Beatrice Leanza

Born in 1978 in Milano, Italy.
Works and lives in China.

Program YCI 2006 participant

Education

2001 - 2002

Ca’Foscari University, East Asian Department, Venice, Italy. MA in Chinese Studies (History of Asian Art). Final mark: first class honours (110 cum laude/110). Dissertation thesis: "AL-READY-MADE?" Past and Present. lconography/lconology from the Revolutionary Period and formal re-treatments from the Consumerist Era in China.

1999 - 2000

Research study stage in China (Shijiazhuang, Beijing and Shanghai) and extensive travelling through Mainland China, HK.

2002

CAFA -Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing.

Curatorial and Editorial

2006

Video in A Box, catalogue of exhibition. Editor and author.

Co-founded BAO Atelier (Beijing. HK). a studio for curatorial, editorial and design production.

Borderline Video Art Festival, Beijing. Coordination of exhibitions and co-curator of “Video in a Box” (video art exhibition in 3 sections, documentaries, animation and experimental shorts - China/International)

DlAF - Dashanzi International Art Festival. 28 April - 21 May. 2006. SPACE OF(F:) ITALIAN AREA, Italian Programme curator and coordinator. Project management and production plan (design. architecture. music. video art and mixed media installation - performance and sound art).

Object Cast, featuring Andrea Gotti (Italy - mixed media installation) and FM3 (Christiaan Virant + Zhang Jian, Beijing based sound-artist duo), at B.T.A.P. (Beijing-Tokyo Art Project). With the support of the Italian Cultural Institute and the Italian Embassy in Beijing.

Author and editor of Object Cast / The Book. A project for a conceptual book with written contributions by philosopher Gianni Vattimo and artist Ai Weiwei. Published in March 2006 by Timezone 8, Beijing - China.

Beijing correspondent for Flash Art International. Continues with other publications (NY Arts, Arte e Critica, Crudelia).

2005

Guest Editor ’China Today’ section for NY Arts Magazine, NY (bimonthly contemporary art magazine); Bazar, Rome, Italy (cultural magazine, collaborator for China section).

Contemporary Italian Art and the China System, publication project of analysis and instruments about the Chinese cultural system. Commissioned by DARC (Direzione Arti e Architetture Contemporanee), Italian Ministry of Culture. Publication structure, resources and research.

Degrees of Separation - The Measure of Art and the Walls of Publicness, lecture for the workshop within "Beijing Case" programme, supported and organized by Goethe Institute, Beijing and Kulturstiftung des Bundes.

Lecture, "Art and Public Space in China", Xiamen University, China.

Freelance curator, art writer and art consultant.

2003 - 2004 (until early 2005)

CAAW - China Art Archives & Warehouse, Beijing, China. Contemporary art centre Cultural Coordinator and co-curator. Art director (Ai Weiwei) assistant; co-curator for CAAW exhibitions; logistic assistance and consulting for international events; exhibit set-up; editing for catalogues, press releases, catalogue essays.

Text Contributor for the Routledge "Encyclopaedia of Contemporary Chinese Culture" (2004).

Workshop "Match Making at Suzhou Creek", East Link Gallery, Shanghai (supported also by the Italian Cultural Institute based in Shanghai). Shanghai Biennale satellite show (September - November 2004). Curated the experimental exhibition "Stochastic Notes on Times and Hidden Variables” (Monica Bertini. Studio DotDotDot. Xu Hongmin).

Co-curator for the Contemporary Chinese Art exhibit "guang-YIN-Tempi di Donne" (guang-YIN-Times of Women), Viterbo (March 2003).

Translator for exhibition materials, catalogues, critical essays (Chinese-Italian/English, Italian­English/English -Italian).

2002 since September resident in China.

CAAW, China Art Archives & Warehouse, Beijing. Assistant Manager. Archive, database, library research and updating (modern and contemporary Chinese art-artists, focusing on the last decades since 1970s).

Other activities & in proqress

Art consultancy for both private individuals, institutions and corporate (Guggenheim - NY, MoMA - NY, ICP - NY, Royal College of Art - London, NIKE, Product Design and Creative department - USA).

Borderline Festival - Moving Images 2007 (Beijing) Artistic co-direction. Beijing-based urban lab centred on the identity of the moving image and predicated on the hybrid nature of the contemporary cultural one. An international programme of exhibitions, performances, conference and workshops. A scenario of liquid disciplines aimed at disseminating and co-producing inventions and unprecedented discourse about the regime of vision and that of the city.

OBJECTIVES lN INDETERMINISM

Synthesized in the BAO manifest (co-founded studio for creative production and modulation of art discourse) the scope of the curatorial activity becomes an adaptive extension of a manipulative modality. ln the exploration of the spatial implications of art exhibiting, the curatorial experience is intended as an artistic device for the manumission of pre-­existing conceptual environments and the contenitive fixity of cultural structures (see Bao HeadBag).

Editorial Branding for infiltrating publications (Formal fragmentations of a textual surface and its space of reproduction).

Iterations (12 issues): a series of themed publication on the re-thinking of the artistic system, its spaces, influential dynamics of construction and reformulation.

An art magazine in matter. The curatorial gesture becomes creation of a physical reading environment, a de-composition of the senses for a new conversational ’body-text’ apparatus.

BAO HeadBag is the mobilized identity of BAO itself, a modular vehicle for guest participation in events beyond BAO’s own immediate scope. Predicated on the glocality of contemporary discourse, BAO HeadBag is a way of entering into new contexts (including, but not limited to, international and local art fairs, biennials and triennials, conferences, etc.) through uniquely constructed visual, textual, and spatial interventions. HeadBag interventions grow out of BAO’s three major areas of Curatorial, Editorial, and Design work, aiming to draw the three together into a meaningful dialogue with a given environment.