[spectre] Fifth System: Public Art In The Age Of "Post-Planning"

[Andreas Broeckmann]

From: Houhrparis at aol.com
Date: Sat, 6 Dec 2003 02:51:20 EST


hello from Shenzhen, China, I'm currently here to work on a new 
project called "the Fifth System, Public Art in the age of 
'post-planning'", as a new edition of the Shenzhen Public Art 
Exhibition, taking place on 12 Dec, 2003, at the OCT, Shenzhen. it 
will last for two years. hope you will be interested in it... and 
look up the website: <>www.thefifthsystem.org

all the best

Hanru



The Fifth System : Public Art In The Age Of  "Post-Planning"
The 5th Shenzhen International Public Art Exhibition
12 December 2003 - 11 December 2005
Venue: Overseas Chinese Town, Shenzhen, China
Organiser: He Xiangning Art Museum, Shenzhen

Curators: Hou Hanru, Pi Li

Artists:

Chen Shaoxiong£®Guangzhou, China£©
Chu Yun (Shenzhen, China)
Olafur Eliasson ( Berlin, Germany£©
Fu Jie (Hong Kong, China£©
Jiang Zhi (Shenzhen, China)
Michael Lin£®Paris, France £©
Liu Chuang (Shenzhen, China)
Liu Wei£®Beijing, China£©
MVRDV (Rotterdam, The Netherlands£©
Marjetica Potrc ( Ljubljana, Slovenia£©
Sha Yeya£®Guangdong, China£©
Bert Theis (Luxembourg£©
Rirkrit Tiravanija  (Berlin, Germany£©
Suzanne Wang (Shenzhen, China)
Xu Zhen£®Shanghai, China£©
Yan Lei (Hong Kong, China£©
Yang Jiechang£®Paris, France£©
Yang Yong (Shenzhen, China)
Zheng Guogu ( Yangjiang, China)

Special Events (music)
Wang Lei ( Guangzhou, China)°¢LMF (Hong Kong, China)


The Fifth System : Public Art In The Age Of  "Post-Planning"

The He Xiangning Art Museum has successfully organised four editions 
of Shenzhen Contemporary Sculpture Exhibition in Overseas Chinese 
Town, Shenzhen for the last years. It's fifth edition will take place 
with a new name Shenzhen International Public Art Exhibition in 2003. 
OCT is located in the central-western part of the Shenzhen Special 
Economic Zone. For the last decade, like Shenzhen itself, it has been 
developed into a new town of modern enterprises of real estates, 
tourism, financing and production and inhabitant communities. Its 
mode of development, creating a fresh city life, is becoming a 
remarkable and exemplary model of urban creation and expansion in 
China and Asia. It even further influences makings of new cities 
across the globe.

From both horizontal and vertical dimensions, one's perceptive modes 
of the city can be resumes in the following aspects. Horizontally, 
the city consists of four typographies: conventional buildings, 
artificial nature/cultural-scape (the special forms of architecture 
of theme parks in OCT), traditional public art introduced in 
different periods and the masses on the move. Vertically, it can be 
perceived in other four levels: high rise buildings, lower buildings, 
"sight-seeing architectures" and fluxes of humans and traffics. These 
aspects are in turn woven into four different systems of urban 
perception.

The four systems as our perceptive modes of city life are also 
generating a cityscape of high density and exuberant hybridity. The 
question for us raised out of such a context is: how does 
contemporary art face and intervene in such a novel reality? More 
concretely, how is contemporary art redefined in such an urban 
environment? As mediums of observation and critique of reality, art 
should be considered as a "fifth system" which is to be inserted but 
also transcends the four systems. According to the specific reality 
of OCT, we'd like to introduce

such a "fifth system" to the city via site-specific works of artists 
from different countries on the occasion of the 5th Shenzhen 
International Sculpture Exhibition.  This is to provide the public 
with new ways of perceiving and rediscovering the urban reality. This 
"fifth system", situated in-between the various levels of urban 
structure, is creating a different space to negotiate with the 
existing four systems in order to evoke new and more open 
relationships between the urban mass and the city from both interior 
and exterior perspectives. OCT, developed at much faster paces than 
the planning, condensing elements of different geo-cultural clichés 
and various modernities, incarnates a unique urban typography of high 
speed and high efficiency. The city hence created out of the process 
transcends the conventional modern urban planning to
become a "post-planning" city. Comparing to traditional cities, this 
town implies much more flexibility and openness. It signals the 
coming of a new age of city making. The project of "The Fifth System" 
intends to open new spaces of experiments in the field of public art 
with divers works produced specifically for this unique cultural 
context.

The Curators:

Hou Hanru, born in China, living in Paris, France, is an independent 
curator. The exhibition "Cities On The Move" co-curated by him and 
Hans Ulrich Obrist explores the interactive relationship between 
contemporary art and Asian cities on fast expansion in the context of 
globalisation travelled to seven cities in Europe, North America and 
Asia. It has become a significant event in the international art and 
architecture communities. Currently, he is focusing on researching 
new possibilities and forms of public art in today's urban spaces and 
has curated a series of public art projects such as "Community, 
Collaboration, Art" (2002, Evens Foundation, Paris) and "Arte 
All'Arte 8" (2003, Tuscany, Italy). He has also curated and 
co-curated numerous exhibitions including "Out Of The Centre" (1994, 
Pori Art Museum, Finland), "Parisien(ne)s" (1997, Camden Art Centre, 
London), "Hong Kong, etc." (Johannesburg Biennale, 1997), 
"International Photography Biennale" (1999, Mexico City), French 
Pavilion, Venice Biennale, 1999, Shanghai Biennale 2000, PICAF-Pusan 
International Contemporary Art Festival, 2000, Gwangju Biennale, 2002 
and "Z.O.U. - Zone Of Urgency", Venice Biennale 2003. His book "On 
The Mid-Ground" was published by Timezone 8 in 2002. Hou Hanru, a 
professor at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten,  is a frequent 
contributor to various international art media as well as serves as 
member of international art institutions and juries including the 
Global Advisory Board of Walker Art Center, Minneapolis and Advisors 
Committee of Kumamoto Contemporary Art Museum, etc.

Pi Li, born in China, is currently a teacher at Central Academy of 
Fine Arts, Beijing. The exhibitions he has curated include Future 
Hope (Tsingtao Sulpture Museum, 2000), Fantasia (Donga Ilbo Art 
Museum in Seoul, 2001, Eastern Modern Art Center in Beijing, 2002), 
Moist: Asia-Pacific Multi-Media (Millennium Museum, Beijing, 2002) 
and Image is Power (He Xiangning Art Museum, 2002). He was the 
assistant curator for Chinese Pavilion of Sau Paulo Biennale (2002), 
Shanghai Biennale (2002) and "Allôrs la Chine"(Centre Georges 
Pompidou, France, 2003). He has published the books "Post-modernism 
Sculpture" (1999) and " the Time of Curators"(2003). He was the 
founder of web-site Art Union (arts.tom.com), chief editor of 
"Contemporary Art Magazine" and director of Chinese Contemporary Art 
Awards 2001.

(more information about the artists will be available shortly on the 
internet website: www.thefifthsystem.org )