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.
The United States Cultural Center Arson in Busan (Jieon Lee)
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관리자 2022-12-19 10:53
Busan Biennale 2022 Exhibition Team
On March 18, 1982, students in Busan set fire to the United States Cultural Center in the city as a gesture of anger holding the US accountable for its silence during the bloody suppression of the Democratization Movement of May 1980. Previously the home of the Busan branch of the Oriental Development Company during the Japanese occupation, the building was used to house the US Cultural Center after Korea’s liberation. The US later donated it to the city in 1999. It became the Busan Modern History Museum, which shares information about the history of exploitation during the occupation and Korea-US relations in the modern and contemporary era. The arson incident occurred two years after the US Cultural Center in Gwangju was set on fire in 1980, amid an intense outcry in a city with no real history of anti-US activity. A student enrolled at Dong-A University died, and the incident was used by the Chun Doo-hwan government as a pretext for arrests and an excuse to stir up public opinion. At the same time, it is also seen as heralding numerous other actions to come, including US Cultural Center bombings and building occupations that would take place later in cities such as Daegu (1983) and Seoul (1985). Students and others charged with starting the file and distributing leaflets received sentences ranging from the death penalty to life in prison but ended up released with commuted sentences in 1988.