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Jessica Morgan gives details of Gwangju Biennale
Gwangju | 14 May 2014 | AMA | Tweet | LinkedIn
Jessica Morgan, the curator of South Korea’s forthcoming tenth Gwangju Biennale, to take place between 5 September and 9 November 2014.
Entitled Burning Down the House, the event is to explore the process of “burning and transformation”, understood as a cycle of obliteration and renewal witnessed throughout history. The event is to open with a piece by Seoul-based artist Minouk Lim: a battered container, placed outside the event, is to contain the remains of some of the civilians killed in the Korean War (1950-53). The work joins other pieces expected to provoke controversy, including an installation by South African artist Jane Alexander, which questions state control and individual freedom.
The mood is set to continue in other exhibits: Morgan hopes to borrow Picasso’s 1951 Massacre in Korea (the work is curently held at Paris’s Musee Picasso), telling the Financial Times: “Nominally Picasso was a communist, and if one thing is outlawed in South Korea, it’s communism.” If the curator is unable to borrow the work, she still wants it “in there in some form”, though admitted a copy might not be capable of causing “such a storm”. Big-name artists set to take part in the event include Jeremy Deller, Carstren Höller, Urs Fischer, and Allora &Calzadilla.
A total of 106 artists are expected to participate, 20 of whom hail from Korea itself. Whilst ostensibly international in focus, previous editions of the event have failed to attract a public from itself South Korea: in the past, only 12% of attendees have been from the country.
Jessica Morgan is the Daskalopoulos curator at Britain’s Tate Modern ? a post which sees her collect works for Tate in the Middle East and South Asia.
Tags: fair, festival, Gwangju, Gwangju Biennale, Jessica Morgan, South Korea
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