The 10th Biennial of Havana    Mar 27 - Apr 30, 2009

Group artists： Wang Qingsong / Qiu Xiaofei / Xiong Yu / Chen Bo / Zhou Wenzhong / Wang Chengyun
Venue： Hispanoamerican Culture Centre, Havana Guba

The 10th Havana Biennial will be held from March 27 through April 30, 2009. Seven artists from Chinablue Gallery have been invited to take part in the Biennial, including Liu Xiaodong, Chen Bo, Qiu Xiaofei, Wang Chengyun, Wang Qingsong, Xiong Yu and Zhou Wenzhong. Liu Xiaodong's special project will be presented at Morro Castle, while the other six artists will be part of a group exhibition at the Hispanoamerican Culture Centre in Havana.

The theme of this year’s Biennial is “Integration and Resistance in the Global Era”, looking at the amalgamation and collision in aspects of culture, art, thought, economy and politics among countries and areas in this global age. In order to promote cultural and artistic dialogue between Cuba and other regions of the world, the Biennial will bring together more than 200 artists from some forty countries. As before, the biennial will focus mainly on Latin America and the Caribbean but artists from other continents and countries such as Asia and China will also be presented.

The relationship between China and Cuba has a long history. The first wave of Chinese immigrants arrived in Cuba in 1847 to work as labourers in the sugar plantations, thus replacing the African slave labour force.The fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 caused a new geopolitical restructuring and put an end to the cold war. From that moment on a domino effect broke out, extending its tentacles all around the world. Cuba has been involuntarily immersed since 1990 in the Special Period, crowned by austerity and recession; China, on the other hand, stands out since then as one of the greatest powers of the present time, holding its arm extended to Cuba in a gesture of fraternity and cooperation in the trade area. Cooperation between the two countries in the domain of fine art has also been greatly anticipated by many.

This year, the Havana Biennial has warmly invited the participation of Chinese artists. Liu Xiaodong has been invited to go and produce there for a period of more than one month and his artwork will later be shown in the special union of the Biennial in Morro castle. Liu Xiaodong went to Cuba ten years ago for the first time and is thus looking forward to his second trip to the same land. He will stay with one chosen local family, experiencing local customs, culture, thought and the way of life of Cuban people at close quarters. We strongly believe that his perception of change over these ten years will inspire some thought-provoking art. As one of the most celebrated Chinese contemporary artists, Liu Xiaodong’s artwork takes on the topic of realism and his pain towards the transition of the era. He is so sensitive as to cast away formal vanity and grand narration, joining tightly the individual trueness and absurdity of time. Almost every common figure in his artwork stares inwardly at their lives in what is a perfect description of Chinese contemporary society.

The other six artists, whose work will feature in the Biennial, are representative of the direct sentiment that Chinese artists have towards the processes of social development. As one of the group exhibitions at the 10th Havana Biennial, this group exhibition was initially conceived of for the Asian Pacific Weeks Festival of Berlin in 2007. It was here that the show became of great interest to the Biennial curator and as a result a new show with the same artists was brought to Cuba. The exhibition “China: Contemporary Art Reviewed” will present to local and international visitors of the Havana Biennial the most recent artwork of the artists. The title of the exhibition implies both a review of the exhibition “Chinablue in Berlin”, and a review of the Chinese contemporary art scene in general.