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10,000 LIVES: THE EIGHTH GWANGJU BIENNALE
OPENS TO THE PUBLIC, ANNOUNCES WINNERS
OF THE INAUGURAL NOON AWARD
Hanyong Kim, Untitled, nd. C-print ? Hanyong Kim
The Gwangju Biennale Foundation and Artistic Director Massimiliano Gioni are pleased to announce that 10,000 Lives, the 8th installment of the Gwangju Biennale, is now open to the public. This edition marks the 30th anniversary of the movement that brought democracy to Korea for which the Biennale was founded.
In a press conference held yesterday at the Biennale Hall in Gwangju, South Korea, Massimiliano Gioni, Artistic Director of the 8th Gwangju Biennale, and Yongwoo Lee, CEO of the Gwangju Biennale Foundation officially presented the exhibition to several hundred local, national, and international press, and professionals gathered from all over the world. Later that evening an opening ceremony featured remarks by Gioni, Lee, by the Gwangju Biennale Foundation's President Mayor of the City of Gwangju Untae Kang, and the Minister of Culture of South Korea Yu In-Chon. The ceremony also celebrated Gustav Metzger and Haegue Yang who were chosen as winners of the Biennale's inaugural Noon Award.
The Noon Award was founded by the Gwangju Biennale Foundation to recognize an established artist and an emerging artist from that year's edition of the Biennale whose work particularly embodies its spirit and theme. For this first award a jury composed of the internationally-renowned curators Bice Curiger, Okwui Enwezor, Sungwon Kim, Akira Tatehata, and Vicente Todoli recognized the legendary 83 year old Gustav Metzger as recipient of the established artist prize, and acknowledged young South Korean Haegue Yang in the emerging artist category.
Featuring works by 134 artists from 30 different countries, along with a diverse collection of cultural artifacts that range from traditional Korean funerary dolls to an archive of 3,000 photographs of people with teddy bears, the 8th Gwangju Biennale - opened today to the public - is a sprawling, multifaceted investigation of the ties that bind people to images and images to people. More of a temporary museum than a traditional contemporary art biennale, the works included in 10,000 Lives span more than a century, beginning with the exhibition’s earliest work, from 1901, and extending up to the present day through a series of special commissions realized exclusively for the show.
The exhibition’s title is borrowed from Maninbo (Ten Thousand Lives), the 30-volume epic poem by Korean author Ko Un, which was completed this year after nearly thirty years of work. Originally conceived during the two years Ko Un spent in solitary confinement as punishment for his participation in the 1980 South Korean Democracy Movement, Maninbo is a collection of over 4,000 poems, chronicling every person Ko has ever met, including figures from history and literature.
Like Maninbo, the exhibition can be likened to a gallery of portraits. As it unfolds, the show proposes a series of case studies of our desire to create substitutes, effigies, and stand-ins of our loved ones and ourselves. This passion for images and image making is a basic human impulse: it is central to our understanding of ourselves and others, to the formation of our memories and dreams, and is a defining feature of art.
Humanity’s intense relationship with images also produces unruly emotions. We denounce images, smash them, and carry out wars in their name. It is with this in mind that the exhibition also attempts to plumb the darkest depths of representation, by collecting images that bear witness to lives cut brutally short, that act as tools of despotism and oppression, or that function as receptacles of historical trauma.
In addition to exploring the lives and histories that images contain, the exhibition also engages with the increasingly complex lives of images themselves. In a world now inundated with a seemingly endless stream of photographs and digital phantasms, where a picture can be transformed into an icon overnight, the exhibition attempts to understand how images have been transformed though recent social and technological upheavals.
