The Gwangju Biennale Foundation announces details of the GB Commission and Pavilion Projects

The Gwangju Biennale Foundation is proud to announce details of the GB Commission (Gwangju Biennale Commissions) and Pavilion Projects, two international programmes which were launched in 2018 to explore the history of the Biennale from new perspectives and facilitate international exchange.

The GB Commission, which seeks to explore the history, architectural artifacts, traditions, memories and civil spirit of the city of Gwangju and the origin of the Gwangju Biennale, will see seven international artists - Ho Tzu Nyen, Minouk Lim, Chiharu Shiota, Bae Young-hwan, Sung Hwan Kim, Lee Bul, and Tarek Atoui - create monumental, site-specific new work, exploring the historic sites throughout the city of Gwangju in which their work will be displayed; as well as the restaging of two previous GB Commission installations, by Kader Attia and Mike Nelson. The Pavilion Project will welcome arts organizations from Switzerland and Taiwan to participate and explore the founding principles of the Biennale—democracy, human rights, and peace.

The GB Commission | site-specific installations throughout Gwangju

One of the fundamental impulses of GB Commission is to embody what Korean philosopher Goo-yong Park has described as the result of previous struggles of the art world to overcome the awkward encounter between a utopic space and heterotopic works. The Gwangju Biennale Foundation invites seven prominent artists to present their work at various locations across the city of Gwangju:  the Asia Culture Center Creation Space 5 (ACC Creation Space 5), Gwangju Cultural Foundation, and the former Armed Forces’ Gwangju Hospital. Each artist’s work is either showcased as site-specific and contextual works; or created in heterogeneous context but displayed in a particular manner to be linked to places that hold the memories of Gwangju. In the process, the Foundation hopes to deliver the Biennale’s founding principles of democracy, human rights, and peace to audiences far beyond the city limits.

The latest GB Commission productions include Ho Tzu Nyen’s The 49th Hexagram, a two-channel animation work that examines the significance of the democratic movement in Gwangju against the backdrop of the numerous uprisings that recurred throughout the Korea’s history of mobilisation toward democracy;  Minouk Lim’s Mr. Chai Eui Jin and 1,000 Canes, a poignant installation that traces the perennial oeuvre of Chai Eui Jin, a survivor of the civilian massacre committed against unarmed civilians just before the outbreak of the Korean War; Chiharu Shiota’s Language of God, a site-specific installation that resonates with the richly temporal traces inside the catholic chapel of the former Armed Forces’ Gwangju Hospital; Bae Young-hwan’s Pop Song: March for the Beloved(1997-2021), comprising a re-edited video and pavement blocks with engraved letters, which conjure both the visual memory of what once were crowed road surfaces, and auditory and tactile recollections through the lyrics of a popular protest song that are carved into each block; Sung Hwan Kim’s Hair is a piece of head, a single-channel film that explores undocumented Korean immigrant histories at the turn of the 20th century in the US; Lee Bul’s Civitas Solis and Aubade V, two restaged and recomposed works that present the shifts in the atmosphere of the former Armed Forces’ Gwangju Hospital through the formal invention of a Modernist tower and fragmented mirrors respectively, while the perception of the works is suspended between the intimate and the political, subjectivity and abstraction; and Tarek Atoui’s The Elemental Set an ongoing project composed of an ensemble of instruments, sound objects and compositional ideas, inspired by Korean musical traditions and the philosophy that lies within.

These new commissions are shown alongside the restaging of two previous GB Commission installations: Kader Attia’s Shifting Borders, a three-channel film that explores the conception of “repair” and different cultural means of dealing with trauma; and Mike Nelson’s Mirror reverb (the blinding of a building, a notation for another), a site-specific installation that reinterprets the physicality and internality of the former Armed Forces’ Gwangju Hospital church.

