“SUPERCROWDS/SUPERCOMMUNITY”
20 July, 2024--08 October, 2024
TANK Q,TANK Shanghai, Shanghai, China
TANK Shanghai is proud to present the group exhibition “SUPERCROWDS/SUPERCOMMUNITY.” This exhibition focuses on artist groups that best embody the characteristics of the "era of communities": Chinese descent artists with distinct multicultural backgrounds who were born during or after the information technology revolution. The exhibition will observe how these artists navigate between the states described by “SUPERCROWDS” and “SUPERCOMMUNITY.” The exhibition will open on July 20, 2024, and run until October 8, 2024.
The concept of “SUPERCROWDS/SUPERCOMMUNITY” proposed by the exhibition not only refers to a new, era-specific mode of gathering (Togetherness) but also serves as a metaphor for a particular mode of empathy, encompassing two aspects of the same issue. The exhibition is divided into two parts: “SUPERCROWDS” and “SUPERCOMMUNITY.”
“SUPERCROWDS” addresses the new motivations for group gatherings: the younger generation, with their multicultural perspectives, find it challenging to establish a single, specific identity. Instead, they find emotional resonance through similar cultural experiences, emphasizing the “commonality and connection among individuals.” “SUPERCOMMUNITY,” emerging from the interactions of globalization and anti-globalization, breaks and restructures existing narratives, detaching cultural identity from geographical boundaries.
By combining “SUPERCROWDS” and “SUPERCOMMUNITY,” the exhibition proposes the concept of "cross-boundary community," aiming to provide individuals within a vast contextual background with a non-linear coordinate system more applicable to the current era. In this coordinate system, traditional influencing factors such as geographic boundaries, race, gender, and cultural background are excluded from the foundational elements of its construction. Each individual is regarded as a coordinate, connected through analogous cultural experiences and shared values, offering viewers positioning references and prospective outlooks.
Through their works, artists will reflect on and respond to these states, leading to the expectation that within the context of “SUPERCROWDS/SUPERCOMMUNITY,” the status quo faced by any individual will not be an exception. In the loose but solid unrestricted connections, it is possible to find an intimate place where identity and recognition can be repeatedly determined, and where emotional support and feedback are simultaneously provided.
About Curator
Junyao Chen（b.1995），Independent curator, his curatorial practice and research focus on the politics of space, the publicness of digital media, and human landscapes in public environments within the interdisciplinary context of design and communication.
Junyao Chen was the lead organizer of the first Future Curators Symposium (West Bund Museum, 2023); he was awarded the annual academic conference grant by the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art (CIMAM) (2022); his curatorial proposal was selected as a finalist for the Jimei-Arles "Curatorial Award for Photography and Moving Image” in 2022 (Three Shadows Photography Art Centre); he has participated as a curator in the organization of the ICCI ART VALLEY PROGRAM at the Institute of Cultural and Creative Industry (ICCI), Shanghai Jiaotong University (2022-2023); his thesis and research project “Urban Regeneration with the Intervention of Industrial Transformation and Curatorial Ideas, A Case Study of Dafen Village, Shenzhen” was selected for the International Conference on Global Cultural and Creative Industries and Development (2021) and published in the interdisciplinary journal Telematics and Informatics Reports (2022); He was awarded a full scholarship grant for the Special Programme for Artistic Talents by the China Scholarship Council (2018-2020); in addition, he has worked with contemporary art institutions and galleries at home and abroad, and has written critical articles for various media and artists.
