The Gwangju Biennale, which started in September 1995 in the city of Gwangju in the South Jeolla province of South Korea, was Asia's first contemporary art biennale. The purpose of Gwangju Biennale is globalization of art and it respect diversity rather than uniformity. 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, Gwangju's claim to fame lay in its having been the scene of the Gwangju democratic uprising of students protesting his military regime (see Gwangju Massacre). 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 Gwangju...a city of light that uses art to brighten the dark reality of Korean separation."
At first Biennale 660 artists from 58 countries participated and 817 artcrafts were exhibited. The theme "Beyond the Borders" combined all kind of things that have the characters of distinction and indifference such as ideology, nations, religions, races, cultures, arts, and 'post' festival, that is, 'post' rhetoric. Especially many innovative young artists participated.
The exhibition was composed of six sections by regions.
The main idea of the second Gwangju Biennale was similar to the first biennale's theme and it was developed to overcome National Borders and the prejudice of center-periphery. The theme, "Unmapping the Earth", is from the Korean concept "Yeobaik" which means literally "empty space" - a fundamental motif of Korean art.
The exhibition was composed of five parts : Speed, Space, Hybrid, Power and Becoming.
The theme was "to put mankind in its civilization development at the center of the exhibition and to inquire about the human conditions in the past, present, and future." The main exhibit sections were divided by regions.
Curated by Charles Esche, Hou Hanru and SUNG Wan Kyung, the theme of the fourth Gwangju Biennale, P_A_U_S_E, focused primarily on a moment of critical reflection and dynamic change on the global art scene. Secondary focuses were on the cultural and artistic growth of the host city Gwangju, on alternative art, and on communication among artist groups.
The Gwangju Biennale 2004, curated by Yongwoo Lee and co-curated by Kerry Brougher and Sukwon Chang, acted as a cultural forum experimenting with the elevation of the spectator from passive observer to active participant by working collaboratively to produce works of art with the biennale's selected artists. 'A Grain of Dust A Drop of Water' is a vital natural phenomenon and ecological interpretation of order describing the cycle of creation and extinction. Dust suggests noise and cries, covers the objects of our conspicuous consumption that are remains of our industrial society. A drop of water suggests the medium of creation, animates the inanimate thus allowing the cycle of life. Dust, together with water, heals the negative elements of the contemporary society, thus revitalizing the new cultural & aesthetics values in the present world.
Artists included: Allora & Calzadilla (Cuba) - El Anatsui (Ghana) - Alfredo & Isabel Aquilizan (Philippines) - BUAN People (Korea) - Walterico Caldas (Brazil) - Pablo Cardoso (Ecuador) - Jota Castro (Peru) - Russell Crotty (US) - Jimmie Durham (US) - Asa Elzen (Sweden) - Environmental Artists (Korea) - Bruna Esposito (Italy) - Mounir Fatmi (Morocco) - Nayia Frangouli (Greece) - Kendell Geers (South Africa) - Joong-ki Geum (Korea) - Lyudmila Gorlova (Russia) - Richard Hamilton (UK) - Pierre Huyghe (France) - Koji Iijima (Japan) - Emily Jacir (Palestine) - Joon-ho Jeon (Korea) - Magdalena Jetelova (Czech Republic) - Soo-cheon Jheon (Korea) - Brian Jungen (Canada) - Eduardo Kac (Brazil) - Anish Kapoor (India) - Byoung-jong Kim (Korea) - Jin-ran Kim (Korea) - Seung-young Kim (Korea) - Kyoung-ho Lee (Korea) - Zilla Leutenegger (Switzerland) - Marco Maggi (Urguay) - Malam (Cameroon) - Teresa Margolles (Mexico) - Eva Marisaldi (Italy) - Ilka Meyer (Germany) - Tatsuo Miyajima (Japan) - Zwelethu Mthethwa (South Africa) - Antoni Muntadas (Spain) - Wangechi Mutu (Kenya) - Ibrahim Nasrallah (Jordan) - Francis Ng (Singapore) - Ahmet Oktem (Turkey) - Lucy Orta (France) - Muyiwa Osifuye (Nigeria) - Michael Parekowhai (New Zealand) - Bul-ddong Park (Korea) - Daniel Pflumm (Switzerland) - Marjetica Potrc (Slovenia) - Marc Quinn (UK) - Annie Ratti (Italy) - Kelly Richardson (Canada) - Thomas Ruff (Germany) - Edward Ruscha (US) - SAA (Site and Artists) (Korea) - Jim Sanborn (US) - Tisna Sanjaya (Indonesia) - Raquel Schwartz (Bolivia) - Leonid Sokov (Russia) - Jennifer Steinkamp (US) - Sun Xiaofeng (China) - Sun Yuan & Peng Yu (China) - Nguyen Minh Thanh (Vietnam) - The Kingpins (Australia) - Momoyo Torimitsu (Japan) - Yue Min Jun (China)
