Yinchuan Biennale: For an Image, Faster Than Light

Yinchuan Biennale 2016 all set to begin on September 9 with 74 artists

The first edition of the Yinchuan Biennale which will open on September 9, 2016 with the participation of 74 artists from 33 countries including China and will culminate on December 18, 2016. The YC Biennale 2016 is contextualizing some of the most important issues confronting the world from the scientific to the spiritual, from the psychic to the philosophical, from the catastrophic to the celebratory.

The theme chosen for this edition curated by Bose Krishnamachari—For an Image, Faster Than Light—is an eonic examination in eternities that the contemporary artists are engaging in to find answers to the questions confronting a vitiated social, political, economic and physical environment, which, of course, is in a permanent flux and perhaps is elliptical in shape where the beginning suffuses with the end.

Contemporary creation, social dynamics and cosmic connections are the investigative avenues artists, curators, critics, and scholars are being invited to discover as part of the happenstances and interactions programmed during YC Biennale 2016.

The Chinese Year of the Monkey, which includes all the elements of nature, can be a springboard to begin a collective assertion of the value of art in imagining productive projects for the future: think the unthinkable and do the impossible. Consumption, the forbidding fallout of capitalism, has dropped us into the black hole of climate change. So this moment must be seized to examine the public costs of private profit; ascertain if capitalism can be aligned with ecological capacities. This is an attempt to feel the presence of a new sunlit pastoral beginning from the future. A light to be seen through art’s eyes.

YC Biennale brings the best of contemporary art from the art world. This biennale would be the first ever common meeting ground for artists like Anish Kapoor, Ai Weiwei, Yoko Ono, Liam Gillick, Mary Ellen Carroll, Liu Wei, Cao Fei, Ivan Navarro, Santiago Sierra, Slavs and Tartars, Song Dong and the latest BMW Art Journey award winner Abigail Reynolds. Among the artists are the Rolls Royce artist of the year Sudarshan Shetty who is also the curator of the forthcoming edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. Apart from them there is an amazing array of creative minds from all over the world, each artist known for his/her unique and extremely individualistic art practices. They will be fashioning a biennale laying out a smorgasbord of delightful artistic delicacies. The hors d’ouevres will also include one of the youngest and brightest artists on the horizon like Alaa Mahmoud Alqedra from Sharjah to Kartik Sood from India to Farzana Ahmed Urmi from Bangladesh, the oldest among painters, 68 year-old Lala Rukh from Pakistan and the pivotal work of the late Gordon Bennett. The biennale also showcases the best selection of moving images to be screened in the specially created dark rooms in the white cube for the works of The Abraaj Group Art Prize 2016 winner Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme, the mystical sojourn of Khaled Sabsabi, the Pacific quest of Lisa Reihana, the physical mediations of Yee I-Lann and the search for the missing, misplaced and displaced lives by filmmakers and artists Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige.

For An Image, Faster Than Light has been conceived by Bose Krishnamachari artist, curator and co-founder of the Kochi Biennale Foundation and the co-curator of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale’s first edition. In that respect he is a man of many firsts and has been the catalyst for many successful events. The inaugural Yinchuan Biennale proposes to create a discourse on all the conflicts that the world is currently confronted with and perhaps make possible propositions through a global creative confluence. With that ambitious goal in mind it seeks to have multiple disciplines, numerous components and several locations—indoors and outdoors.

The YC Biennale 2016 is being created by the Museum of Contemporary Art Yinchuan, which reflects the Yellow River, set up by Madam Liu Wenjin and her sole funding. It aspires to be an international platform for creative artists who are exceptional to the world in general. The functions and programme of MOCA Yinchuan is conceptualized by its Artistic Director Xie Suchen.

Complete artist list: Abigail Reynolds (England), Achia Anzi (Israel), Ai Weiwei (China), Alaa Mahmoud Alqedra (UAE), Alke Reeh (Germany), Allard van Hoorn (Netherlands), Alvin Zafra (Phillipines), Ammar Al Attar (UAE), Andrew Miller (Scotland), Anish Kapoor (England), Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme (US), Basir Mahmood (Pakistan), Benitha Perciyal (India), Boedi Widjaja (Singapore), Brook Andrew (Australia), Cao Fei (China), Charbel-Joseph H. Boutros (Lebanon), Cristiana de Marchi (Italy), Dana Awartani (Saudi Arabia), Danie Mellor (Australia), Daniel Arsham (US), Dia Mehta (India), Donna Ong (Singapore), Fabrice Hyber (France), Farzana Ahemd Urmi (Bangladesh), Fred Eerdekens (Belgium), George Osodi (Nigeria), Gordon Bennett (Australia), Hassan Sharif (UAE), He Xiangyu (China), Heman Chong (Singapore), Hicham Berrada (Morocco), Hit Man Gurung (Nepal), Ivan Navarro (Chile), Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige (Lebanon), Jyothi Basu (India), Kartik Sood (India), Khaled Sabsabi (Lebanon/Australia), Lala Rukh (Pakistan), Larissa Sansour (Isreal), Li Jinghu (China), Liam Gillick (England), Lisa Reihana (New Zealand), Liu Shiyan (China), Liu Wei (China), Mao Tong Qiang (China), Mary Ellen Carroll (US), Matias Faldbakken (Norway), Min Thein Sung (Myanmar), Mohammed Kazem (UAE), Newsha Tavakolian (Iran), Nidhal Chamekh (Tunisia), Riyan Riyadi alias the Popo (Indonesia), Riyas Komu (India), Robert Montgomery (Scotland), Ryota Kuwakubo (Japan), Santiago Sierra (Spain), Shahpour Pouyan (Iran), Sherman Ong (Malaysia/Singapore), Shi Zhiying (China), Slavs and Tatars Yang Hongwei (China),Yee I-Lann (Malaysia), Yoko Ono (Japan), Zhang Ding (China) and Zihan Karim (Bangladesh)