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.
Robert ZHAO Renhui
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관리자 2020-09-05 15:05
Born 1983 in Singapore
Lives in Singapore
Robert ZHAO Renhui, Evidence of Things Not Seen, II, 2020, Mixed media, variable dimensions, on-going project
Commissioned by Busan Biennale 2020
Special thanks: Jacob FABRICIUS, Pooluna CHUNG, JiYeon SEONG, Jihyun WOO, Bongnae CHO
Music: Coda by George CHUA from the album, Evidence of Things Not Seen, 2006
Robert ZHAO Renhui works mainly with photography, but often adopts a multi-disciplinary approach, presenting images together with documents, objects and videos. His artistic practice investigates contemporary ecology and the problems confronting us in the Anthropocene, including species extinction. With their vivid colors and bold depictions, ZHAO’s work encourages us to look beneath the outward appearance to the underlying human-nature relationship. His aesthetic and poetic images critique the scientific methodology and order established by humans over millennia in order to objectify all non-human beings, and the fundamentally anthropocentric thought and knowledge systems that undergird such an approach. ZHAO’s A Guide to the Flora and Fauna of the World (2018) exposes the various ways in which human action and intervention are slowly altering the natural world. The diverse plants and animals featured in this book are as fantastic as their appearances are extraordinary: as fascinating and captivating as they are, these are all fictional creatures dreamed up by ZHAO. This catalog of exquisitely compiled images and texts invite us to pay closer attention to what we deem to be true.