Glancing through Architecture

I remember watching Mission Impossible III (2013) where parts of the movie occurred in what was dubbed "Shanghai".  

Rural turned tourist town of Xi Tang where the movie was filmed

Rural turned tourist town of Xi Tang where the movie was filmed

Even in my memory of Shanghai in the 2000, more than a decade back, the city looked nothing near the way the movie depicted it.  Such example may be a good sag way into exploring the issues in the complex term of globalism in relations to the Shanghai Biennale.

As stated in the previous post, the 2000 Shanghai Biennale's theme was "Shanghai Spirit".  During those years, Shanghai and China in general, was going through various political, economical, and social changes after the blurry end of the Cultural Revolution.  China wished to "renew [its] national identity through new visions of internationalism" (as Denise Frimer stated but in relations to the origin of Documenta and Germany after War World 2).  And Shanghai being the "most ready to assimilate Western influences" with its openness to trade, rendering it a boom town after the war.  The city was the ideal local for China to dip its toes into the waters of globalization (Barrett).  I think the way Barrett words it in his first person account of the 2000 Shanghai Biennale is perfect in bringing up the paradox of "using the global to explore the local" (Zhang Yan in "Biennials in Asia").  How do one balance the local, portray this "Shanghai Spirit", within the vastness of the whole globe? 

Shanghai Museum of Art 2000

Shanghai Museum of Art 2000

Also Shanghai Museum of Art 2000

 A good example of the identity crisis within Shanghai would be a study on the architecture of the two versions of Shanghai Museum of Art.  The first two Shanghai Biennale was hosted in the the first building that was originally a horse racing stadium.  The 2000 biennale was hosted in both venues, the latter being a former library.  The juxtaposition of the two styles of architecture and its former functions comments beautifully in the suspension of ideology the biennale resided.  One being the iconic British colonial taste of rococo and decorative (though China has never being officially colonized but had contact with the European culture before the Cultural Revolution) and the later holding a symbolic connection with intellectualism along with utilitarian style. Though the buildings are still given the titles of "museums" with the context that is associated (and with the Chinese characters of mie shu), the language of the space is changed drastically.

On a side note, the current (future) venue for the Shanghai Biennale is a former power plant with a prominent appendix reaching skywards. 

Mumbai's Contemporary Art