Asia Time: the first Asian Biennale/5th Gwangzhou Triennal, Guanzhou, China: a personal perspective

After several trips to Guangzhou, China (formerly Canton, on the Pearl River),  the theme 'Asia Time' was selected for the 5th Guangzhou Triennal, simultaneously rebaptised  'Ist Asian Biennale', held at the Guangdong Museum of Art. Sarah Wilson was appointed co-curator and curator of the English language section of the Academic Forum. She will discuss not an overview of the final exhibition, but ideas and evolutions of the project and the historical roots of the challenging concept of 'Asia Time': its evolution and contemporary resonances, also looking at the East-West dialogue in the works of American artist John Dugger and the British-based Indian artist,  Saleem Arif whose 'Books without Boundaries' she presented.

Sarah Wilson is Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art History at the Courtauld Insitute of Art.  She is co-curator of the current  the First Asia Biennial / Fifth Guangzhou Triennial, Guangzhou, China, and received the   AICA international award for distinguished art criticism in 2015.  Her  interests extend from postwar and Cold War Europe and the USSR to contemporary global art.  Recent publications include The Visual World of French Theory: Figurations (Yale, 2010) and Picasso, Marx and Socialist Realism in France, (Liverpool, 2013).