To download the press kit of the exhibition, please click here
To download a selection of the images in the exhibition please click here
Participating Artists:
Pawel Althamer (Poland) 1967, Carl Andre (USA) 1935, Tauba Auerbach (USA) 1981, Morton Bartlett (USA) 1903-1992, Thomas Bayrle (Germany) 1937, E.J. Bellocq (USA) 1873-1949, Irina Botea (Romania) 1970, Kerstin Br?tsch (Germany) 1976, Glenn Brown (England) 1966, James Lee Byars (USA) 1932-1997, Duncan Campbell (Ireland) 1972,. James Castle (USA) 1899-1977, Maurizio Cattelan (Italy) 1960, Hye-Jeong Cho (South Korea), Anne Collier (USA) 1970, Roberto Cuoghi (Italy) 1973, Keren Cytter (Israel) 1977, Andre DeDienes (Romania) 1913-1985, Philip-Lorca diCorcia (USA) 1951, Mike Disfarmer (USA) 1884-1959, Walker Evans (USA) 1903-1975, Eye Glass Shop (South Korea), Harun Farocki (Germany) 1944, Jean Fautrier (France) 1898-1964, Hans-Peter Feldmann (Germany) 1941, Peter Fischli & David Weiss (Switzerland) 1952/1946, Lee Friedlander (USA) 1934, Katharina Fritsch (Germany) 1956, Aur?lien Froment (France) 1976, Paul Fusco (USA) 1930, Cyprien Gaillard (France) 1980, Rupprecht Geiger (Germany) 1908-2009, Franz Gertsch (Switzerland) 1930, Hermann Gl?ckner (Germany) 1889-1987, Guo Fengyi (China) 1942-2010, Yang-A Ham (South Korea) 1968, Ydessa Hendeles/Teddy Bear Project (Canada) 1948, Thomas Hirschhorn (Switzerland) 1957, Tom Holert (Germany) 1962, Arnoud Holleman (The Netherlands) 1964 Carsten H?ller (Belgium) 1961, Roni Horn (USA) 1955, Tehching Hsieh (Singapore) 1950, Huang Yong Ping (China) 1954, Sanja Ivekovic (Croatia) 1949, Lee Jung (South Korea), Yasmine Kabir (Bangladesh), Kan Xuan (China) 1972, Jacob Kassay (USA) 1984, Leandro Katz (Argentina) 1938, Mike Kelley (USA) 1954, Konrad Klapheck (Germany) 1935, Alice Kok (Macau), Emma Kunz (Switzerland) 1892-1963, Maria Lassnig (Austria) 1919, Mark Leckey (England) 1964, Sherri Levine (USA) 1947, Liu Wei (China) 1965, Liu Zheng (China) 1969, Gustav Metzger (born in Germany, lives in England) 1926, Namhan Photo Studio (South Korea), Bruce Nauman (USA) 1941, Shinro Ohtake (Japan) 1955, Henrik Olesen (Denmark) 1967, Eliot Porter (USA) 1901-1990, Seth Price (USA) 1973, Peter Roehr (German) 1944-1968, Dieter Roth (Germany) 1930-1998, Ataru Sato (Japan) 1986, Jean-Fr?d?ric Schnyder (Switzerland) 1945, Paul Sharits (USA) 1943-1993, Cindy Sherman (USA) 1954, Sichuan Academy (China), Hito Steyerl (Germany) 1966, Sturtevant (USA) 1930, Tong Bingxue (China) 1969, Ryan Trecartin (USA) 1981, Tuol Sleng Photographs (Cambodia), Useful Photography (The Netherlands), Franco Vaccari (Italy) 1936, Stan Van Der Beek (USA) 1927-1984, Danh Vo (Vietnam) 1975, Andro Wekua (Georgia) 1977, Wu Wenguang (China) 1956, Christopher Williams (USA) 1956, Haegue Yang (South Korea) 1971, Zhang Enli (China) 1965, Zhou Xiahou (China), Jakub Ziolkowski (Poland) 1980, Artur Zmijewski (Poland) 1966.
ABOUT THE GWANGJU BIENNALE
Founded in 1995 in memory of the spirit of civil uprising resulting from the 1980 repression of the Gwangju Democratization Movement, the Gwangju Biennale is Asia's oldest and most prestigious biennial of contemporary art. Under the helm of previous curators that include Kerry Brougher, Sukwon Chang, Okwui Enwezor, Charles Esche, Hou Hanru, Honghee Kim, Yongwoo Lee, Youngchul Lee, Kwangsoo Oh, Wankyoung Sung and Harald Szeemann, the Gwangju Biennale has established itself as a highlight of the international contemporary art biennale circuit.
MEDIA CONTACT
For additional information and images of the exhibition or of the opening events please contact:
| US & International |
Korea |
| Andy Cushman Rumors Communication Gwangju Biennale Foundation |
Jin Kyong Jeong Public Relations Department Gwangju Biennale Foundation |
| T: +1 (347) 627-0050 M: +1 (917) 744-4042 andy@rumorscommunication.com |
T: +82 62 608 4222 F: +82 62 608 4229 1212jjk@gb.or.kr |