Paving the Politics

I feel that before going further into the 2000 Shanghai Biennale in relations to identity, globalism, and the emerging (now booming) economics, there is a need to pave the local political grounds.

Crowd holding the "Red Book"

Speaking on the political nature of China, the infamous Cultural Revolution is the most prominent period in more recent history.  Recorded to have lasted a decade (1966-1967), the trauma of the movement surpasses far beyond and before the 10 years in history.  I remember my mother refused to speak on those times until years after immigration.  

As the name implies, the main point of Cultural Revolution is to reform and control "culture" and majority of the people did believed in the revolution (fervently in the beginning at least, then it was more fear tactics).  My mom told me how she held that red book, was one of the crowd, and cried when Mao died.  I think it was a very confusing time, made clearer only in retrospection to those not of that generation.

Persecution of "other" voices

Details of the Cultural Revolution may be too overwhelming to discuss in this context but the State's practice of eliminating voices, thoughts, and ideas other than their own need to be taken into consideration.  As Meiqin Wang argues, the Cultural Revolution sets up a notable binary between the "official" and "unofficial" that any culture production (the art scene) in contemporary China should be filtered through to understand it in a broader scale in history.  The 2000 Shanghai Biennale is an official art event, the welcoming of the international is an government sanctioned action.  In a country where art had an written ideological guideline where one must operate within (Wang 6), it is important to acknowledge the understanding of the biennale as manifestation of a broader guideline for art through the State's agenda.  (Even so, as L.Wee states, "it is still better to have it than not as it provides [an] opportunity" for the problems to be met and challenged.)

After the failure of the Cultural Revolution, there was a need in China to "culturally legitimize itself" (103).  This is where the global practice of cultural brokering comes in and the artist can serve as an asset to those ideologies.  Wang argues that the booming cultural arena in China is just another form of control; the declaration of openness is just a purposeful counter measure to the persecution of voices during the revolution.  The 2000 Shanghai Biennale can be seen as an experiment of that opening of culture to render the loud voices (when no other voices dare to speak up) of the protestors mute through producing a sea of abundance of voices.