Curator Anselm Franke Reflects on Implicit Scripts and Modernization Ahead of Shanghai Biennale

Curator Anselm Franke examines the role of implicit social scripts and aesthetic conventions in shaping perception, arguing that modernization in art involves making these hidden rules explicit. He connects this to the Shanghai Biennale, which runs from 9 November through 31 March, suggesting exhibitions can question collective frames of reality. Franke references debates in Beijing instilled by party historian Wu Si about qian guize (hidden rules), and discusses how avant-garde art breaks genre conventions to produce new social experiences. He notes that conceptual art originated as a gesture of negation against administered life, and warns that transgression can become its own genre, losing mobility. Filmmaker Harun Farocki's final works, shown at the Berlin Documentary Forum, explore how digital technologies create maps that monitor reality rather than represent it. Franke emphasizes that modernity demands relativization of collective identities and negotiation of the implicit realm, cautioning against nationalist or technocratic obscurantism in China's modernization. The article was first published in the September 2014 issue of ArtReview.