Grande mostra per il trentesimo della Biennale di Gwangju

[11|05|2010] |||contemporary art/event

Grande mostra per il trentesimo della Biennale di Gwangju

12 may – 13 june 2010 | gwangiu museum of art kunstalle | gwangiu – korea

The Flower of May is an event that commemorates the 30th anniversary of the Gwangju civil uprising. Co-sponsored by four organizations, including the Gwangju Biennale Foundation, it comprises a major art exhibition, panel discussions, and a performance; it has been organized as a festival that engages the participation of both artists and general public. Also, through a symposium that explores the various interplays of discourses on art and participation, politics, revolution, and aesthetics, the event will attempt a critical reading at large of the contexts of today’s contemporary culture and art.
The title of the exhibition, The Flower of May , refers to the civil uprising in Gwangju from May 1980. However, the exhibition itself is not about empirically witnessing the historical facts or drawing a historical lesson from them, but it is about providing a platform for surveying the evolution of the history in the past thirty years. The exhibition as such will serve as a platform for visual culture in situ, by showcasing the diversity of expressions pluralized in the era of globalization; active communication with civil society; and public participation.
The artists invited have not been so much interested in the social role of art as they have been about social practice of art. These are artists whose major focus has been on communicating actively with the public; they have continuously re-investigated the meaning of the utterances generated by today’s aesthetic products. In part, this is also to show the ‘archipelago aesthetics,’ which is revealed not through typology of, or concentration on, a particular theme but through a set of diverse themes.

Participating Artists: Michelangelo Pistoletto, Ai Weiwei, Afredo Jaar, Arto Lindsay, Giuseppe Stampone, Candice Breitz, Caecilia Tripp, Kader Attia, Cai Yuan & Jian Jun Xi, Matthew Schreiber, Dora García, Rainer Ganhal, Baptist Coelho, Tony Oursler, Igor Grubiæ, Nam June Paik, Seungchan Gwon, Juyon Kim, Kyungho Lee, Lee Bul, Leenam Lee, Moonho Ma, Chonggon Byun, Sunguck Kang, Dalyong Heo
Curator at large: Yongwoo Lee
Curators: Inho Cho, Ik Yun
Coordinating Curator: Alessandra Sandrolini

Along with the exhibition, there will also be panel discussions. They will critically revisit some of the most complex issues avoided in the contextualization of contemporary art today. The issues include, for example, the reevaluation of social participatory art; the decline of the art criticism and the rise of the market influence; the rise of the aesthetics of spectacle amidst the spread of global-size exhibitions; the violence of the spectacle-oriented images; or the role of the media as a mediator between art and public. This approach has the intention of avoiding the genealogical and aesthetic approach taken by art studies so far and to suggest artistic practice as a socio-cultural phenomenon.

Panels and Panel Schedule

Session 1: The subversive and experimental values of art and art movement
Date & Time: May 11 (Tue), 9:30am – 12:50pm
Speakers: Ko Un, Okwui Enwezor, Choi Hyup, Richard Noble
Discussion: Jung Kumhee, Caecilia Tripp, Igor Grubiæ

Session 2: Alternatives to the emerging phenomena of market domination and the decline of art criticism
Date & Time: May 11 (Tue), 2:30pm – 7:40pm
Speakers: Alfredo Jaar, Melisa Chiu
Discussion: Youngho Kim, Alessandra Sandrolini, Baptist Coehlo

Session 3: Art, Media, Market and the Public
Date & Time: May 12 (Wed), 9:30am – 4:30pm
Speakers: Ai Weiwei, Yongwoo Lee, Hisashi Muroi, Mami Kataoka
Discussion: Seungduk Kim, Franck Gautherot, Jiwon Kim

Arto Lindsay, the only performing artist participating in The Flower of May, is an internationally active human rights singer and visual artist who was born in the United States and is based in Brazil. He will revisit the revolutionary energy of May 1980 and give a performance of sharing that energy with the people of Gwangju at Chonnam National University, where the uprising initially sparked. The performance consists of ‘Gathering’, ‘Transforming’, and ‘Sending’. It is a musical performance as well as a performing art that involves participation from the citizens of Gwangju.