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"Asia's own biennial (Kwangju, Korea)," The Art Newspaper, Dec. 1995,
p. 9.
Kwangju Biennial opens in Korea KWANGJU, KOREA. Given the cachet of hosting a successful international art exposition, it seems surprising that Tokyo, Hong Kong, Seoul, and Taipei have not attempted to found an oriental answer to the Venice Biennale. One or more of those cities may yet decide to get into the act, but if and when they do, now they'll have to contend with competition in their own backyard. Asia's first contemporary art biennale has already been inaugurated in Kwangju, Korea, a modern and not overly attractive urban center nestled among wooded hills some 330 km south of Seoul. Opening ceremonies took place in late September with all the frantic mayhem one has come to expect of such multicultural endeavors. More than 500 artists and performers from 60 countries, and a modest contingent of foreign curators and critics descended on this provincial capital, whose 1.3 million citizens had virtually no prior exposure to international contemporary art. Until the Biennale, Kwangju's claim to fame lay in its having been the scene of Chun Doo Whan's 1980 massacre of students protesting his military regime. Since then the city has symbolised the country's pro-democracy resistance, a movement with special poignancy in light of the political situation that divides the peninsula. The mayor hopes the Biennale will serve "to clarify misconceptions regarding the history of Kwangju...a city of light that uses art to brighten the dark reality of Korean separation." But officials are betting the Biennale can do more than transform the reputation of its host city. They anticipate big returns, both political and economic, for the country and for Asia in general. The goal is to insert Asian art into the western-dominated cultural mix, "to pursue globalisation rather than westernisation, diversity instead of uniformity." They aspire "to create a balanced history of East and West, to create an active Asian Culture in the 21st century, and to form a cultural community in the Pacific Rim." Mayor Song Eon-jong, executive chairperson of the newly established Kwangju Biennale Foundation, elaborates, "With the advent of the information age, we can expect to see the growth of culture in marketable terms throughout the global village. ... Kwangju intends to be at the forefront of artistic production into the 21st century, not only in Korea but in the Asia-Pacific." Notwithstanding such partisan proclamations, the show's theme is "Beyond the Borders," described as "the pursuit of common value beyond a state, race, ideology, and religion." The subject is addressed in a special loan exhibition, "Art as Witness," curated by Young-Bang Lim, director of the National Museum of Contemporary Art outside Seoul. Works by Balla, Malevich, Picasso, Tatlin, Duchamp, Heartfield, Rivera, Beuys, Boltanski, Braco Dimitrjievic, Kienholz, Lupertz, Zoran Music, Raynaud, Leonid Sokov, and the "Sarajevo Trio" all respond, however obliquely, to 20th-century atrocities, culminating in a special section devoted to Korean paintings inspired by the May 1980 Kwangju massacre. The scope of the main show is far broader, with artworks and installations by nearly 100 artists from 50 countries. About a dozen participants were selected by each of seven regional commissioners: Western Europe (Jean de Loisy, curator, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris), Eastern Europe (Anda Rottenberg, director, National Gallery of Contemporary Art, Warsaw), North America (Kathy Holbreich, director, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis), South America (Sung Wan-kyung, critic and professor, Inha University), Asia (Oh Kwang-su, director, Whanki Museum.), Middle East and Africa (Clive Adams, independent curator, London), and Korea and Oceania (You Hong-June, critic and professor, Yeungnam University). The resulting survey is of considerable interest, surpassing the Venice Biennale in geographic diversity, and equalling it in terms of the quality, if not the scale, of the individual works. As with "Cocido y Crudo," an exhibition at the Reina Sofía in Madrid this past Spring, the presence of so many emerging artists functions similarly to the "Aperto" section in Venice -- a feature dropped from this year's show. Among the participants are Jeff Wall (Canada), Alfredo Jaar (Chile), Graciela Iturbide (Mexico), Guillermo Kuitca (Argentina), Xavier Veilhan (France), Olga Tobreluts (Russia), Mabel Palacin (Spain), Mario Airò (Italy), Steven Pippin (England), Ikram Kabbaj (Morocco), Ahn Sung Keum (Korea), Suh Jung-tae (Korea), Qiu Deshu (China), and Lü Sheng zhong (China). As expected, no North Korean artist was permitted to attend. The Grand Prize of $50,000 was awarded to Cuban Alexis Leyva ("Kcho") for his installation To Forget, in which a battered wooden rowboat sits atop a sea of empty beer bottles (see illustration), a rather mundane tableau which ostensibly alludes to political refugees, and may have special resonance for Koreans with relatives in the north. The Biennale's third component is "Info Art," a huge array of high-tech computer and video work selected by Nam June Paik and Cynthia Goodman, former director of IBM Gallery in New York. Mr. Paik, who is something of a legend in his native Korea, has six works in the exhibition, not to mention concurrent shows at three commercial galleries in Seoul. "Info Art" includes some astonishingly innovative works, such as the interactive piece by Frenchman Edmond Couchot in which a spectator blows into a microphone, miraculously causing a video-projected image of a feather to sail into the air. The "digital life" installation by Austrian Christa Sommerer and her French partner Laurent Mignonneau similarly appears to link the physical and video realms. Other highlights are Chinese-American Wen-Ying Tsai's beguiling strobe-lit "cybernetic sculptures" and Korean Yuan Goang-ming's elegant video-projected Fish on Dish. In short, the Kwangju Biennale has made an auspicious debut, one that promises to introduce thousands of Koreans to the depth and diversity of international contemporary art. But it remains to be seen whether its impact can extend beyond the region. The '95 Kwangju Biennale continues until Nov. 20 in the Municipal Art Museum and the newly built Biennal Exhibition Hall in Chungwoe Park. Jason Edward Kaufman © ## |
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