Titled after E. E. Cummings\u2019s experimental poetry from 1931, Proregress: Art in an Age of Historical Ambivalence<\/em> is a critique of late capitalism and its failures. When Cummings coined the term \u201cproregress\u201d\u2014a playful contraction of the words progress and regress\u2014he was critiquing the promise of the industrial revolution at a time when Europe was on the cusp of another destructive war. Used nearly eighty years later in the context of the Shanghai Biennale, which coincided with the inaugural China International Import Expo (CIIE), Cuauht\u00e9moc Medina\u2019s proposal is timely and significant, but its shortcomings are numerous and the result largely disappointing.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Upon entering the imposing Power Station of Art, the visitor is greeted by three large installations: the first consists of two cars flipped over. This work by the Japanese artist Yuken Teruya is nothing if underwhelming. Nearby is a one-liner by the Spanish artist Fernando S\u00e1nchez Castillo: a large bronze sculpture of an eighteenth-century colonial figure, bent backward and turned into a swing on which visitors can sway. The third installation is a piece titled In Hemmed-in Ground<\/em> (2018) by Enrique Je\u017eik that the visitor rediscovers from the upper levels. It consists of a series of organized bundles of folded cardboard boxes that spell out Chinese characters, translating into \u201cone step forward two steps back; two steps forward one step back.\u201d This mirrors the Chinese title of the exhibition, \u201c\u79b9\u6b65\u201d or Yubu<\/em>, which is a Daoist dance conveying the coming and going of ideas, desires, and concepts1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 1 <\/a> - Curators\u2019 statement by Cuauht\u00e9moc Medina, Mar\u00eda Bel\u00e9n S\u00e1ez de Ibarra, Yukie Kamiya, and Wang Weiwei, in the exhibition map for the 12th Shanghai Biennale, 3.<\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Curating an exhibition in China comes with a set of regulations. One requisite is to comply with a quota of thirty percent national participants, forcing Medina to spend time in China researching the local scene and doing studio visits. This could be considered positive, since too often international events such as biennales have been sites where parachuting curators and their entourage of artists descend upon a city to engage in self-glorification ceremonies. China\u2019s policy forces international guest curators to engage with the context in which they are implementing their curatorial vision. The main letdown of this biennale is precisely how it neglects to translate the context of Shanghai into the narrative of Proregress<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Upon first glance, the list of participating artists\u2014which was deliberately not made public prior to the opening despite the fact that the selection was finalized in March 2018\u2014includes a fair number of Latin American artists. When I met with Medina two days before the opening, he told me that he brought his entourage of artists, including Francis Al\u00ffs, Amalia Pica, Alfredo Jaar, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, among others. In that sense, his initiative was predictable, unambitious, and unexciting, failing precisely where he could have succeeded. There are, nevertheless, a number of standout pieces and beautiful moments in this biennale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Michael Rakowitz\u2019s The Looting<\/em> (2007\u2013) tackles the looting of artefacts from the National Museum of Iraq in 2003. The artist produced copies in papier-m\u00e2ch\u00e9, which are laid out on a long table with detailed labels. These objects have multiple layers: they testify to the rich heritage of the Mesopotamian civilization, they are traces of the cultural trauma that pertains to Iraq in the early twenty-first century and Europe\u2019s fascination with the conservation of cultural goods, even in the face of current crises. The use of cheap materials used to reproduce them complicates the discourse around the disappearance of these artefacts, highlighting the construction of the myth in which certain cultures are unable to care for their treasures. This is a colonial weapon that has been used extensively to move artefacts into the museums of Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadilla\u2019s video The Great Silence<\/em> (2014) is another feat of strength. The three-screen projection follows the vocal learning of the highly intelligent but almost extinct Amazona Vittata parrot in contrast to the experiments conducted using the Arecibo radio telescope in Esperenza, Puerto Rico. Narrated from the bird\u2019s perspective, the work addresses interspecies communication, the desire to communicate with the Other, and human beings\u2019 inability to listen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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