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The first Gwangju Biennale did not only want to "go beyond borders" in relation to ideology, nations, religions, races, cultures, and art itself, but rather to "stage a so-called 'post-' festival, which means...describing the 'post-' rhetoric". Artistic director Yongwoo Lee sees the 1990s as the age of post-Communism, post-Ideology, post-Colonialism (interview - in German).
Compared to established art events, this biennial was meant to stand out in that it strives to draw "young artists from places outside of the center, for example from Africa, Asia...". This was not particularly new, since especially the latter has already been done by the Havana Biennial since 1984.
To start it off, the Gwangju Biennale was provided with a lavish budget of 23 million US dollars. The number of the participating artists (660 from 58 countries), as well as that of the visitors (1.6 million) is also enormously high. In a review of the 3rd Biennale, Frank Hartmann writes that this first edition seemed in part like a huge Korean people's fair with international participation. Contributing to this was, among other things, the accompanying entertainment areas.
See dates and facts in our overview. |
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Interview
with Yongwoo Lee, artistic director of the 1st Gwangju Biennale
(in German)
official website |
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