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.
2022 Kim Dohee
Read 2,838
관리자 2022-12-16 15:57
The Beach under the Skin, 2021 – 2022, Water paint on wood panel, 238.6×1076cm.
Vanishing Point of the Body, 2020, Wood panel, 240×122cm (7).
Vanishing Point of the Body, 2020, Single-channel video installation, sound, color, 6min. 14sec.
Shrimp Fingers, 2017, Archival pigment print, 59.4×84.1cm.
Kim Dohee was born and spent her childhood in the shipyard village known as Kangkangee Maeul in Yeongdo, Busan, an island seen from Pier 1. “Kangkangee” refers to removing barnacles and rust on the ship. In her work The Beach under the Skin, the artist undertakes the process of grinding the entire long wall of the exhibition space with a grinder used for kangkangee, thoroughly experiencing this process of labor with her own body. The white wall of the exhibition space is peeled off in layers by the grinder, revealing traces of the coats of paint that had been applied on the wall in previous exhibitions. The atypical pattern in the inner flesh of the wall like growth rings in a tree extends its memory and vitality like new flesh forming on a wound. In Kangkangee, people hang on the side of the ship, hammering away on the boats for a long time. In the same way, the noise, dust and vibration caused by this work takes the artist back to her childhood memories. This work also connects to the photographic work Shrimp Fingers shown in this exhibition.
This physical experience is deepened further with the use of circular stone drills in the work Vanishing Point of the Body, which is an extension of the 2017 series The Beach under the Skin. The repetitive labor in grinding plywood with the grinder, operated only through the weight and pressure of the body, caused dust, noise, and vibration due to friction heat. The seven plates of plywood carrying traces of such labor invite the viewer to imagine the artist’s own personal experiences. In a video of the same title which records the process of this work, the viewer can read the sense of the body the artist emphasizes through her intervention of the labor process.
b. 1979, Busan, South Korea
Lives in Seoul, South Korea
Kim Dohee uses her personal and intimate experiences as a basis for performative explorations of the meaning of existence. The focus of her work is on the body as substance and its vitality. Her aim is to use the relationship between human organic properties and primitive material sensations as a foundation for expanding life senses. She uses a wide range of media in her work, including performance, video, installation, photography, and painting. She has held the solo exhibitions TUMMO (KIMHEESOO Art Center, Seoul, 2022) and Signs of Extinction (CR Collective, Seoul, 2020) and taken part in numerous group events including the Gangwon Triennale 2021 and the 2020 Yeosu International Art Festival.