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 Mansudae Overseas Project
Read 12,971
관리자 2018-08-21 11:52
Mansudae Overseas Project, Bronze, 72 x 27 x 25 cm, 2013, Courtesy of Tanya Leighton, Berlin and the artist
Oliver LARIC
Mansudae Overseas Project
Mansudae Overseas Project (2013) is a small bronze sculpture commissioned by Laric, and executed by Ri Sun Myong, a Merit Artist of the Mansudae art studio in Pyongyang, North Korea. As the artist has stated: “It’s not a specific person. I sent written descriptions of a pose, an age range and style of clothing. A live model stood in for the sculpting, but I am quite certain that this model does not share too many resemblances with the final sculpture. As it is quite common with socialist realist sculpture, there is an element of idealisation of archetypes.“ The contact was made possible by Mansudae’s international liaison Pier Luigi Cecioni, an Italian orchestra director who became the manager of international projects while visiting Pyongyang in 2005. This bronze might be Mansudae’s first international commission by a private person and only the second coming from Europe (the only other known being a reconstruction of bronze figures for the Fairy Tale Fountain in Frankfurt/Main, Germany, of 2005). Laric: “Mansudae has been affected by recent sanctions [against North Korea] and Cecioni is no longer able to produce or commission new works. So the production of a bronze would currently not be possible.