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 Divided We Stand
Read 11,588
관리자 2018-08-21 10:50
Divided We Stand, Oriental ink on wall, mixed media, Dimensions variable, 2018, courtesy the artist and Art: Concept, Paris, Commissioned by Busan Biennale 2018
Zardoz, Oriental ink on wall, Video, Mixed media, Dimensions variable, 14 min 2 sec, 2018, Courtesy the artist and Art: Concept, Paris
Jean-Luc BLANC
Divided We Stand
Zardoz
For the Busan Biennale, Blanc will paint a wall section at the entrance of the Former Bank of Korea like the front cover of a pulp magazine, signing it with the title of the Biennale “Divided We Stand”. To illustrate this mural, he has chosen a particular image of a man whose eyes are highlighted by a white bright shadow. For the artist, this man represents the emblematic figure of authority. He makes a direct reference to George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984 (1949), where the world’s population is under the power of Big Brother, who we never know if he really exists, but who nevertheless was able to create an atmosphere of perpetual war, surveillance and public manipulation. But strangely, Jean-Luc Blanc’s Big Brother looks rather powerless and weak. Blanc will also paint another mural inspired by one of his favorite films, the cult-movie Zardoz. This 1974 Irish-American surrealist science-fiction film was written, produced, and directed by John Boorman, starring Sean Connery and Charlotte Rampling. In a post-apocalyptic future in the year 2293, the human population is divided into the immortal “Eternals” and mortal “Brutals.” It is this political metaphysical duality that particularly interests the artist and perfectly reflects and personifies the main theme of divided territories of this year’s Busan Biennale.