56th International Art Exhibition China Pavilion “Other Future”

The 56th Venice biennale opened on May 9, 2015 and ran until November 22, 2015. The China pavilion, curated by the Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation, echoes the biennale's general theme, “All the World’s Futures," by inviting a group of highly individual artists from outside the mainstream of Chinese contemporary art to present their ongoing efforts to stimulate dialogue and social vitality.

The China pavilion invited 3 artists and 2 art platforms to present work: Liu Jiakun, Lu Yang, Tan Dun, Wen Hui (Life Dance Studio) and Wu Wenguang (Caochangdi Workstation).

Among them are architects who do not shy away from tackling complex social realities and who have shown innovation in dealing with practical problems, and new media artists whose works are causing controversy and concern. Interested in the preservation of folk intangible cultural heritage, some of the artists are world-class musicians who love diversity and crossing boundaries. Some of them have broken with the old definition of a body of artistic work, preferring instead to document and participate in the social and political reform of rural

Tan Dun and Lu Yang's works draw inspiration from nushu culture, buddhist art, the Classic of Mountains and Seas, statues and other humanistic classics. At the same time, they make full use of new forms of contemporary music, non-inheritance and new media. With infinite imagination and sometimes shocking artistic language, their works hold the potential to speak to the viewer, even across cultural divides. Liu Jiakun’s outdoor art installation, and Caochangdi Workstation/Life Dance Studio’s "Chinese Villagers Documentary Project” and the "Folk Memory Project" showcase interactive works of modern dance and ordinary ways of life, courageously presenting the tension between ways to cope with the present and involvement in society. These works extend the boundaries and definition of art, and create traditional folk modes for the future.