22 Nov 2010

Shenzhen & Hong Kong Biennale of UrbanismArchitecture Announces Terry Riley as Chief Curator

THE SHENZHEN & HONG KONG BI-CITY BIENNALE OF URBANISMARCHITECTURE
ANNOUNCES TERENCE RILEY AS CHIEF CURATOR FOR 2011 EDITION

BIENNALE TO RUN FROM DECEMBER 11, 2011 – FEBRUARY 10, 2012
VERNISSAGE, DECEMBER 8-10, 2011

Venice, Italy, November 19, 2010 - The Organizing Committee of the Shenzhen & Hong Kong Biennale of UrbanismArchitecture announced today in Venice that Terence Riley had been appointed as Chief Curator for its 2011 edition. Riley, an internationally recognized curator and architect who played a key role in overseeing the expansion of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and directed the Miami Art Museum, was selected from an international call for proposals. He will be the first international curator for the Biennale, which started in 2005 and will present its fourth edition in 2011.

The Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale is the only architecture biennale that broadens its focus beyond the realm of architecture to consider urbanism and various aspects of growing cities as significant factors for international progress. Shenzhen (a city that was developed as the first special economic zone for the People's Republic of China in 1980) and Hong Kong are seen as international crossroads and serve as an ideal location for the focus on the dynamics between cities and architecture.

'Appointing Terence Riley as the Chief Curator of our 2011 edition will help bring extraordinary international attention to the Biennale thanks to his curatorial prowess, said the spokesman of the Organizing Committee. Shenzhen is a city that has evolved with lightning speed near Hong Kong and is therefore an incomparable laboratory for architecture and urbanism that attracted Riley to this project. We look forward to working with him and to developing a remarkable international event.'

The program for the Biennale, which will be announced in 2011, incorporates characteristics particular to the sites of Shenzhen and Hong Kong, and will be made of a series of exhibitions, both indoors and outdoors. It will include exhibitions produced specifically for the Biennale, such as case-studies of cities that are less than 60 years old, an exhibition that explores the development of various forms of urban transportation and recent projects being built in Shenzhen. It will also include critically renowned expositions and presentations of historically significant materials, many seen for the first time in Asia, organized in collaboration with a series of institutional partners. In addition, a series of international invitational exhibitions will be presented providing a platform for innovative practices. A curatorial team is being assembled and will be announced in the upcoming months.

According to Terence Riley: 'The full program is still being developed but our idea is to create a paradigm that considers the cyclical growth pattern of urban sites such as Shenzhen, where cities create architecture, architecture creates cities, and how this process continues without end. At a time when sustainability is imperative, the idea of describing an open process that takes into account its own renewal and constant evolution is essential.'

He is a founding partner of K/R (Keenen/ Riley), an architecture studio well known for its design for art museums and galleries, including the master planning of the 100 acre-site of the Museum of Art, Design and the Environment (Murcia, Spain) and a complex of four new museums in Hangzhou, China. Most recently, Riley was the Director of the Miami Art Museum where he led the institution through the design phase of a major expansion; an innovative waterfront design by Herzog & de Meuron. Before, he was the Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture of Design at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. There he organized exhibitions of well-known figures including Rem Koolhaas and Bernard Tschumi, and scholarly retrospectives on Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright, as well as presenting emerging voices.

Terence Riley is an internationally - recognized leader in the fields of design and architecture. In addition to the Museum of Modern Art (New York) and the Miami Art Museum, he has played a lead role in the architect selection for numerous institutions including, the Reina Sofia Museum of Art (Madrid, Spain) and the Parrish Museum of Art (Southampton, NY). He has served on many architectural juries and was chairman of the jury for the 2002 Venice Biennale and the jury for the 9/11 Memorial at the Pentagon (Washington, DC).

About the Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of UrbanismArchitecture:
The Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of UrbanismArchitecture began in 2005 as a response to the fast progress of urbanization and architectural activities in China, particularly Shenzhen and Hong Kong. The Biennale is the first to focus on urbanism as an ongoing theme to explore issues of the city as an active agent in contemporary culture.

To learn more about the Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism Architecture, visit www.szhkbiennale.org/en/