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 Invisible Building
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관리자 2013-03-25 10:17
INVISIBLE BUILDING
People move, things move, lines and colors hover across saturated dark surfaces. Lines are made to correspond to each other; the shape of a human figure, drawn with minimal means, mimics what could be either a mountain range or only a heap of sand. With the background forming a dark hole, the figure cannot aspire to be more than a cipher. Something and nothing are difficult to distinguish from one another. In fact, with the exception of line and sparsely applied pigment, the painting itself is almost nothing.Contour lines emerge from the indeterminate surface, giving way to strong color contrasts. A human figure rests on what appears to be a heavy sack, with other sacks scattered around. People carry things, dance, appear fatigued—there is a formal exercise going on, one that recalls both the economy of Matisse and Korea’s building boom.
Gverovic’s work in “Garden of Learning” consists of two separate yet interconnected parts: paintings and paravents. The painterly forms appear again on the paravents, though the background is now transparent.Traditionally, paravents serve to divide – or better – to articulate space. They may also cater to a certain visual economy. To the eyes that may feel cheated out of a view (indeed the very same view the screen is meant to block) they offer a painting as compensation – a visual surrogate.Gverovic’s transparent screens engage in an exchange between the invisible and the visible that is similar to the one characterizing the Asian paravent as an art form. But they deal with a different reality than the one blocked from our view.