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.
2012 Jangsoo public bathhouse
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관리자 2013-03-25 11:11
Jangsoo public bathhouse
Praying to see some changes occurring in local cities and I’ve been capturing and documenting the indicators of the changes in my photos. The pictures taken near Gijang, Busan are part of my work I’ve been working on for a few years. The main motivation for this work came from the fact that the expansion and capitalization of a big city is not irrelevant to the fall of small regional cities. In fact, scenery is just like a balloon; when you push one side of it, the other side will bulge out. My attitude in this work is critical or self- reflective toward the memory and longing of farming community in childhood depicted in “Gwanchon essay (1977)” by Mun- Gu Lee and toward things that the modernization, urbanization and industrialization of cities have caused. Especially expressionless empty shells exposed by pictures taken at the regional cities hold the surrounding air or atmosphere and ironically they will tell us stories of what the mythology of progress under the slogan of speed and efficiency has brought to us. All my work may not seems to be something or may even considered as mere nothing but I want you to see my work as stories of the past of our lives, an expression of the current life and humor of upcoming changes of all those cities.