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 Ilha de Vénus
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관리자 2018-08-21 10:58
Ilha de Vénus, Mixed media, Dimensions variable, 2018, Courtesy of the artist
Kiluanji Kia Henda
Ilha de Vénus
Apart from a series of works selected from the “Homem Novo” series, at the Busan Biennale, Kia Henda presents Ilha de Venus (The Isle of Venus, 2018), a work comprising sculpture, photography, and sound. The installation is an allegory about the way Europe protects its official culture history, in contrast to the criminal disregard it shows to the plight of colonized populations which have suffered from it. On a monochromatic black floor, the artist places concrete cinder construction blocks to create a foundation and many plinths. Atop this structure, the artist has placed miniature statues—cheap versions of iconic European classical figures—each covered in florescent condoms, which become abstracted vestments when stretched over the tiny muscular figures. On the gallery walls, photographs of migrant-carrying ships have been hung, with each boat blocked by a simple black rectangle. The proudness of European history thus tangles with the shameful blindness of the European present.