Lecture Series 2009/2010: Contemporary Curatorial Practices

February 03, 2010 - 07:00 PM

During 2010 Platform3 continues its series of lectures that presents ideas and practice of international curators. Aim of the lectures is to initiate a stronger exchange between international curators and local cultural actors.
Curatorial visions, individual research interests as well as the presentation of past exhibition projects offer the opportunity to understand the approaches of experienced practitioners and to get in touch with central discourses of the international art scene firsthand.
Equally, these visits enable the development of a closer knowledge of the local cultural arena (artists, exhibition makers, institutions).

In his talk “What can Biennials do?” Hou Hanru questions the structural goals and curatorial strategies of biennials. Special emphasis is put on the relationship with local contexts in the process of globalization. At the center of his presentation are the large scale exhibition projects 10^th Lyon Biennale (2009) and the 10^th Istanbul Biennale (2007) that he curated

Our upcoming lecturers 2010 are:

• March 24, 2010, 7 pm, Övül Durmuşoğlu (Turkey)- In Cooperation with ifa-Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations.
• April 7, 2010, 7 pm, Campement Urbain (France)
• May 19, 2010, 7 pm, Gabi Ngcobo (South Africa) -- In Cooperation with ifa-Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations.
• May 26, 2010, 7 pm, Cosmin Costinaş (Romania / Netherlands)

The increase of large scale exhibitions like biennials has been widely critiqued. However, Hou Hanru re-emphasizes the great potential of these cultural events, particularly in negotiating between the global and the local, politically transcending the established power relationship between the local and the global but going beyond conformist regionalism. Thus, biennials of contemporary art inevitably have cultural and geopolitical ambitions and seek to be nationally and even internationally significant. The challenge that we face is how to imagine and realize a biennial that is culturally and artistically significant in terms of embodying and intensifying this negotiation.

In his talk “What can Biennials do?” Hou Hanru questions the structural goals and curatorial strategies of biennials. Special emphasis is put on the relationship with local contexts in the process of globalization. At the center of his presentation are the large scale exhibition projects 10^th Lyon Biennale (2009) and the 10^th Istanbul Biennale (2007) that he curated.

Hou Hanru (*1963, China) is a prolific and dynamic critic and curator based in Paris and San Francisco. He is Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs and also Chair of Exhibition and Museum Studies at the San Francisco Art Institute (SAFI).

He has curated numerous exhibitions across the world. The most recent ones include the 10^th Biennale de Lyon. E+VA, 2008, the 10th International Istanbul Biennial, the 2nd Guangzhou Triennale, the 3rd Tirana Biennale (Albania, 2005). The Exhibitions and Public Programs in SFAI are considered as one of the most international and experimental in the US while his engagements with the global art scene covers a much wider geographic span. Hou is one of the first curators and thinkers to examine postmodern issues of nomadic identity, hybridity, globalized mobility, what he calls “in-betweeness,” and artists living in the diaspora. Described as a significant international voice on cultural difference, Hou is a regular contributor to several journals on contemporary art and publications and has lectured at numerous institutions including the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam.