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 A Bloosom Season, Three Trees
Read 11,537
관리자 2009-08-28 11:47
For the past five years out of the 15 years of his artistic career, Yeo Chee Kiong has been creating a series of fascinating works which challenge the viewers?wits. Usually simple and reaching the extent of abstraction, his forms are in fact symbolic representations that suggest meanings while at the same time inducing chains of imagination in the viewers?mind. In the artist? own word, he ?ttempts to create a partially indefinable sculptural sensibility of the material world that is ?ealistic?and ?maginary?at the same time.?
Inspired by ideas of phenomenology and its connection with Eastern philosophy, Yeo? concept involves the notions of the self as the subject ?? shared-cognitions of human beings as ?ntersubjectivity? ?erception? ?ntentionality? etc. Putting these together, his sculptures deal with the complexities between the object, the viewer? visual perception, and the work? meaning.
Started as a figurative sculptor, Yeo took a turn from his past romantic expressionism to conceptual representation in the recent years. However, his belief in the supremacy of the tangible form is still firm. Differing from contemporary artists who reject ?rt-objects?as disposable medium of information delivery, Yeo? sculptures are essential forms crucial for situating the viewers in a unique arena. It is in this arena that the viewers?ould empirically feel and experience that ?omething?which is simultaneously definable and unknown-the poetics of reverie.
ⓒTan Yen Peng _ Art History, Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts