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The Fourth Guangzhou Triennial: the Unseen

As one of the major contemporary art events in Asia, the Fourth Guangzhou Triennial: the Unseen, was presented in 2012 at the Guangdong Museum of Art, the Guangzhou Opera House and the Grandview Mall (September-December) domestically, and through two international projects, the Billboard Project, Birmingham (April) and an off-site exhibition at the Royal College of Art, London (November).

The curatorial project was led by the researcher. The original research intends to break the linearity of a historical narrative and theoretical definitions, and to examine the contemporaneity of the Unseen, which, paradoxically, is a visually-led exploration. It discusses and reinterprets both the invisible and the visible, the unknown and the known, the rationale of incredulity and the assurance of hope, and at the same time, it encourages communications between curators, artists and audiences, and pushes new frontiers of creativity through visual imaginations.

This Guangzhou Triennial included works of painting, sculpture, photography, video, film, animation, installation, sound and live performance by more than 80 artists from 24 countries and areas within and beyond the institutional spaces. The Billboard Project presented conceptual works on 60 billboards across the city of Birmingham. And in the Grandview Mall, one of China’s largest shopping centres, the curatorial and artistic strategy to ‘hide’ artworks was not a compromise with the environment, but rather a critical reflection upon the boundaries, if any, between art and life and an active response to ‘the unseen’. A 480-page catalogue was developed in Chinese-English bilingual for widest readership possible.

The exhibition at the Museum alone was visited by 150,000 people nationally and internationally, whilst audience for the Grandview Mall and the Billboard Project is not possible to estimate. Apart from the two international projects, this Triennial received £500,000 core funding from the Museum and attracted £300,000 sponsorship from the Grandview Group.