RAS Art Focus

The Legacy of the Shanghai Biennale: The Past, Present, and Its Future

Sunday, 25 January 2026

1:45 am Registration

2:00 pm to 4:00 pm

Our 2025-2026 Art Focus series Integrating China's Artistic Heritage seeks to explore the ways in which China's rich artistic heritage are being interpreted and integrated in our present era. Organized and curated by Julie Chun (Art Historian and Art Focus Convener), each program in the series examines how China's artistic tradition continues to remain relevant and inspirational for current generation of artists, both within China and those from abroad.

Initiated on March 18, 1996, the inaugural Shanghai Biennale, held at the Shanghai Art Museum, was an ambitious undertaking to present contemporary works by Chinese artists in efforts to participate in the global cultural arena. Unprecedented and fraught with challenges, the early editions of the Shanghai Biennale were nonetheless driven by optimism and a spirit of collaboration. Over the course of its thirty-year history, the Shanghai Biennale has witnessed a compelling trajectory of expansion, prompting us to engage in ongoing discussions about the role of art in society.

January's Art Focus will take place on-site at the Power Station of Art, the venue of the Shanghai Biennale since its ninth edition in 2012. With the passing of three decades, we will begin our session with a historical assessment of the early years that shaped the Shanghai Biennale. We are honored to have the distinguished artist Zhang Jian-Jun, former Assistant Director of the Shanghai Art Museum and Director of the Curatorial and Art Research Department at the Shanghai Art Museum who served on the Artistic Advisory Committee for the inaugural and 3rd, 4th, and 6th editions of the Shanghai Biennale. Zhang Jian-Jun has contributed his curatorial expertise to the Shanghai Biennale's development, and he will share with us his experiences of launching the Shanghai Biennale and the efforts which were involved. After this introduction, Julie Chun will lead a conversation of the current 15th edition of the exhibition as we examine how it relates to the present state of contemporary art and the global biennale landscape.

About the guest speaker:



Zhang Jian-Jun is a prominent Chinese contemporary artist, curator, and educator known for his influential role in China's avant-garde art scene and for his work across painting, installation, performance, and conceptual art. Born in Shanghai, and after completing his graduation, Zhang became the Director of the Curatorial and Art Research Department at the Shanghai Art Museum in 1986, where he contributed to the development of contemporary art discourse in China.

In 1987, he received a fellowship from the Asian Cultural Council in New York, where his artistic practice expanded. He has been residing between the U.S. and Shanghai, teaching at New York University since the 1990s as well as holding a position as a Professor of Arts at NYU Shanghai. His works are held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, M+ Museum in Hong Kong, as well as the China Art Museum and the Yuz Museum in Shanghai.

Zhang has been awarded numerous fellowships and grants, including from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and the New York Foundation for the Art, and his international exhibitions spans the globe, including a residency at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 2019.