Amidst the incessant march of an ever-growing number of international biennales and the archetypal behemoth, multi-sensory biennale-as-ultimate-cultural-maker-cum-social-event, it takes a certain degree of self-assured conviction to present a non-monumental series of narratives around such open-ended principles as non-hierarchical mutuality and dialogue. Yet this is exactly what ROUNDTABLE: The 9th Gwangju Biennale seeks to do. September 7–November 11, 2012.
Tintin Wulia, Nous ne notons pas les fleurs, Fort Ruigenhoek, 2011. Game performance and installation view. Courtesy of the Artist and Kaap/Stichting Storm.
Collaboratively shaped by six Co-Artistic Directors and six interrelating subthemes, ROUNDTABLE confronts us with divergent reflections on a central hypernym. Logging In and Out of Collectivity explores the navigation between evolving constructs of the ‘individual’ vs. the ‘collective’ and the entanglement of seemingly dissimilar histories at moments of crisis. Re-visiting History presents history in flux, challenging what we remember and what we invent within both personal and national narratives. Transient Encounters recognizes the reality of continuous change and the necessity to be open to possibilities of transformation and temporal fragmentation. Intimacy, Autonomy and Anonymity explores the multi-layered reality of history beyond grand political and social narratives, to reveal overlooked traces of individual lives within a city. The dominant neoliberal economic and political discourses place an even greater importance on the value of the individual spirit in remaking regional and global histories as we return Back to the Individual Experience. Cutting across all of these themes is the Impact of Mobility on Space and Time, as modern transnational realities and the simultaneous loosening / tightening of borders, migration and identity necessitate an investigation of different interpretations of mobility, spatiality, and temporality.
With its stress on finding points of interconnection, the conversational structure of ROUNDTABLE resembles a complicated Venn diagram, as many of the biennale’s over 92 participating artists and collectives could simultaneously be understood within multiple subthemes. The curators’ dialogue between disparate international, regional, and local spheres of cultural production naturally led to a series of residencies, new commissions and site-specific works created in direct conversation with the city while maintaining the integrity of individual practices of the participating artists.
ROUNDTABLE’s collective yet contrapuntal approach incorporates a multiplicity of perspectives that are allowed to comingle, unresolved, forcing us to reconsider basic presumptions about the biennale format and challenge inherent hierarchical tensions between curator and artist / artist and audience / exhibition and city / individual and group.
Forgoing the traditional is not out of character for the Gwangju Biennale, which, as the first contemporary biennale in Asia, has shaped the development of contemporary Asian art institutions and their international perception. Founded in 1995 in memory of the 1980 civil uprising for democratization, since its inception the Gwangju Biennale has preferred to function as an experimental platform that is participatory rather than didactic. Resisting the tendency of biennales to operate as venues for nationalistic identity production, the Gwangju Biennale seeks to continually challenge its own identity through negotiations with the rapidly shifting discourses of contemporary global cultural production. By embracing plurality in theme, structure, and methodology, ROUNDTABLE continues this evolving conversation.
For a full list of participating artists and a continually updated schedule, please visit www.gwangjubiennale.org
The Gwangju Biennale Foundation
111 Biennale-ro, Buk-gu
Gwangju, Republic of Korea, 500-845
T +82(0)62 608 4114
F +82(0)62 608 4219
www.gwangjubiennale.org
