Gwangju Biennale at the Tate Modern
A Roundtable on ROUNDTABLE: The 9th Gwangju Biennale

LONDON, United Kingdom, June 6^th, 2012 ? ROUNDTABLE: The 9th Gwangju Biennale, described as an open-ended series of collaborations, continued its evolving conversation with a panel discussion at the Tate Modern. An initial list of participating artists was announced, with the full list of 93 artists to be announced in July.

Titled “A Roundtable on ROUNDTABLE: The 9^th Gwangju Biennale”, the discussion featured four of the six Co-Artistic Directors of the 9th Gwangju Biennale - Sunjung Kim, Mami Kataoka, Carol Yinghua Lu, Nancy Adajania - and the President of the Gwangju Biennale Foundation, Dr. Yongwoo Lee. Expanding the physical and conceptual circle of the roundtable, two of the six 2012 Gwangju Biennale Co-Artistic Directors ? Wassan Al-Khudhairi and Alia Swastika ? joined the conversation from the audience. Under the moderation of Lorenzo Fusi, curator of the International Exhibition at the 2012 Liverpool Biennial, the event provided a unique platform for discussion on the curators’ diverse modalities, their influence on each other’s thinking, and how they envision the mental and physical space of the exhibition.

As the Co-Artistic Directors explained, “The diversity of the artists participating in ROUNDTABLE is reflective of the broad range of experiences and curatorial practices that we as individuals bring to this project. The works may at times be in conversation or at times in opposition with one another. We have collaborated to create a platform where a shifting relationship between works and multi-faceted themes is possible, creating points of connection and conversation.”

ABOUT ROUNDTABLE: THE 9^th GWANGJU BIENNALE

ROUNDTABLE will feature over 93 artists, artist groups, and temporary collectives from 44 countries.  Expanding beyond the 8,100 square meter Gwangju Biennale Hall to select locations across the city, the exhibition runs from September 7^th to November 11^th, 2012 and will present 43 new commissions and 15 residencies, including many process based installations and performance works. Conceived of as an evolving project, ROUNDTABLE includes a series of Workstations and E-Journals in the build up to and during the main exhibition, aimed at engaging with a global audience.

ROUNDTABLE is as much a description of the working relationship between the 2012 Gwangju Biennale’s six Co-Artistic Directors (Nancy Adajania, Wassan Al-Khudhairi, Mami Kataoka, Sunjung Kim, Carol Yinghua Lu, and Alia Swastika) as it is a lens through which to explore the biennale’s sub-themes, their intersections and their contradictions.The six subthemes of the ROUNDTABLE are: Logging In and Out of Collectivity  |  Re-visiting History  |  Transient Encounters  |  Intimacy, Autonomy and Anonymity  |  Back to the Individual Experience  |  Impact of Mobility on Space and Time.

The act of curation is thus a synthesis - a series of collisions that leads to transformation and cross-contamination. ROUNDTABLE acknowledges the impossibility of unconditional collaboration and challenges us to consider a non-hierarchical mode of global cultural production and exchange.

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS

An initial list of participating artists and artist collectives has been announced, including: Abraham Cruzvillegas (Mexico), Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin (UK/ South Africa), Aki Sasamoto (Japan/USA), Ala Younis (Palestine/ Jordan), Boris Groys (Germany), Chosil Kil (South Korea), Craig Walsh + Hiromi Tango (Australia/ Japan), Chto delat? /What is to be done? (Russia), Darinka Pop-Mitic (Serbia), Delaine Le Bas (UK), Do Ho Suh ( South Korea), Faycal Baghriche (Algeria), Fouad Elkhoury (France/ Lebanon), Haroon Mirza (UK), Jeong-lok LEE (South Korea), Julia Dault (Canada/ USA), Li Ran (China), Maha Maamoun (Egypt), Michael Joo (USA), Nastio Mosquito (Angola), Sara Nuytemans (Belgium), Scott Eady (New Zealand), Slavs and Tatars (Moroco /Lebanon /Romania /France), Sophia Al Maria (Qatar), Tintin Wulia (Indonesia), Vertical Submarine (Singapore), and the xurban_collective (Turkey).

A full list of participating artists and artist collectives will be announced in July.