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.
2018 Improved Partisan Monument
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관리자 2018-08-21 11:53
Improved Partisan Monument (Kragujevac), Plywood, latex primer and paint, 350 x 450 x 60 cm, 2001 / 2018
Improved Partisan Monument (Jasenovac - blue), Chipboard, latex primer and paint, 200 x 200 x 200 cm, 2002 / 2018
Improved Partisan Monument (Kozara - red), Styrofoam, latex primer and paint, 210 x 100 x 100 cm, 2001 / 2018
Kosmaj Monument, Video, 9min. 48sec., 2015
Kozara Monument, Video, 10min, 2018, Courtesy of Gabriele Senn Gallery, Vienna and the artist
Jasenovac, Video, 9min, 2010, Courtesy of Gabriele Senn Gallery, Vienna, Aksenov Family Foundation collection and the artist
Marko LULIĆ
Improved Partisan Monument (Kragujevac)
Improved Partisan Monument (Jasenovac - blue)
Improved Partisan Monument (Kozara - red)
Kosmaj Monument, Video
Kozara Monument, Video
Jasenovac, Video
LULIĆ’s cycle of works titled “Improved Partisan Monument” (since 2001–ongoing) is related to gigantic abstract sculptures erected across Yugoslavia in the 1960s as public monuments to commemorate antifascist resistance during World War II. The Communist founder of Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito (1945–1980) was not only the authoritarian ruler of the country, but also, from 1961 onward, Secretary General of the global Movement of Non-Aligned States. It was non-alignment that seemed to hold the promise for Yugoslavia of steering clear of both the American and the Soviet military and economic blocs. This should not be mistaken for a sign of the absence of oppression: Yugoslavia was a tightly controlled police state with many political prisoners, and state censorship was in effect; nevertheless it was possible for artists to steer clear of Socialist Realism and instead invoke the modernism of pre-war avant-gardes. LULIĆ’s Improved Partisan Monument (Jasenovac) reference one such work. His orange chipboard sculpture is based on a gigantic abstracted flower cast in grey concrete designed by architect Bogdan Bogdanović and erected in 1966. It marks the site where the fascist Ustasha regime of Croatia, during World War II, ran a concentration camp where at least 700,000 people were murdered and that has been described as the “Yugoslav Auschwitz” (Vladimir Dedijer). In the wake of the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s, all these monuments are now separated into different national territories. After Croatia declared its independence in 1991, the Jasenovac site was suddenly located in two countries, one part now Bosnia-Herzegovina. For the Busan Biennale, LULIĆ roups his replicas together as if invoking the lost unity of Yugoslavia, while an accompanying cycle of videos features dancers interpreting the forms of the monuments, literally bringing them back to life.