Following the nine earlier editions that focused on History, Globalization and Temporality, the 10th edition of the Biennale de Lyon takes on the Everyday as its theme. Led by its artistic director of 20 years, Thierry Raspail, and curated by Hou Hanru, the exhibition titled The Spectacle of the Everyday, taking place in four venues, is participated in by around 60 mostly young artists from around the world (see C-Arts volume 09). It is probably the first major European biennale of this age to have included such a large number of artists from other cultural backgrounds, though it must be noted that the majority of these artists do live and work in Europe or the United States.

The title of the Biennale, the Spectacle of the Everyday conjures up ideas of an exhibition of fascinating artworks highlighting the everyday as a spectacle, and indeed the American artist Sara Sze's installation that has as subtitle Moving Planetarium, is one such art work, placed at the Sucrière, one of the main exhibition venues of the biennale. Ephemeral in nature, the architectural structure and the sheer creative artistry generates the imagination of worlds within worlds. But others, the various videos and films or photographs, tended to be flat and rather boring representations of people's everyday lives, with some even largely appearing like activist social or political critique. Issues of identity and rights of immigrants, of overtly religious education, and the environment, of history and memory, of social order and disorder; they are all there, and while most could be seen as representing the state of affairs, many were not creatively artistic to be inspiring.
Certainly of note is the Veduta project that brought art to the suburbs of Lyon. Among these is Vaulx-en-Velin with a majority of immigrant residents. Here the Indonesian artist Eko Nugroho (b. 1977) who lives and works on the island of Java, was in

residency to make works together with the vommunity, mostly coming from the Middle East, Turkey, Marocco and other parts of Africa. Based on their experiences and stories, their search for identity, rights and problems, and combining his expertise in cartoons, traditional shadow play and surrealist imaginations an d the Javanese shadow play with the Lyon folklore of Guignol, rap, hip hop and break dance and involving local Djs, in collaboration with the local theater director Claire Truche and puppeteer Bernard Fontain, Rainbow under the Stone was created and performed in Vaulx-en-Velin and at the opening of the Biennale, while excerpts of it are exhibited at the Sucrière. Other strong works in the biennale include a single life size wrought iron gate by the Indian artist Shilpa Gupta (b. 1979) who lives and works in Mumbai. Banging against the wall, both when opening and closing at short intervals, the work that critically reflects social and political situations, is a dominating force at the entrance of the Sucrière, evoking an ambience of a construction site The work by Kenyan artist Wangechi Mutu (b. 1972) who now lives and works in New York and had exhibitions in MoMa San Francisco, New York, Saatchi, Tate Modern, and more, tackles the household issue of naked electrical wires being exposed to water. Filling the entire breadth of the Sucrière, the work shows a 'curtain' of light bulbs some of which are almost touching the floor where water leaks out of holes plugged with high heeled shoes from the hoses that lie curled on the floor. The water that is taken from the neighboring river Saone is pumped into a pool by a primitive electric system, creating a continuous flow from source to evaporation. There is also the Belgian film maker Agnes Varda (b. 1928) who is known not only for her films, but also her photographs and art installations focusing on social realism, feminism and social commentary. In this biennale she has Cabanes (huts): the Beach Hut for the fishermen and at the same time a place to show her film The Mediterranean, the Portrait Hut containing portraits of 30 women and 30 men facing each other and, the most outstanding Cinema Hut built entirely out of 35 mm film. To make art from everyday material is the forte of Takahiro Iwasaki (b. 1975) who lives and works in Hiroshima and was educated at Hiroshima City University and Edinburgh College of Art. What is more, it is the delicate 'accessories' placed on a bunch of bath towels or a plastic waste bag that actually 'make' his art works, like the Edinburgh Castle in tiny format emerging from the black plastic waste bag, or the telecommunication towers on a pile of bath towels and blankets (Out of Disorder, 2008). Memories are there to remember is the theme for Yang Jiechang (b. 1956) now living in Paris and Heidelberg, who painted blue decorations on about a hundred porcelain disassembled human skeletons displayed in wooden boxes like excavated corpses for his work Underground Flowers, 1989-2009. According to the artist who left China in 1989, this is meant as a reminder of things forgotten----the Tiananmen events, the dissolution of the Eastern bloc, the end of the Cold War, and a deep love for life.

Memories and history are also a theme for Indonesian artist Jompet Kuswidananto, (b. 1975) who lives and works in Java, and goes back to Javanese colonial history and syncretism as an example that no culture is pure. Outstanding, in spite of a too narrow space at the Museum of Contemporary Art, the installation titled Java's Machine: Phantasmargoria, 2008, features drums beating mechanically with the bodiless figures of keraton (palace) guards using Javanese (European-inspired) jackets in place of the body, shorts and European boots in place of the feet and legs, and European rifles held by imaginary hands. Using multimedia – video, recycled electronic devices, drums, resin and video projections – Jompet adopts Java’s royal soldiers as a symbol of the particularly Javanese character of syncretism merging divergent beliefs and cultures. Historical moments of political significance also found their way to this biennale, with America's first African-American president quoted in a song brought by a singer, a white man whose body has been partially blackened, It is the work by Sylvie Blocher (b. 1953) who lives and works in France, reflecting her vision for America under Obama's leadership. mounir fatmi (b. 1970. he insists that his name be written without capital letters) who lives and works in Paris and Tangier, uses similar material to his work at the first Brussels biennale, but while he tackled the skyline then, in the Lyon biennale, he engages in issues of duplication and erosion of memory, and the uncertainties of cultural and intellectual transmission.
Malaysian artist Wong Hoy Chong (b. 1960), noticing the changing face of Europe with its overwhelming immigrants, makes works based on paintings he had seen in the Museum of Modern Art of scenes portraying domestic situations and war. He kept the scenes in his new works, but changed the European people with people of different ethnic origin, thus reflecting a change in era.

The Lyon Biennale which was founded right after the closure of the Paris Biennale has gradually achieved the position of being the French Biennale. To have as its curator Hou Hanru who is convinced that contemporary art has become part of life, with new models of everyday life continuously emerging in society, the tenth Biennale de Lyon seems to be shifting the spotlight from the original, old-fashioned spectacle for the elitist few to that of the broad masses in the everyday world. It will be interesting to see how the next Lyon Biennale will evolve.