Curating Chinese themes: cheap labour, migration and capital, Shanghai Biennale and Guangzhou Triennial

In September 2008 Dylan Rainforth went to both the 7th Shanghai Biennale (Translocalmotion) and the 3rd Guangzhou Triennial (Farewell to Post-Colonialism). While he found mixed messages in Shanghai which was curated by artistic director Zhang Qing assisted by Julian Heynen and Henk Slager, it was Guangzhou curated by Gao Shiming, Sarat Maharaj and Johnson Chang that hit the sweet spot with 'witty, people-powered ways forward.'

More from this Issue

Fremantle Print Award 2008

Fremantle Print Award 2008 Fremantle Arts Centre 23 August - 5 October 2008

Mariyon Slany

To curate or not to curate, 2008 in Europe: urban BB5 and post-industrial Manifesta 7

London-based Macedonian artist and writer Nadja Prlja compares the urban and modern 5th Berlin Biennial BB5: When Things Cast No Shadow (5 April - 15 June 2008) with Manifesta 7 (19 July - 2 November 2008) which occupied the whole arae of Trentoni in Italy. Prlja pays particular attention to the differences in the ways the projects were curated.

Nada Prlja

Neo Goth: black in black

Neo Goth: Back in Black Curator: Alison Kubler UQ Art Museum, University of Queensland, Brisbane 25 July - 21 September 2008

Craig Douglas

Katherine Moline

Katherine Moline Yuill / Crowley, Sydney 10 July 2 August 2008

Sarah Hetherington

So you want to be a curator?

Joanna Mendelssohn, author and Associate Professor at the College of Fine Art, University of New South Wales where she co-ordinates the Master of Art Administration, writes about the highly competitive and financially unrewarding realities of getting a position as a curator in an art musuem.

Joanna Mendelssohn

Exit music: a lake and a stand of trees: George Popperwell

exit music: a lake and a stand of trees: George Popperwell Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia (CACSA) 25 July 7 September 2008

Lisa Harms

Back from the brink: culture in Timor-Leste

The Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT)'s Curator of Southeast Asian Art and Material Culture Joanna Barrkman curated Husi Bei Ala Timor Sira Nia Liman /From the Hands of Our Ancestors which is on at MAGNT in Darwin from 21 November 2008 to 12 July 2009. The show celebrates the survival of Timor-Leste's cultural inheritance and asks whether traditional art forms and techniques have a role to play in the formation and assertion of Timor-Leste's national and cultural identity.

Joanna Barrkman

I've looked at love from both sides now: reflections on freelance / independent / guest curating

Juliette Peers, art historian and lecturer at RMIT, surveyed a number of freelance curators to find out how they work and why they embrace this insecure, interstitial existence. Hannah Mathews, Elizabeth Gertzakis, Vivonne Thwaites and Anne Kirker are among the freelance curators to whom she spoke.

Juliette Peers

Ornament: Anne MacDonald

Ornament : Anne MacDonald Carnegie Gallery, Hobart 19 September 26 October 2008

Briony Downes

Spatsville: Memoirs of a failed painter: Alasdair Macintyre

Splatsville: Memoirs of a Failed Painter: Alasdair Macintyre Ryan Renshaw, Brisbane 23 September - October 11 2008

Emma Lindsay

Throwing voices

Senior Curator at Christchurch Art Gallery Justin Paton reflects on curating the exhibition that he remembers most fondly and that speaks to him of the magic of curating - the show of wall paintings called Big Talk by US word- artist Kay Rosen in 2004 at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery.

Justin Paton

Warburtonta-latju Warntu Palyaranytja (We are doing Warntu work in Warburton)

Warburtonta-latju Warntu Palyaranytja (We are doing Warntu work in Warburton) Holmes à Court Gallery 1 August 14 September 2008

Holly Story

View all articles in this issue