Project Native Informant

Shanzhai Biennial

An international collective started in 2012, Shanzhai Biennial is an art-fashion crossover “meta-brand” co-directed by Cyril Duval, Babak Radboy and Avena Gallagher. Self-described as “a multinational brand posing as an art project posing as a multinational brand posing as a biennial,” their name refers to the Chinese phenomenon of shanzhai – the imitation and pirating of popular, often prohibitively expensive, brands.

As the critic Harry Burke notes, Shanzhai Biennial frames “the meta-signifying structure of the brand as a condition of contemporary creative production, and questions what autonomy can be found within that”. Each project is designated as a biennial: Shanzhai Biennial No. 1 launched a campaign for an imagined fashion line at Beijing Design Week in 2012. Shanzhai Biennial No. 2, included in the seminal group exhibition ProBio curated by Josh Kline at MoMA P.S.1, consisted of a LED curtain which looped a video of actress, model and “conceptual artist” Wu Ting Ting lip-syncing distorted Mandarin lyrics to a version of Sinead O’Connor’s Nothing Compares 2 U. In Shanzhai Biennial No. 3: 100 Hamilton Terrace, 2014, they attempted to sell a £32,000,000 mansion, 100 Hamilton Terrace, London, in their booth with Project Native Informant at the Frieze Art Fair in London. 

Shanzhai culture’s cute consumer goods make apparent the otherwise invisible, and always volatile, relations underlying any trade. Shanzhai Biennial’s artworks ride on this, yet suggest that if the current end point of cultural production is the reproduction of the event as image, then, in the emancipatory logic of pirating, this image, and in turn the social formation that it stands in for, can be reimagined.

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Projects
2016Project Native Informant at West Bund Art & Design, Shanghai
Nuqqat Conference, Kuwait
2015New Group Materialism, TANK TV
2014Shanzhai Biennial No. 3, Project Native Informant at Frieze London, London
Shanzhai Biennial No. 3, Project Native Informant, London
The Shanzhai Library by Shanzhai Biennial, DISown, Red Bull Studios, New York
Shanzhai Biennial | TELFAR, Autumn/Winter 2014 Runway Show
2013Shanzhai Biennial No. 2, Centre Pompidou, Paris
Shanzhai Biennial | TELFAR, Spring/Summer 2014 Presentation, Collaboration with Future Brown (Fatima Al Qadiri, Nguzunguzu, J-Cush) & MOCAtv, New York
Shanzhai Biennial No. 2, ProBio, Expo 1/MoMA PS1, New York
Shanzhai Biennial Presents: TASTE®-Makers™, New Museum Next Generation Triennial Party, New York
2012Shanzhai Biennial No. 1, Beijing Design Week, Beijing

Shanzhai Biennial

“你這個剝皮的野獸! “農民慘叫道 / "You’re a man-eating beast!” the peasant cries out

2014
LED lightbox, paint, fluorescent tubes and photographic print on paper
119 x 168 x 16.5 cm
46 7/8 x 66 1/8 x 6 1/2 in

Installation View

Shanzhai Biennial
Shanzhai Biennial No. 3: 100 Hamilton Terrace, 2014
Project Native Informant, London

Installation View

Shanzhai Biennial
Shanzhai Biennial No. 3: 100 Hamilton Terrace, 2014
Project Native Informant, London

Shanzhai Biennial

階級兄弟, 團結來結清房東的血債 / Class brothers, unite to settle the blood debts with the landlords

2014
LED lightbox, paint, fluorescent tubes and photographic print on paper
168 x 119 x 16.5 cm
66 1/8 x 46 7/8 x 6 1/2 in

Shanzhai Biennial

只有撤底的挖解這剝皮的系統, 工人階級才得以解放 / Only by thoroughly demolishing the man-eating system can the working people be emancipated

2014
LED lightbox, paint, fluorescent tubes and photographic print on paper
168 x 119 x 16.5 cm
66 1/8 x 46 7/8 x 6 1/2 in

Installation View

Shanzhai Biennial
Shanzhai Biennial No. 3: 100 Hamilton Terrace, 2014
Frieze London, London

Shanzhai Biennial

Still: Shanzhai Biennial No. 3: 100 Hamilton Terrace

2014
Single-channel HD video
3 mins, 22 secs

Shanzhai Biennial

Still: Shanzhai Biennial No. 3: 100 Hamilton Terrace

2014
Single-channel HD video
3 mins, 22 secs

Shanzhai Biennial

Still: Shanzhai Biennial No. 3: 100 Hamilton Terrace

2014
Single-channel HD video
3 mins, 22 secs

Installation View

Shanzhai Biennial
Shanzhai Biennial No. 3: 100 Hamilton Terrace, 2014
Frieze London, London

Shanzhai Biennial

Still: Shanzhai Biennial No. 2

2013
Single-channel HD video
4 mins, 15 secs

Shanzhai Biennial

Still: Shanzhai Biennial No. 2

2013
Single-channel HD video
4 mins, 15 secs

Shanzhai Biennial

Still: Shanzhai Biennial No. 2

2013
Single-channel HD video
4 mins, 15 secs

Shanzhai Biennial

Still: Shanzhai Biennial No. 2

2013
Single-channel HD video
4 mins, 15 secs

Installation View

Shanzhai Biennial
Shanzhai Biennial No. 1, 2013
Beijing Design Week, Beijing

Installation View

Shanzhai Biennial
Shanzhai Biennial No. 1, 2013
Beijing Design Week, Beijing

Installation View

Shanzhai Biennial
Shanzhai Biennial No. 1, 2013
Beijing Design Week, Beijing

Shanzhai Biennial

Shanzhai Biennial No. 1

2012
Dimensions variable

Shanzhai Biennial

Shanzhai Biennial No. 1

2012
Dimensions variable

Shanzhai Biennial

Shanzhai Biennial No. 1

2012
Dimensions variable

Solo Exhibitions

Frieze London 2014

Frieze London

West Bund Art and Design 2016

West Bund Art and Design, Shanghai

Group Shows

DIS, GCC, Shanzhai Biennial

LISTE 2015

LISTE Basel

Units 1 and 3
48 Three Colts Lane
London E2 6GQ
United Kingdom

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