An excerpt from the forthcoming treatise on photography by Jean-Philippe Obu-Stevenson: Snappy Snaps: Irrigating the Re-Un-De-Framed Conceptual Contextual Medium Mediation of the Imaged Photographic Picture (Editions Obu-Stevenson, Schipol Airport, 2012)
I recently went to Gwangju following an invitation to be one of the six female Asian artistic directors of next year’s Gwangju Biennale. As I left Beijing for Korea, I was mindful of the disappearance last month of Ai Weiwei, who is the co-artistic director for 2011 Gwangju Design Biennale (which opens on 2 September). There hasn’t yet been any news about Ai’s condition or contact with his family – it’s as if he has fallen into an unfathomable black hole. At this stage, no one seems to know what is the best thing to do.
Though geographically, my trip was extended due to a transfer from Seoul Airport to Gimpo Airport, where domestic flights from Seoul to Gwangju operate frequently. At Gimpo I met up with Mami Kataoka, Chief Curator of Mori Art Museum and a fellow artistic director for the 2012 Gwangju Biennale. Kataoka had flown in from Tokyo, a city still working through the aftermath of the earthquake, tsunami and the nuclear accident. In China, people have been gripped by the fear of nuclear radiation blown in by wind. Despite the countries’ proximity, it has been difficult for us to measure the real effect of this unprecedented disaster on the daily lives of the Japanese. ‘How do people cope with the situation?’ I asked Kataoka. Her answer was surprisingly calm: ‘We try to get on with life as much as possible. We are kind of used to it and we still go to work, try to eat outside, and buy in supermarkets so that the economy of the area can maintain a certain level. We are used to earthquakes so we would be having a coffee in the office and the quake happens and we would say, “there it goes again…“’
Her answer struck me deeply, as, in China, the media’s coverage of the disaster-struck area has been ubiquitously one-dimensional; much of the focus has been on the damage caused and the potential harm on us, rather than on the surviving and the everyday. Speaking to Kataoka I felt immediately closer to Japan and more relaxed about being in Korea, even though friends had warned me about the higher risks of nuclear radiation exposure there.
In Gwangju we met up with Nancy Adajania (an independent critic and curator from Mumbai), Wassan Al-Khudhairi (chief curator and acting director of Mathaf, Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha), Kim Sunjung (a Seoul-based independent curator and professor at the Korea National University of Arts), to be presented to the Biennale’s board of directors for approval of our appointments to be the co-artistic directors of the 2012 Gwangju Biennale. We began our three-day site visit at the Gwangju Museum of Art, which is adjacent to the Biennale building in Jungwoi Park. The museum’s programme is a mixture of exhibitions of traditional, modern or contemporary art and craft, as well as local and international projects, arts and cultural events. When we were there, an exhibition of works concerned with the relationship of human beings with the nature by local artists entitled ‘Dream of Butterfly’ was on view. There was also an intriguing documentary exhibition on Choi Seung-hee, a legendary Korean modern dancer that was born in Seoul, went to North Korea as a member of the Workers’ Party of Korea after the second world war but was purged by the party, and disappeared from public view in 1967. She died in 1969.
We also visited one of the downtown venues of the Gwangju Museum of Art, the Sangrok Gallery (above), the building of which was initially established in 1982 as the official residence of a local governor. Overlooking a beautiful forest, this site was launched as a branch gallery of the Gwangju Museum of Art to provide the people in the city with better access to cultural events. There was another nature-inspired exhibition of local Gwangju artists on display. As we continued our trip, we were to discover the dedication of the city to providing local Gwangju artists with possibilities of work and exhibition is remarkably consistent.
