Biennale de Lyon 3 rue du Président Edouard Herriot F-69001 Lyon France
THE SPECTACLE OF THE EVERY DAY
In the age of globalisation, it is not enough for contemporary art to become a spectacular phenomenon embraced by almost all people in all corners of the world. It's even more important to testify that artists and art communities from different parts of the globe are increasingly sharing the common understanding and strategies to reinvent themselves through engagements with the realm of everyday life. More and more artists are magically turning the ordinary into novel forms, meanings and usages while innovative collective mobilisations are brought to the forefront as a more democratic structure of art practices and their social functions. They are the core of the global art and culture scene today. Through intensely presenting and promoting these initiatives using the most efficient tools, including spectacular events like international biennials, truly innovative and relevant contemporary art practices will obtain a much larger visibility and help us build a new, genuinely public space for our era.
After 20 years of existence and growth, the Biennale de Lyon is now facing a new challenge to reinvent itself. Exploring and presenting the new tendency of the global art scene in its common efforts to reinvent the ordinary into something spectacular and unique, or a new multitude of expressions of diversity, complexity and interactivity, the Biennale itself will certainly reach a new youth. And it's the best recipe to confront the current crisis that the whole world is entangled with…
The Spectacle of the Everyday is fundamentally changing both the spectacle and the everyday!
Taking place in several venues in the Lyon city and its suburban areas, the Biennale, with works by about 60 artists from different parts of the world, will be structured as a multi-dimensional system that reflects both intellectually and physically the dynamism and complexity of the thesis – the Spectacle of the Everyday – itself. There will be four chapters and one special section:
The Magic of Things or the Reinvention of the Everyday
Celebrating the Drift
Another World Is Possible
Living Together
Veduta
HOU HANRU
Curator, Biennale de Lyon 2009
Born in 1963 in China, Hou Hanru is Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs and also Chair of Exhibition and Museum Studies at the San Francisco Art Institute.an Artistic Director. He is based in Paris and San Francisco.
THE ARTISTS (as of May 2009)
Adel ABDESSEMED
Bani ABIDI
Maria Thereza ALVES
Fikret ATAY
BIK VAN DER POL
Pedro CABRITA REIS
Sophie DEJODE & Bertrand LACOMBE
Jimmie DURHAM
Latifa ECHAKHCH
Mounir FATMI
Dora GARCIA
Shilpa GUPTA
HA ZA VU ZU
HeHe (Helen Evans & Heiko Hansen)
Oliver HERRING
Takahiro IWASAKI
KUSWIDANANTO A.K.A. JOMPET
Leopold KESSLER
Ian KIAER
LEE Mingwei
Mark LEWIS
Michael LIN
LIN Yilin
LIU Qingyuan & YAH
Barry McGEE
Robert MILIN
Carlos MOTTA
Wangechi MUTU
Eko NUGROHO
Adrian PACI
Dan PERJOVSCHI
SOCIÉTÉ RÉALISTE
Oliver RESSLER
Pedro REYES
Rigo 23
SARKIS
Katerina SEDA
Sarah SZE
TSANG Kinwah
un nous (Antonio Gallego, José-Maria Gonzalez, Roberto Martinez, Patrick Pinon)
Eulàlia VALLDOSERA
Agnès VARDA
WONG Hoy Cheong
HUANG Yongping
XIJING MEN (CHEN Shaoxiong, Tsuyoshi OZAWA, Gimhongsok)
YANG Jiechang
YANGJIANG GROUP (ZHENG Guogu, CHEN Zaiyan, SUN Qinglin)
L'ÉCOLE DU MAGASIN