On March 11, 2013, Philip Tinari gave a lecture titled “ON|OFF: The Double Consciousness of China’s Newest Generation of Artists” at the Vancity Theatre in Vancouver. The talk was part of the Asia Contemporary Speaker Series, presented in partnership by the Canadian Art Foundation and the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada and its sponsors. This particular lecture was also presented in collaboration with the Vancouver Art Gallery.
To watch a video of this talk, please visit our related Talks page.
Philip Tinari is Director of the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA), an independent museum in Beijing’s 798 Art District with an annual attendance of more than half a million visitors. He is also Founding Editor of the art magazine LEAP, Contributing Editor to Artforum, and Adjunct Professor in the College of Humanities at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. Since joining UCCA in 2012, he has curated exhibitions and projects with artists including Gu Dexin, Yun-Fei Ji, Wang Mai, Kan Xuan and Yung-Ho Chang. He recently co-edited the books The Future Will Be… China Edition (curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist) and Ai Weiwei: Dropping the Urn. Having lived in Beijing for much of the past decade, he has written and lectured widely on contemporary art in China.
The rise of Asia on the international scene is one of the most compelling stories in contemporary art. Provocative artworks command ever-higher prices as markets expand, and impressive new museums, schools and biennials continue to proliferate. Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai, Tokyo and Beijing have established themselves as major art-world hubs, competing directly with London and New York. In order to understand this phenomenon and its connection to global movements of economic and political power, the Asia Contemporary Speaker Series was created to take place at venues across Canada from November 2012 to April 2013.
Other lectures in this series included Vishaka Desai of the Guggenheim Foundation at the Art Gallery of Ontario on November 14, 2012; Jane DeBevoise of Asia Art Archive at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal on January 23, 2013; Mami Kataoka of the Mori Art Museum at the Art Gallery of Ontario on March 15, 2013; and Zheng Shengtian of Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art at the Glenbow Museum on April 18, 2013.