The Pavilion Project | A Forum for International Exchange

The Pavilion Projects invites leading international art institutions to present emerging artists from their own countries alongside Korean artists, creating a forum for international exchange and connecting the Gwangju region to the global arts community. Existing independently from the Biennale exhibition, the Pavilion Projects present new perspectives on historic sites in Gwangju, raise awareness of Korean artists on a global stage, and contribute to the revitalization of collaborations between participating countries and Korean art institutions, expanding on the production of contemporary art discourse afforded by the Gwangju Biennale’s main exhibition. The 13th Gwangju Biennale Pavilion Projects welcomes arts organisations from Switzerland and Taiwan. Kunsthaus Pasquart of Switzerland will reveal its project at the Eunam Museum of Arts. Projects from the Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab (C-LAB), the National Human Rights Museum of Taipei, and the Taipei Performing Arts Center will be on display at ACC Creation Space 5.

Kunsthaus Pasquart at the Eunam Museum of Art

ALONE TOGETHER by Anna Anderegg

Dates:  

February 26-March 3, 2021 Live Performance* 11 am – 4 pm

Closed on Sunday 28 February

February 26- May 9, 2021 Installation 11 am – 5 pm

Closed on Sundays

Co-organised by Kunsthaus Pasquart, Biel/Bienne (CH) and the Eunam Museum of Arts, ALONE TOGETHER is a performative piece and visual installation by the Swiss choreographer Anna Anderegg, whose practice explores the interdependence of the human body and its habitat. 

ALONE TOGETHER investigates the narcotic distractions of technology, consumerism and celebrity culture through a performance and a film. The performance takes place in an abstract space and a complex five-hour looped time structure. The performed actions build a networked space through which the audience can wander freely. In the work, four women invite the public to reflect on digital connectivity, online empathy, attention, isolation and absence in a multi-layered narrative. While the eyes of the performers linger through the digital windows on the happenings of the world, the viewers watch their disconnected bodies as they stare at their screens and gradually transform into hybrid living sculptures, serving and glorifying the technological devices. Viewers begin to wonder at which point the bodies are still in control of their own movements or if the process of automation has taken over unconscious physical actions.

Anna Anderegg’s work can be seen as a bodily and spatial negotiation between closeness and distance, which becomes a conscious mediation between audience, dancers, space and the imagination. Her choreographic works leave a strong visual impact in a multitude of art forms that cluster in unexpected environments, from public space, private apartments, industrial halls, to theatres and art museums. Anderegg’s work has been shown throughout Europe, as well as in Asia and the United States. In 2018, she created the piece FRAGMENTED, commissioned by the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow. FRAGMENTED explores self-staging on social media platforms while responding to the space’s architecture, designed by Rem Koolhaas.

* Originally the body of work was conceived as a film and a choreographic performance. Due to the postponement, the live performance is captured and can be experienced in the form of a spatial video installation specially created for the Gwangju Biennale.

C-LAB at Asia Culture Center Creation Space 5

Double Echoing

Date: February 24-May 9, 2021

Taiwan Contemporary Cultural Lab (C-LAB) together with the National Human Rights Museum (NHRM) and Taipei Performing Arts Center (TPAC) explore through art the democratic developments and pursuit of human rights, freedom and universal values in both Taiwan and South Korea. Fourteen Taiwanese and Korean artists, in 8 groups dedicated to human rights, political art and other universal issues, will share the stage at Gwangju’s Asia Culture Center. A highlight of the exhibition is the onsite display of pieces from the Green Island Human Rights Art Festival, a joint commission with the NHRM. 

Double Echoing examines the contemporary histories of Taiwan and South Korea: two Southeast Asian democracies whose histories bear close resemblance. Through the multiple echoing of “body/sound” in space and time, Double Echoing creates a multi-level immersive experience for the body, exploring similar happenings across contemporary Asia, particularly in South Korea and Taiwan. In addition to physical mirroring, the phrase “double echoing” references multiple reflections of sound waves, as well as the multi-level, reflective thinking of humans on historical events which, akin to the reverberations of sound waves, linger in our bodies and minds.

Participating artists reinterpret and redefine the boundaries between body politics and collective consciousness. Some, by revisiting history, attempt to decolonize the past and shed light on how the state apparatus imposed social constraints on the public; while others compose songs to speak the minds of the people. On the 40th anniversary of the Gwangju Uprising, Double Echoing hopes to make peace with the past by the power of art, and to celebrate bravery and freedom.

ENDS

Notes to Editors 

Media contacts 

National press contact: Elisa Lee, elisa.lee@gwangjubiennale.org

International press contact: Sam Talbot, sam@sam-talbot.com

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