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 Bird, Foam
Read 11,266
관리자 2018-08-29 14:35
Bird, Foam, fabric, feathers, 100 x 900 x 450 cm, 2015 / 2018, Courtesy of the artists
Laura LIMA and Ze Carlos GARCIA
Bird, Foam
Lima’s Homem=carne/mulher=carne—Pelos + Rede (man=flesh/woman=flesh—hair + hammock, 1996/2010), on show at the Busan Museum of Contemporary Art, is another case in point: a naked man and woman idle in a giant hammock. Both are covered by absurdly lengthened hair (in his case protruding from his eye brows, in hers from her pubic hair). At the former Bank of Korea building, the themes of Lima’s work transition into an even more fantastical mode. In Bird (2016/2018), collaboration with Brazilian artist Ze Carlos Garcia, viewers encounter a gigantic black bird comprised of black feathers lying on the floor. This work thus stirs the multiple ways in which we might encounter animals— recognizing them as a distinct species, empathizing with them as embodied kin, or experiencing them as haunting reminders of the dystopian fragmentation and destruction of natural habitats now and in the near future. In this way, a timely counter-anthropocentric theme runs through Lima’s contribution. Still, the work resists direct social or political meaning, instead doing the classical work of sculpture—to estrange and illuminate our relationship to the world.