The word Fever denotes passion and enthusiasm, and in particular the energy for change in Asia and the way in which Asia's power, dynamism and cultural abundance is being disseminated across the world.[1]
The Artistic Director was Kim Hong-hee, Wu Hung was Chief Curator of The First Chapter and Kim Sang-yun was the Chief Programmer of The Third Sector.[1]
Artistic Director: Okwui Enwezor. Co-Curators: Hyunjin Kim and Ranjit Hoskote.[2] The programme is divided into three main strands. "On the Road" is a collection of travelling exhibitions that have been produced elsewhere in 2006/2007; "Position Papers" involves curators talking about art; and "Insertions" are works and events specially commissioned for the biennale.[3]
Artists will include: Bani Abidi, Bingyi Huang, David Adjaye, Tania Bruguera & Arte Conducta, Allora & Calzadilla, Mariana Bunimov, Lara Almarcegui, Gerard Byrne, Area Park, Byron Kim, Stefano Arienti, Chen Shaoxiong, Kaoru Arima, Chen Qiulin, Sadie Benning, Bruce Conner, Huma Bhabha, Thomas Demand, Ursula Biemann, Atul Dodiya, Donghee Koo, Hans Haacke, Lili Dujourie, Haejun Jo, Felipe Dulzaides & Robert Gottardi, Lothar Hempel, Eunji Cho, Jan Henle, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, HwaYeon Nam, Daniel Faust, Chi Young Hwang, Daniel Faust, Iman Issa, Nina Fischer & Maroan El Sani, Peter Friedl; Choi IY; Jewyo Rhii, Gao Shiqiang, Jina Park, Tamar Guimaraes, Jooyeon Park, Shilpa Gupta, Isaac Julien, Hassan Khan, Sonia Khurana, Daniel Medina, Abdoulaye Konate, Luis Molina Pantin, David Lamelas, Matthew Monahan, Sherrie Levine, Movement, Contingency and Community, Glenn Ligon, MY-DA-DA, Reagan Louie, Ken Lum, Oil 21, Kerry James Marshall, Els Opsomer, Mona Marzouk, Jo Ractliffe, The Masked Portrait, Walid Sadek, Gordon Matta Clark, Mandla Reuter, Joachim Schoenfeldt, Fatou Kande Senghor, Jose Toirac, SeoYoung Chung, Taryn Simon, Uijae (Uijae Baek Lyen Heo), Dayanita Singh, Jacques Villegle, Praneet Soi, Alfred Wenemoser, Hiroshi Sugito, Lynette Yiadom Boakye, Catherine Sullivan, Bruce Yonemoto, Sunghwan Kim, Kohei Yoshiyuki, Sungyoon Yang, Zarina Hashmi, Taehun Kang, Dolores Zinny & Juan Maidagan, Koki Tanaka and John Zurier[4]
Artistic Director: Massimiliano Gioni- September 3, 2010 - November 7, 2010
Titled 10,000 Lives, the Biennale will develop as a sprawling investigation of the relationships that bind people to images and images to people. With works by more than 100 artists, realized between 1901 and 2010, as well as several new commissions, the exhibition will be configured as a temporary museum in which both artworks and cultural artifacts are brought together to compose an idiosyncratic catalogue of figures and icons, faces and masks, idols and dolls.
Encompassing a diverse range of media, with a particular emphasis on portraiture, the exhibition will engage our obsession with images, and our need to create substitutes, effigies, avatars and stands-in for ourselves and our loved ones.
The exhibition title is borrowed from Maninbo (10,000 Lives), a thirty-volume epic poem conceived by Korean author Ko Un while imprisoned in 1980 for his participation in the South Korean democratic movement. Held in solitary confinement, as ameans to preserve his sanity, Ko envisioned a poem which described every single person he had met throughout his life, including historical figures and fictional characters encountered in literature. Upon his release he began writing the 3,800 poems that compose Maninbo (10,000 Lives), a magnum opus that reads as a personal encyclopedia of humanity.
Unfolding as a family album, the Eighth Gwangju Biennale will look at images as sites of affection and means of survival. The exhibition will also examine how images are fabricated, circulated, stolen and exchanged: it will interrogate their power, while trying to capture their many lives.