The theme of the first Beijing Biennale is “Originality: Contemporary and Locality”. The originality is what drives the development of human civilization, and draws attention from artists around the world. The contemporary aspect of art reflects peace and development, two major subjects of our contemporary world. This aspect defines the lives, thoughts and feelings of today’s generation. The diversity of the world lies in its rich and colorful locality feature. We respect cultures of all regions and ethnic groups and advocate mutual prosperity for cultures.

The exhibition chooses painting and sculpture as the main types of the participating art works. After the repeated discussion among over 20 members of the Curatorial Committee, the subject exhibition selected over 400 art works of paintings and sculptures of more than 270 artists, including over 150 works of 150 artists from China and over 290 works from over 40 countries in Asia, Europe, America, Africa, Oceania and other places of the world; in addition, there are over 170 works of the Special Exhibitions including the Special Exhibition of Qi Baishi, the Special Exhibition of Tatsuo Takayama, the Special Fine Arts Exhibition of Korea and the Century Celebration Exhibition of the France Autumn Salon. At the same time, we will hold the Second Exhibition of the National Traditional Chinese Painting, the Second Exhibition of China Fine Arts Golden Color Award, China Sculptures Exhibition, the First Exhibition of China Gouaches, the First Exhibition of China Lacquer Painting, Artworks Exhibition for Ten Art Academies of China, China “ Sea Tide Cup ” Exhibition of the National Traditional Chinese Painting, The 11th Exhibition of China Art Exposition and other serialized exhibitions in other exhibition sites in Beijing. At the moment of the opening ceremony, a large-scale evening of entertainment sponsored by China Artists Association and Economic Academy of National Economic Association will be broadcast on the CCTV 3. The international channel of CCTV will broadcast the special program “Biennale ── International Art in China” before the closing ceremony. A grand International Art meeting will be formed in Beijing of September.

Through these over 600 works in the main exhibition sites, the Chinese and foreign artists have shown the personal living conditions of different countries and local cultures and expressed the different experiences and feelings with the local characteristics in the plural culture structure of the world. Some works combine the traditional culture spirit of their native countries and the condition of contemporary cultures, some try to pursue possibilities of many kinds for development and self-renewal of local cultures in the context of globalization, thus providing new experience and styles for world contemporary art.

In order to match the exhibition, the symposium of “the First Beijing International Art Biennale, China” will be convened from Sep.21 to Sep.23. We will invite the Curatorial Committee members, Chinese and foreign participating artists and art theorists to give an extensive and deep discussion which focuses on the related subjects:“ Artistic Originality and Culture Tradition”, “International Art in Contemporary Culture Context”, “Contemporary Art and Multimedia Culture”. The purpose of the symposium is to strengthen the exchanges in the artistic creation and theoretic research and to further promote the unique role and significance of art in the contemporary culture. We will edit and publish the catalog of pictures for this exhibition and the collections of thesis.

The exhibition is the grand international activity of art exhibition with reference to the customs of international art biennale and it is also a helpful attempt to bring the international popular pattern into the mechanism of our art exhibit. At the same time, it’s also a new step to show contemporary Chinese art to the world, thus providing the platform for the world culture exchanges and play an important role in promoting contemporary Chinese art to keep the same pace with times as well as establishing the image of contemporary Chinese art and forming the proper position of China as a big culture power in the international culture structure. It also indicates that Chinese art has entered a new historical developing phase in the reforming period.

China Federation of Literary and Art Circles
People’s Government of Beijing Municipality
Chinese Artists Association
August 14, 2003