Busan Biennale
The Busan Biennale is a biannual international contemporary art show that integrated three different art events held in the city in 1998: the Busan Youth Biennale, the first biennale of Korea that was voluntarily organized by local artists in 1981; the Sea Art Festival, an environmental art festival launched in 1987 with the sea serving as a backdrop; and the Busan International Outdoor Sculpture Symposium that was first held in 1991. The biennale was previously called the Pusan International Contemporary Art Festival (PICAF) before it launched.
The biennale has its own unique attribute in that it was formed not out of any political logic or need but rather the pure force of local Busan artists’ will and their voluntary participation. Even to this day their interest in Busan's culture and its experimental nature has been the key foundation for shaping the biennale’s identity.
This biennale is the only one like it in the world that was established through an integration of three types of art events such as a Contemporary Art Exhibition, Sculpture Symposium, and Sea Art Festival. The Sculpture Symposium in particular was deemed to be a successful public art event, the results of which were installed throughout the city and dedicated to revitalizing cultural communication with citizens. The networks formed through the event have assumed a crucial role in introducing and expanding domestic art overseas and leading the development of local culture for globalized cultural communication. Founded 38 years ago, the biennale aims to popularize contemporary art and achieve art in everyday life by providing a platform for interchanging experimental contemporary art.
Araya RASDJARMREARNSOOK
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관리자 2020-09-05 15:38
Born 1957 in Trad, Thailand
Lives in Chiang Mai
Araya RASDJAMREANSOOK, Reading Inaow for one female corpse, 2001, Single channel video, 5min 54sec
By exploring the interactions between the domains which are distinctive yet interlinked, Araya RASDJAMREANSOOK contemplates the significance of communication. By featuring in her works various domains including life and death, human and animal, reality and fiction, normal and abnormal, limits and instincts, etc., she invites the viewers to meditate on the subjects of our surroundings. Her direct message, embedding acute criticism, is recognized to be representative of the era, which explores the absent layers of interpretation in society.
Before working with videos, during the 1980s and 1990s, RASDJAMREANSOOK experimented with intaglio printmaking and sculpture installations. Her initial sculptures were acknowledged to deliver the societal position of women in Thailand. Amongst the various subjects of her interest, she puts focus towards the animals, the dead, women, handicapped, and those who are marginalized in the normative society. In the late 1990s, RASDJAMREANSOOK shifted her practice towards video and film, and brought into her practice the consciousness of the dead by working with corpses in a series of video works. For instance, she would film herself practicing a ritual for a corpse in the mortuary. Works such as A Walk (1996, 2003), Reading for Corpses (2002), Chant for Female Corpse (2001, 2002), I'm Living (2003), the Conversation (2005), The Class (2005), also dealt with the consciousness of the dead via corpses.
In The Class (2005), RASDJAMREANSOOK teaches ‘death’ to six corpses, covered in white sheets and aligned on the tray of the morgue. By presenting a rather appalling and shocking image, she invites the viewers to re-evaluate the universal meaning of personal loss, life and death by challenging the moral codes and magnanimity of the viewer. Although her narrative is rather provocative, her video holds a meditative and ritualistic quality. Through such approach, the artist pays tribute to other souls and humanity in a level of consciousness.