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.
Peter WÄCHTLER
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관리자 2020-09-05 15:15
Born 1979 in Hannover, Germany
Lives in Berlin and Brussels, Belgium
Peter WÄCHTLER, Installation view
Museum of Contemporary Art Busan
The work of Peter WÄCHTLER explores the phenomena of non-progress. Through a practice that often features outdated materials—deskilled bronzes of buildings and figures, unglazed ceramics that recall terracotta reliefs, and twentieth-century cartoons—the artist inverts expectations of fictional histories. In his film Far Out (2016), a cartoon figure adorned in a green waistcoat and top hat exaggeratedly traverses across a gothic country landscape, ensconced by multiple moonlit scenes. The full moon marks the path that leads toward a mountainside castle, obscured by a passing cloud of bats. As in most scenes using traditional cel animation in cinema, the hand painted backdrop is more realistically rendered—the stark yet typical differences in style, from sleek and clear outlines of the protagonists to the more gestural rendering of the static setting, create a disjointed sense of time. The soundtrack—an upbeat rock n’ roll song composed by Danish jazz musician Esben TJALVE, paired with lyrics by the artist, captioned across the moving image—is jarring and incongruous. WÄCHTLER’s adoption of this convention is similarly a matter of economy; the one with more attention remains static, while the simpler representation is dynamic and constantly on the move.