Auditorium Reserved

Auditorium Reserved

Art Review
Present Tense Biennial: Chinese Character

By Claire Light | May 05, 2009

The VIP opening for the Present Tense Biennial: Chinese Character show at the Chinese Culture Center was slated for 6:30pm. But a cordon of CCC staff and board members and local politicoes — plus curator Kevin Chen and (presumably) all the artists present — barred a packed lobby-ful of attendees from the gallery for an hour, giving speech after speech (and issuing city supervisor-signed certificates). When the gallery finally opened, the entire audience rushed into the exhibition space like a small boar down a boa constrictor’s throat. Worse: the snakelike gallery (entrance at the front, exit at the back) was blocked at the exit end, encouraging viewers to linger in the galleries socializing after they’d finished looking around. It was impossible to see the work.

I go into such gory detail because the scene illustrates the glorious contradictions of mounting a show like Present Tense Biennial. The Chinese in me was amused at the necessity of making sure the city graced this new enterprise, and making sure everyone involved was given face, publicly. The contemporary art viewer in me was annoyed as hell that I had to wait around and then try to see the show through crowds of schmoozers. At the moment, I have little information about how this marriage was arranged, or where the self-proclaimed “biennial” will go in two years. All I know is that, by its very circumstance, the show is both a meld and a clash of three different approaches to representing community. Read More »

Tea Exhibition (Pacific Heritage Musuem)