While most of the Biennale’s history is recorded in writing, the Daein traditional market in Gwangju is like a living record of the Bokdukbang Project, which was part of the 7th edition of the Biennale. Curated by Sung-Hyen Park, the project invited artists to set up workshops and initiate events throughout the market. Afterwards, the workshops remained and more artists have since rented small spaces inside the market, among vendors of seafood, vegetable, meat, spices and snacks. Subsidized by the local government, the artist studios are cheap and well managed. They are relatively small, cute and pleasant, funky storefronts blended well with the neatly organized market. We learned that the market was on the edge of closing yet the project brought energy and renewed business interest to the area. Soon after, a local magazine also moved into create their basis there (above). The market has also gradually recovered its liveliness and continued to exist.
We stopped at a shop in front of which an old woman was pealing chestnuts. She pointed at a picture of her with Okwui Enwezor hung in front of her shop. Along the way, we also saw colourful seafood stands that had been painted by artists, as well as a tea vendor whose cart had been painted. We were shown around in the market by Seungki Cho, director of Mite-Ugro, a non-profit organization established by local young artists and curators. Occupying a few places including a basement level exhibition space, a rooftop, a street-level office, Mite-Ugro is more like a community centre for artists working in the market and visiting for residencies at their guesthouse. There, we met a group of young artists (from Thailand, Taiwan, Japan as well as other cities in Korea) who were participating in the Asian Young Artist Festival that was on in Gwangju throughout April. Mite-Ugro was showing a range of interactive installations and sculptural works by five artists working locally. On the roof-top of Mite-Ugro, a number of artists was testing a sound-piece based on recording from the market and would be showing in an event at the Gwangju Kunsthalle over the weekend.
Opened during the last Gwangju Biennale in 2010, the Gwangju Kunsthalle (above) is made up of 29 dark grey and orange cargo containers that provide an airy space. It operates as a platform for interactive and performance-based events, including lectures, music, night markets and new-media projects. It’s located in the middle of the site for the Asian Culture Complex that is currently under construction in downtown Gwangju, a key site of the 1980 civil uprising, and is scheduled to open in 2014. Standing on top of the Kunsthalle, the now derelict provincial office building from the 1980 was still in sight, reminding a turning point in the recent history of Korea. When completed, the ambitious compound will be showcasing many aspects of Asian culture, including music, performance and art. The Gwangju Kunsthalle will also terminate its container-based existence and move into a new venue then.
Hopping onto a 45-minute plane ride to Seoul felt as convenient as a taxi ride. Once there, the visits consisted largely of museums, art centres and commercial galleries, and we were exposed to another scene and dynamic that felt more institutionalized and less street-level than that in Gwangju. Our first stop was the state-of-the-art Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art (above), a complex of three connected building annexes, designed by Mario Botta, Jean Nouvel and Rem Koolhaas. In Museum 1 was a perfect example of traditional Korean art and antiquity, including many national treasures which worked well with the contemporary architecture. In Museum 2, Korean modern art was displayed next to some of the most recognizable international art stars, the usual suspects such as Yves Klein, Jeff Koons, Damient Hirst and so on – an attempt at re-examining the relationship of Korean modern and contemporary art to practices elsewhere in the world, an issue that many curators and institutions have consciously addressed and considered in recent exhibition and research projects. Museum 3 housed an exhibition entitled ‘Korean Rhapsody: A Montage of History and Memory’, a very interesting survey of Korean art in the past 100 years that questions and reconsiders the narrative of Korean Modern history and cultural identity. A commendable effort of the museum to raise more attention of modern Korean art history through a socially and politically engaged narrative, the exhibition was however suffering from uneven qualities and works included more for their political and historical relevance than artistic excellence.
Much of the discussion following the visit revealed a certain desire for self-definition in Korean art, both in the Asian and global contexts. The recent market boom of Chinese art had also inflicted a certain anxiety among the Korean art community to reassert its presence and participation in the international art world. Through this exchange, my Asian colleagues also realized how little we actually knew about each other – much less than what we have learned about our Western counterparts. In an attempt to find out about our own relevance in the world, it’s also equally necessary to learn more about our immediate neighbours and our interrelationships. This issue is probably what makes the choice of six Asian curators for the next Gwangju Biennale timely and necessary.
