Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art

The 3rd Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art runs September 9 to November 10, 2015 in Ekaterinburg and 10 other cities of the Ural region. It is the largest international art project in Russian regions and has a particular focus on artists from Asia. The Biennial's curators, Li Zhenhua (Beijing/Zurich) and Biljana Ciric (Shanghai), presented the Russian and international artists for the Main project. 50 artists from 20 countries all around the world take part in the exhibition. The key term of the 3rd Ural Industrial Biennial is Mobilization, understood here as an ability to change and rise to a fundamentally different level. Biljana Ciric's exhibition, titled Spaces for Maneuver—Between Abstraction and Accumulation, projects the general theme of Biennial Mobilization through centering the exhibition around the individual body as a site and tool, negotiating individual existence between social abstraction and accumulation, proposing to imagine rather than to produce. Curator Bilana Ciric says:

By situating the Biennial at the geographical crossing between Europe and Asia, with its specific focus of the Asian region, in fact does not frame the third Ural Industrial Biennial as a regional exhibition, but instead attempts to provide a platform for discussions around the shared commonalities between societies in the midst of political and economical changes.

Artists of the Spaces for Maneuver project: Tang Da Wu (Singapore), 3-ply (Australia, Melbourne), Lee Kit (Hong Kong / Taiwan, Taipei), Wong Hoy Cheong (Malaysia, Penang), Les Gens d’Uterpan (France, Paris), Shi Yong (China, Shanghai), Sinisa Ilic (Serbia, Belgrade), Pratchaya Pinthong (Thailand, Bangkok), Jonathas de Andrade (Brazil, Recife), Ho Tzu Nyen (Singapore), Marysia Lewandowska (UK, London), Nguyen Trinh Thi (Vietnam, Hanoi), Marta Popivoda (Serbia, Belgrade), Jompet (Indonesia, Yogyakarta), Li Liao (China, Shenzhen), Tino Sehgal (Germany, Berlin), Yoko Ono (USA, New York), Yu Youhan (China, Shanghai), Alfredo Jaar (USA, New York) Curator Li Zhenhua imagines his project, titled No Real Body, as an extreme way to find out if art has a starting point or an original source of creative energy. Artists of the No Real Body project: Marianne Muller (USA, New York), !Mediengruppe Bitnik (Switzerland, Zurich), Com & Com (Switzerland, Zurich), Yiquan Wang (China, Shanghai), Wenfeng Liao & Bignia Wehrli (Germany, Berlin), Сatherine Biocca (Germany, Berlin), Thomas Eller (Germany, Berlin), Chen Shaoxiong (China, Beijing), Xu Qu (China, Beijing), Yan Xing (China, Beijing), Zheng Yunhan (China, Beijing), Yan Lei (China, Beijing), Xu Tan (China, Guangzhou), Chen Qiulin (China, Beijing), Yuan Gong (China, Shanghai), Lu Pingyuan (China, Shanghai), Hu Fang (China, Beijing), Double Fly Art Centre (China, Hangzhou), Ju Anqi (China, Beijing), 9 mouth (China, Beijing), Ehsan Ul Haq (Amsterdam, Netherlands), Chris Paul Daniel (UK, Manchester), Kwan Sheungchi (China, Hong Kong), Knut Asdam (Norway, Oslo), Marianne Heier (Norway, Oslo), Salla Tyyka (Finland, Helsinki), Chim Pom (Japan, Tokyo), Marc Lee (Switzerland, Zurich), Tang Nannan (Xiamen, China), Cao Kai (Changzhou, China). The curatorial concepts will follow the logic of the space of the historic Iset Hotel, which will house a larger part of the Biennial's programs—the main project, the final exhibition of the Artist-in-Residence program and research projects. The Iset is an integral part of the NKVD residential compound, which became popularly known as Gorodok chekistov (Town of NKVD officers); it is one of the most impressive architectural landmarks of Ekaterinburg and an outstanding example of international constructivist architecture of the 1920s–30s. Images: top - NKVD residential compound, Ekaterinberg bottom: Nguyen Trinh Thi, In Smoke and Clouds, Videostill, 2015.