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 A Journey to Jejudo and Dejima
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관리자 2013-03-25 09:41
A JOURNEY TO JEJU-DO AND DEJIMA
Lidwien van de Ven’s recent work deals with 17th century Holland or so-called “Golden Age”, which is another name for the global pre-history of the current Netherlands. The republic’s former colonies and trade relations were integral to this pre-history.At the beginning of her research in “Garden of Learning”, van de Ven tentatively followed the footsteps of Hendrick Hamel, a Dutch employee of the VOC (Dutch East India Company) who was shipwrecked on Jeju Island in 1653 and then taken into custody. In keeping with Korea’s isolationist stance, Hamel and other crew members were forbidden to leave the country ever again. After 13 years, Hamel finally managed to escape to Japan. He published his first-hand experience of Korea in 1666.Arriving on Jeju Island, van de Ven became engrossed in the sizzling conflict surrounding the U.S. Naval base. Her on-site photographs bear witness to various scenes and interactions, such as the theatrical, basically peaceful communication between activists and construction workers or the services given by Catholic priests as a form of protest.
Not altogether different from Hamel’s circumscribed perspective – a foreign country is a site of wonder –, her camera diligently registers cultural specificities within this scenario.While the 14 photographs from Jeju-do occupy the second part of Van de Ven’s gallery, the first part addresses the mysteries of sea traveling and the archaeology of trade relations. The space is dominated by a huge, grayish seascape with a clouded sky and a hilly piece of land on the right. With its low horizon line, this image is formally embedded in the Dutch pictorial tradition of the 17th century. But because it lacks any hint of a human presence (no tiny boat, no settlement on the shore), it appears timeless. The opposite wall, as if answering the seascape, shows the archeological site in Dejima. This artificial island in the Bay of Nagasaki was built in 1634. It has been reconstructed as what it once was: the single place of trade and exchange between Japan and the West.