Page 25 - 50.La Biennale di Venezia issue of World of Art Magazine

ARSENALE

Z.O.U. - ZONE OF URGENCY have to be invented and practiced in order to create conditions for
Curated by Hou Hanru sustainable development and life.
Driven by globalization, urbanization and explosive expansion of urban Today’s city becomes a zone of urgency. It’s against this background that
spaces are the most dynamic and challenging aspects in our mutating artistic and cultural activities, closely related to the urban transformation,
world today. In different parts of the world, especially in areas like Asia- are brought to a new frontier. Artists, intellectuals, activists, in groups or
Pacific region where modernization and integration in the global economic as individuals, along with architects and urban planners, are struggling to
and cultural systems are taking place in unprecedented speed, urban create projects, actions and works to negotiate with this reality. It’s out of
expansion, often going ahead of any long term planning, radically prompts this process, new ideas and works are generated and become essential
social divisions and restructuring. Everyone living in the situation has to elements of redefinition of contemporary art, culture, knowledge and
confront with urgent questions of development, competition and survival modes of life while spaces for imagination and innovation are opened.
while established social and urban fabrics are being deconstructed and In different parts of the world, especially in “non-western” regions like
re-organized. Traditional urban planning has been surpassed by the Asia-Pacific region, new understanding and models of modernity, or
“postplanning” reality: the city has become a collage of zones created out different modernities, are being experimented and provide the most active
of urgent demands instead of regular planning. Certainly, this situation, platform of creativity. Artistic practices, emphasizing the interventionist
along with the global migration movement and economic globalization, motivations and performative forms, are being developed into real
is increasingly influencing the Western world as well. Urgent solutions force of social transformation while multidisciplinary collaborations are

Z.O.U. (ZONE OF URGENCY) INDIVIDUAL SYSTEMS
curated by Hou Hanru Curated by Igor Zabel

Rendering
Canton Express project in Arsenale

Simon Starling
Flaga (1972-2000)

Pavel Mrkus
The Prayer of PW20/LW, 2001, video, 6 min.

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