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.
2014 The Flying Dutchman in Blue
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관리자 2014-09-16 17:11
2013
6-channel video, 16:9, color, silent, looped
Variable Size
The Flying Dutchman in Blue
Originally commissioned as a single-channel video to accompany the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra’s concert performance of German composer Richard Wagner’s opera Der Fliegende Holländer, Shaun Gladwell’s The Flying Dutchman in Blue was subsequently presented as a six-channel video. Exchanging the sailors in Wagner’s original version with surfers (performed by professional contemporary dancers who are experienced surfers), the video follows the surfers as they negotiate the turbulent waters, depicting their bodies, gestures and improvised movements through highly abstracted sequences. Shot on the east coast of Australia, the video also points to the beach as a historically and politically charged site for Australia. Not only the recreational site that it is commonly known for today, the Australian beach space has and continues to play a significant role in Australian history and the construction of its national narrative. Gladwell sets the stage for examining Australia’s surf culture against the construction of its national identity and problematic questions of ownership of the beach space. Through a non-linear display as well as sequences that depart from Wagner’s original libretto, the work also reflects on the processes of ekphrasis and translation that has spurred generations of narratives to which art history belongs.