorial practice for design and crossover exhibitions. The Media Art Screening Project presented by OCAT Shanghai reminds us of the exclusive connection between media and curation, and raises the question about whether curation will be changed by the emergence of new media. Feng River Research Plan and Xi’an Showcase brought by OCAT Xi’an grow their roots into the local soil to continuously introduce local art practice, trying to find the answer to the question: whether locality has put forward more requirements and challenges for curation. The Research-based Curatorial Project organized by OCAT Institute (Beijing) sets eyes on the rich relationships between historical research and curatorial practice, as demonstrated by the exhibitions that take the form of archives. The Shanghai Pujiang OCT Ten-Year Public Art Project, which has lasted for 13 years as the only outdoor project selected for the Curation Workshop, gives a perfect interpretation of the diversity of curation in terms of spatiality and temporality.