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 The Gift from North Korea
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관리자 2018-08-21 10:51
The Gift from North Korea, Digital C-print, Dimensions variable, 2013 ~ 2015
The Gifts from Africa, Digital C-print, Dimensions variable, 2017
My Utopia, Video, Set installation, 26min 38sec, Dimensions Variable, 2018, Courtesy of the artist
Onejoon CHE
The Gift from North Korea
The Gifts from Africa
My Utopia
Che’s early film work Mullae (Spinning Wheel) (2011) focuses on multilayered histories of Mullae-dong in Seoul by looking at a bust of former authoritarian president Park Chung-hee in a public park and ironworks flourished in this district during his regime. The artist’s concern about sculpture and monuments seen in this work became a stepping stone for his next work. Mansudae Master Class (2012–16), some items of which are displayed at this Biennale, is a collection of photographs and films of statues, monuments, and architecture that can be found in 13 cities across nine African countries. What is unique about these creations is that they were all built by North Korea, either as gifts or by commission. The artist visited all of them to attempt to trace back the motivation and the process. Che faced the ironic yet undeniable realization that he could understand North Korea better through Africa. The Biennale also showcases International Friendship(2017–18) which borrows from North Korea’s International Friendship Exhibition in which over 150 presents Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il received from world leaders are exhibited. Che found a catalogue of the International Friendship Exhibition in a library in South Korea but the library did not allow people to borrow or copy the book. But Che scanned it in secrecy at the library and used it as a reference point in his sculpture. His video installation My Utopia (2018) will also be showcased. It is a film which adopted a documentary theater format inspired by the story of Monique Macias, who was the daughter of the first President of Equatorial Guinea in Africa and spent 16 years in exile in Pyongyang due to a coup in the country. The actresses play Macias or people surrounding her. It is not surprising to see people in the film expressing their curiosity of different skin colors and each other’s foreign languages. The installation is like the Mobius strip as the set in the film is installed and in the set this film is screened. It reveals how similar individual identity issues are—including a sense of community, nationality, race, and language—in both Koreas, as well as the structural problems of the relationship between the Koreas and their diplomacy.