Three large-scale arts events are happening this weekend, offering up hot group art action in a variety of mediums, modalities, and permutations. If you like your art edification to come at your face from a bunch of different origins, and all at once in a baffling avalanche of stimuli, check out these three:

Art Battle @ 800Show

Imbuing the creative impulse with the competitive spirit to the ends of a lovely cash prize -- the way it's meant to be -- is this weekends Art Battle, hosted by some people called Dyce Productions at 800Show, that big behemoth of a building on Changde Lu. Twenty artists from around China doing a bunch of different art will have three hours to create an original piece of artwork in front of a live, drinking audience. The winner, chosen by the audience, gets 2,000rmb. Along with that are DJs, VJs, cheap booze, raffles, and various tertiary diversions. Cover is 73rmb to watch, with the first 300 there getting a nice bracelet. We asked one of the organizers, Bree Harrison, how the art battle is looking heading into this weekend and this was what she had to say: Bree: "One thing that we're really pleased with is the mixture of both local and expat artists that will be coming out on Saturday. These two scenes tend to regard each other with a soft begrudging mutual suspicion, so getting them together feels like an accomplishment. I can't wait to see the creativity flowing on Saturday. What to expect? We've got visual artists, painters, graffiti artists, musicians, light artists, flautists and even a live sex act (Just kidding. There won't be any flautists, don't worry). Expect to see a lot of paint flowing and some weird interpretive shit that would shock your parents." Good stuff. ***

Double Act @ DDM Warehouse

Opening on Sunday at DDM Warehouse from curator Zoe Zhang Bing is "Double Act", a group show pairing artists in conversation with non-artists and the urban environment. Participating are individuals from all walks of life: philosophers, writers, architects, city managers, security guards, housekeepers, farmers, mechanics, and more. The binding thematic thread is shared experience of urban space -- city and rural landscapes -- and a focus on metaphoric structure: public policy, family organization, social morality, and cultural environment. The name "Double Act" comes from a tradition Qing Dynasty era form of performance art, in which an actor physically performs a story being told by another performer hiding in the background. The presser promises "an interplay between logic and absurdity, reality and imagination, surface and substance, self-contradiction and mutual unity, rationality and existentialism, whole and part, art and its context, traditional culture and the culture of consumption, socialism and capitalism." Sounds hardcore. Very nice. ***

Shanghai Biennale @ Shanghai Art Museum

The most puzzling one on the list is the lumbering Shanghai Biennale, now in its 8th year, opening this Sunday at the Shanghai Art Museum. Erstwhile one of the most fopped up events of the year, the 2010 Shanghai Biennale seems to be upon us with nary a flag from a street light. Other observers, however, have more astutely pointed out the seemingly slip-shod manner in which this year's biennial is being handled. We humbly direct you to this fabulous bit of bitchery over at something called "Shanghai Monthly" for some back story. Feel the wrath. Hat tip to Shanghai Eye for the link and for being our continual cipher into the Shanghai art world. Cobbled from some unwieldy-ass press releases and from their website, however, here are the basic Shanghai Biennale facts: Running from October 24 to February 28 at the Shanghai Art Museum, the 2010 Shanghai Biennale is a series of talks and lectures, accompanying ongoing exhibitions and installations. This year's guiding thematic topic is the idea of artistic "Rehearsal" – methodologies of artistic production, "discursive practice", and performance -- addressed in five Acts which are grouping 80 artists and speakers. But yeah. That's going on from this Sunday until the end of humanity. Here is the full list of participating artists and luminaries for your perusal. On a side note, their "Act Five" section, entitled "From West Heavens To Cathay: India-China Summit on Social Thought", looks pretty damn good. If you scroll all the way to the bottom of this link you can see the list of speakers associated with that, and lo an behold, look at that, they've got Homi K. Bhabha coming in for a lecture on December 18. Bhabha, bane of English grad students everywhere, is one of the world's most famous, widely-read, and influential critical theorists in post colonial studies. Dude is a rock star. Maybe we can get some MP3s from him for that Monday column... *** Front image is by Patrea Johnson + Xu Zhifeng for "Double Act."