On August 16, Peking University held the press conference for the 4th Guangzhou Triennial, which unveiled the “mystery” of the solution to this Triennial. According to reports, this Triennial will incorporate the inauguration exhibition, project exhibition and theme exhibition for the consecutive three years, including the initial reasons and preparation and other relevant matters, into the huge program in time and space, highly displaying the strong ambition.

    The Inauguration Exhibition of the 4th Guangzhou Triennial entitled “Meta-question: Back to the museum per se (curators: Luo Yiping, Yang Xiaoyan, Zhang Kexin + Zhang Yun) would be held at Guangdong Museum of Art during the period form September 22 to November 22 this year, which shall be highly combined with the progress of the extension project of Guangdong Museum of Art by positioning the art museum as “Meta-question” and taking “dismantling” and “rebuilding” as the key words and shall also question many “Meta-questions” related to the cultural logic of the transformation of the art museum from the traditional model to the modern model by kindly inviting the domestic and overseas artists for participation. Mr. Luo Yiping, director of Guangdong Museum of Art and general curator of the 4th Guangzhou Triennial particularly pointed out, “Dismantling” is the means while “Rebuilding” is the purpose.” From the specific point of view of the art museum, it has been broadened to another level for the concept thinking. How to present the art exhibition at the engineering extension project of the art museum still remains to be unveiled at this Triennial, but this arrangement is of modern significance itself.

    Besides the art works of the domestic and overseas artists for the inauguration exhibition, “H-BOX Program” and “Art Domain Migration: Asean and China” will be the two special sections, which will respectively exhibit the art works of the same title planned and designed by Fondation d'entreprise Hermes and the modern art theme works from all counties of Southeast Asia, thus demonstrating their remarkable project features.

    The “Diachronism” of the 4th Guangzhou Triennial will be first shown by 5 projects exhibitions during the period from 2012 to 2013, particularly including three exhibitions to be held at Guangdong Museum of Art—parallel exhibition of the “54th Venice Biennial” (curated by Wang Lin), “The Third Nature: Chinese Reconstruction” (curated by Gao Ling) and “Dimensions——Analysis of Three Art Cases” (curated by Luo Yiping) and two other exhibitions to be held in England (TBD).

    Another highlight reflecting “Diachronism” at the 4th Guangzhou Triennial is “Forum Action Program” (curated by Zhang Xudong, Fan Di’an, Gan Yang and Luo Yiping), which will be co-sponsored by Guangdong Museum of Art and International Center for Critical Theory-NYU and International Center for Critical Theory-PKU. The forum will mainly focuses on the possibility of the art production under the condition of the globalization, the conceptual “Modernness” and its historical connotations, the relationship between pioneering, practice and tradition, the cities highly endowed with the empirical integration and spatial form and some other problems related to the self-positioning of both China and Asia in the modern world art. The forum will be simultaneously initiated together with Guangzhou Triennial and the first stop will be in Guangzhou in September 2011, followed by New York, Tokyo, Birmingham and Beijing, etc., and will come to a close in the autumn of 2013. Furthermore, Fredric Jameson, a professor from Duke University, is among those domestic and overseas well-reputed scholars kindly invited for their presence.

    The dynamic form built upon the depth and time framework has broken through the traditional one-stop and one-off model for exhibition, so it calls for the powerful and effective planning tactics to integrate all problems into a whole.

    The Theme Exhibition, a perfect finish to 4th Guangzhou Triennial, entitled “The Unseen”, will be held during the period from April to June 2013, jointly curatedy by Jiang Jiehong, a professor from Birmingham Institute of Art and Design (BIAD), Birmingham City University, and Jonathan Watkins, the curator of Ikon Gallery, which represents the extension and depth of the inauguration exhibition, and the name list of the artists will be announced prior to the next spring festival. The Theme Exhibition will focus on a series of key words, such as, “Future Things”, “Future Objects”, “Future Cities”, “Future Changes”, “Extraordinary Cities” and “Future Letters” to discuss the current existence of the modern art under the present social context, yet, the “unseen” works do not show that they do not exist in our world, but on the very contrary, the existence of such an undiscovered and unconcerned things will become the facts deeply hidden in an event and such a fact is also the most indispensable part of the modern art. By then, a theme forum will be simultaneously held, which will be a summary forum planned for a series of discussion after the unveiling of the inauguration exhibition.

    As Jiang Jiehong, curator of the exhibition, put it, this exhibition follows “the Practical Route” by going out of art museum or art gallery to the city. However, Jonathan Watkins also emphasized that there should be no separation between art, life and cities. They have inspected other possible venues in Guangzhou in addition to Guangdong Museum of Art, including Guangdong Museum, Guangzhou Opera House and Guangzhou No. 2 Children's Palace, so they prepare to launch the “The Unseen” Exhibition in these places. At the same time, how the model of Triennial (Biennial) can gain a breakthrough against the current urban cultural interaction will be another highlight for the exhibition.