The 10th Biennale de Lyon, which opens today, is all about getting contemporary art closer to the people.
Not only is this one surprisingly titled "The Spectacle of the Everyday", immediately eliminating any impressions that the everyday might be boring for many, but it is also actively spurring people to see the everyday in a more exciting light, reinventing the ordinary to make it something unique.
In exhibitions curated by the widely respected Chinese-born Hou Hanru, who is now based in Paris and San Francisco, 60 artists from around the world are showing their works throughout the French city of Lyon, while interactive art activities are intended to make both community members and artists aware of their interconnectedness as part of society.
Hanru, who says the biennale is an attempt to recreate the close ties between artistic creativity and people's lives, is of the opinion that artists today increasingly transform the ordinary through novel forms, meanings and usages, while innovative collective mobilizations are brought to the forefront.
"They are the core of global art and culture today," he says.
In a prebiennale interview last June, Hanru explained he appreciates work by artists who are socially engaged and who are helping seek solutions, locally and internationally.
Thierry Raspail, the founder and artistic director of the Lyon biennale since its inception, says in his introduction to the catalogue "there is no longer any outside and there are no longer any exoticisms except shared ones" and "the question of the everyday remains crucial".
The biennale is marked by the participation of a great number of artists from non-Western traditions who live and work in the West and have already built a reputation there, such as Mounir Fatmi, Adel Adessemed, Latifa Echakhch, Takahiro Iwasaki and Wangechi Mutu. There are also established artists such as Shilpa Gupta, who still lives and works in her native country, or emerging artists from Southeast Asia such as Kuswidananto aka Jompet, Eko Nugroho, Wong Hoy Cheong and many Chinese artists. Overall, most of the artists are somewhere in the vicinity of 40 years old.
The works are spread over four venues, one of which is La Sucri*re, a 7,000 square meter space that was a warehouse until 1990, and is the Biennale's flagship, at Les Docks. Then there are the 3,000 square meter Lyon Museum of Contemporary Art, which was designed by Renzo Piano in 1995, The Bullukian Foundation with more than 800 square meters of floor space and the Bichat Warehouse, making its debut as a Biennale de Lyon venue.
In addition, there is a project titled "R*sonance", under which 80 art centers, private galleries, cultural institutions and artists' collectives are teaming up with the Biennale de Lyon. Conceived to span the Rh*ne-Alpes region, "R*sonance" reflects a vibrant scene that is specifically attuned to the latest artistic developments, locally and internationally.
The Biennale de Lyon stems from a project by Lyon's Museum of Contemporary Art, directed by Thierry Raspail since its inception in 1984. From 1984 to 1988, the Biennale was preceded by an annual event entitled October of the Arts, which ended with the exhibition "Colour Alone: The Experience of Monochrome".
Various exhibitions followed and were held in various venues around the city, demonstrating Lyon's potential for hosting an international event and the city's relevance after the Paris Biennale's closure in 1985.
In 1991, Lyon held its inaugural Biennale. Since then, Thierry Raspail, the artistic director, has been instrumental in the continuation of the biennale, choosing a curator for each edition.
Hou Hanru, who is currently director of exhibitions and public programs at the San Francisco Art Institute and chair of Exhibition and Museum Studies there, is a regular on the contemporary art biennale circuit. He has curated or been involved in more than 20, including the 10th International Istanbul Biennial (2007), the Chinese Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2007), the 3rd Tirana Biennale (2005) and the Shanghai Biennale (2000). He has also curated numerous landmark exhibitions, most famously "Cities on the Move" with Hans Ulrich Obrist in 1999.
The biennale was only eight months away when its nominated curator Catherine David withdrew and Hou Hanru took her place. He did not have much time to think of a theme, but he took up the challenge, having been thinking about and researching how contemporary art has become part of life, and how new models of everyday life have emerged in society. The "Spectacle of the Everyday" seems to be shifting the spotlight from the original, old-fashioned spectacle for the elitist few to that of the broad masses in the everyday world.
For more information, go to www.biennaledelyon.com.
