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 Psycho-Mapping East Asia
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관리자 2018-08-21 11:57
Psycho-Mapping East Asia, Series of 30 drawings in ink on paper, 76 x 56 cm each, 2018, Courtesy of the artist
Psycho-Mapping East Asia – 2047, Billboard / Banner, 900 x 2400 cm, 2018, Courtesy of the artist, Commissioned by Busan Biennale 2018
Jan SVENUNGSSON
Psycho-Mapping East Asia, Series of 30 drawings in ink on paper, 76 x 56 cm each, 2018, Courtesy of the artist
Psycho-Mapping East Asia – 2047, Billboard / Banner, 900 x 2400 cm, 2018, Courtesy of the artist, Commissioned by Busan Biennale 2018
Psycho-Mapping East Asia (2018), the latest iteration in this cycle of works, is a series of 30 drawings especially produced for the Busan Binneale; one of the images is colorized (the distribution of which color for what country was determined randomly) and transposed onto a large banner on the facade of the Busan Museum of Contemporary Art. Svenungsson states: “Any mistake will stay. My concentration must be very high. When the second drawing is finished, I put the first away, take a new sheet and make the third drawing a copy of the second drawing. Whatever small mistakes and deviations from the original, which happened in the second drawing, have now become part of the new original—thus, when again small mistakes happen, they begin to accumulate. And so on, over all the 30 drawings which in this case make up the series.” Inevitably, despite of the artist adhering to the map as best as he can, due to the motoric idiosyncracies implied by this process, the accumulating mistakes result in an increasing distortion. Because it is a political map putting Busan at its center, every line in the map starts to imply an impact on the actual ground. It is worth remembering that it is now 30 years since the first democratic elections in South Korea were held. This artwork incorporates all of South Korea’s neighbors and extends 30 units into the future.