The Macao Museum of Art (MAM) is currently presenting Macao Scenario – Animamix Biennale 2013-2014, an exhibition featuring more than 100 artworks by 23 local artists, including painting, installations, photography, 2D and 3D animations, digital paintings, sculptures, ceramics, and graffiti art, showcasing contemporary art inspired by the unique aesthetic and culture of animation and comics.
Animamix Biennale 2013-2014 involves eight major art institutions from six Asian cities, namely the Macao Museum of Art; the Daegu Art Museum, South Korea; the Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai; Visual Art Center – Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University, Beijing; the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan; and the Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre, the Oil Street Art Space, and the City University of Hong Kong.
This is the first time Macau has taken part.
Started in 2007, this year the event has held exhibitions in Daegu, Kaohsiung, Beijing, and Hong Kong. Macau is the fifth host city, to be followed by Shanghai. These institutions organise parallel activities in their home cities for the Animamix Biennale, giving insights into the cities’ anime landscape through collaboration and exchange.
The exhibition is being presented in the Macao Museum of Art’s largest gallery space. One of the two curators, artist Ng Fong Chao (the other curator is Sam Hou In) feels this is significant and has had an impact on the artists’ work.
“As this is MAM’s largest gallery, normally reserved for Western and the most important contemporary artists, when the artists heard they would be exhibiting here they were very enthused and gave it their all.”
The artists have drawn on their daily experiences with people and their surroundings to explore Macau from different angles, while also addressing global issues. Some artists have produced works fully revealing animation’s streak of fantasy, using their imagination and re-focusing on reality through different media, in virtual scenes that ‘contradict the real world’.
Since the first animated features of the early 20th century, and with the rapid development and popularity of the audiovisual media in the 1980s, anime and comics have played an important role in people’s growing up, thereby shaping the aesthetic values of several generations.
The exhibition runs until May 18 at the Macao Cultural Centre
