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 Scenic Spot Open Temporarily
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관리자 2018-08-21 11:59
Scenic Spot Open Temporarily, Used newspaper, wood step, 185 x 800 cm, 1995, Courtesy of Boers-Li Gallery and the artist
ZHANG Peili
Scenic Spot Open Temporarily
In the Busan Biennale, Zhang focuses on language and information, using collected newspapers to form a generative metaphor for the boundaries that so often condition personal and inter-cultural relationships. Scenic Spot Open Temporarily (2018) reprises a sculpture and performance work that Zhang first created in 1995. Upon arriving in New York in 1994, Zhang found that the city’s plethora of multi-lingual broadsheets communicated both the freedom possible in this city, and the constant anxiety over communication, which attends such a situation. He thus collected the newspapers, eventually building an imposing wall across the gallery space. In Busan, this wall is re-created, along with a performance whereby the artist sits on the wall’s opposite side, hand-tearing newspapers. Viewers can only attempt to peer over the large barrier, with help from a small wooden platform. Scenic Spot Open Temporarily becomes newly charged, at a time when phenomena such as the ongoing migrant crisis make communication more crucial than ever, and when the authority of news media faces unprecedented challenges.