The opening of the inaugural Yinchuan Biennale in the city’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) was overshadowed by the exclusion of one of the artists selected for the display, Ai Weiwei, just two weeks before the exhibition’s preview.
Like other second- and third-tier cities in China, Yinchuan, the capital of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in the north-west of the country, has a much more conservative government than those of the coastal megacities. In addition, because of its large Muslim population and status as a key city for development, Yinchuan is heavily scrutinised by local and central authorities.
On 21 August, in response to unspecified external pressures, the biennial’s board decided to drop Ai Weiwei from the show. “I was aware that [Ai’s] presence, physically or virtually, would come with some controversy,” says MoCA Yinchuan’s artistic director, Hsieh Suchen. “Ultimately, the board decided to withdraw his work. Yinchuan MoCA is a fledgling institution, a sapling for contemporary art in north-west China, and I would like to see this sapling growing into a tree.”
The British artist Anish Kapoor then considered withdrawing from the exhibition in protest. “Since they’ve excluded Weiwei, I think it’s problematic,” he said a week before the 9 September opening. “To be honest, I’m wondering if I’m going to take part, because I think censorship is not acceptable. I think we need to stand against it.” Ultimately, Kapoor remained in the show, with his Untitled (Bell) (2010) joining a section named Soul Mountain after the banned Nobel laureate Gao Xingjian’s novel. Also on display in this part of the exhibition are works by the Scottish artist Andrew Miller, the Indian artist Sudarshan Shetty and the Chinese artists Liu Wei and Song Dong.
The curator, Bose Krishnamachari, the co-founder of the Kochi Biennale in South India and a practising artist, has used his biennial, entitled For an Image, Faster than Light, to contemplate current global conflicts and to consider how creativity can respond in a positive way. “Yinchuan [was] an important point on the Silk Road,” says Krishnamachari in a statement, and “a confluence of Chinese and Islamic culture. I hope that Yinchuan can become another major contemporary art centre alongside Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong.” He has not commented on Ai’s exclusion.
• Yinchuan Biennale, China, until 18 December. For information, visit www.moca-yinchuan.com