Shanghai Biennale!

So! I got my camera working again, thank goodness. Dang technological gadgets! Shanghai Biennale was held in the Shanghai Art Museum, right in the middle of town, in People's Square. It took a little while to get in, but there was really a lot to see once inside (maybe too much). Unlike some of the other exhibitions going on, the Biennale featured both Chinese and foreign artists. There was a general theme that was supposed to comment on Shanghai's recent, remarkable development and population growth (the Chinese consider it an immigrant city- though the immigrants are largely from rural areas of China itself). Often the overwrought intellectualizing on the information cards provided tenuous connections that I would rather call BULLSHIT! I hate it when every artwork gets a paragraph of explanation.. we get to know the curators very well this way, though.
Outside the Shanghai Art Museum, I was pleased to see this giant hyperbolic cone!!!!

Inside the cones various levels were living pidgeons!
This is part of an installation that I liked by Tiong Ang (Indonesia/Netherlands) called "Models for (the) People." It included two large drawings of horse's asses, large text reading, "BUY AFRICAN GOODS" (or somesuch), the small sculpture pictured above left, another podium supporting a black leather riding boot, and the video, still-shot below. I thought it addressed the interesting economic relationships between China and Africa, while maintaining some tongue-in-cheek satire with the horses' asses theme which pointed to the inevitable imperialism of it all. Or go figure yourself...