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 Protest Tokyo
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관리자 2013-03-25 10:11
Protest Tokyo
TOKYO STREET SCENES AND CHERRY BLOSSOMS
To-matsu, a towering figure in 20th century photography (his camera immortalized the scars and burns of Nagasaki), is showing pictures from the Tokyo Street Scenes (1969) and Cherry Blossoms (early 1980s) series.The photographs of the student riots were taken around Shinjuku Station. It is the biggest train station in Tokyo, but also – as the New York Times (Oct. 22, 1969) put it – “a gaudy center of nightlife and a gathering place for hippie-type elements” . The riots were mainly directed against the renewal of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty (under which Japan was forced to provide military bases, including the island of Okinawa, to American forces) and in protest of the war in Vietnam. The battles nearly paralyzed the metropolis.Judging by the cool, sometimes lyrical abstraction of the photographs, To-matsu did not take sides as so much art engagé at that time was prone to do. Instead, he observed the battles between the policemen and guerilla bands “with the eyes of a stray dog” (To-matsu).He thus recreated in himself, and on an intimate scale, the utter confusion of the revolutionary moment.
The Cherry Blossoms (or sakura) series revisits a mythical Japanese plant. Quoted in earlier times as a source of the nation’s strength, or an adornment for its imperialist fantasies, To-matsu indulges in a close-up of the blossom’s breathtaking and evanescent beauty – beyond all meaning and narrative (except for hinting discreetly at the cropped imagery in Japanese printing techniques, and thus aligning his art with a well-established pictorial tradition).But what appears to be the photographer’s attempt to cleanse the cherry blossom of all symbolic value is double-edged. His shots contemplate a certain visual intrusiveness on the part of the sakura. This intrusive character is of course a subtle matter. As a sensual experience, the phenomenon corresponds to the miraculous scent of certain flowers. If this scent becomes too dominant, it reveals either an insufferable, vulgar essence or a perverse richness, which basically amounts to the same thing.