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.
2008 An Ear to the Sky
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관리자 2009-08-28 11:36
When anchored on the eastern seaboard of North America, An Ear to the Sky appeared as a sensory organ ?istening?to the water? ambient sounds. It was like an island passively absorbing all the audio waves in its vicinity. As an aural surveillance object in the water, it transmitted the sounds of the harbour to the headset on shore. In the APEC Naru Park the left Ear? function has been inverted: rather than a listener it has become a speaker, patiently channeling unexpected sounds that were recorded by the right Ear in North America. In function it remains a passive object broadcasting sound from another continent yet its muscular form and bright colour evoke its visual power.
ⓒIlan Sandler 2008
The series of installations that includes An Ear to the Sky emboldens enlarged sense-receptors to act as independent agents in the physical landscape. Pieces in this series integrate conceptual art with sculptural traditions that date back to antiquity, representing sense organs that ?esemble updated parts of the ancient colossal statue of the emperor, Hadrian, whose fragments (a foot, a nose, etc) are still visible in Rome …The thing contained in each of Sandler? giant body parts is the concentrated power of sensory reception…One effect of the gigantism of Sandler? installations is to drag the mechanisms of surveillance back across our threshold of perception, demanding that we give them our attention.?(Robin Metcalfe, Three Senses and Table Talk, St Mary? University Art Gallery 2005.)
ⓒAlice Brittan 2008 _ Assistant Professor, Dalhousie University