Updated: Busan Biennale 2024 Opens on August 17!
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Busan Biennale 2024 Opens on August 17!
□ The city of Busan has announced that the 2024 Busan Biennale will be held for 65 days starting Aug. 17th to Oct. 20th.
○ The Busan Biennale is co-hosted every two years by the city and the Busan Biennale Organizing Committee (hereafter the Organizing Committee).
□ This event, under the exhibition theme of 《Seeing in the Dark》, will be held in August for the first time in its history. The opening schedule was adjusted to add to Busan’s image as a summer culture and art city and to actively attract visiting families on vacation.
○ The “Busan Biennale” started as the “Busan Youth Biennale” in 1981. In 2000, it was incorporated and its name was changed to its current name to carry on the event’s tradition, which previously saw the event opening in September.
○ It is expected that opening two weeks earlier will provide a better opportunity for visitors to fully enjoy Busan’s natural maritime environment and fall in love with the waves of artistic culture on display throughout the city.
<Event Outline>
ㅇ Date: Aug. 17 (Sat) – Oct. 20 (Sun), 2024
ㅇ Venue: Busan Museum of Contemporary Art, Busan Modern and Contemporary History Museum, HANSUNG1918, and Choryang House
ㅇ Main content: 70 participants (teams) from Korea and abroad, exhibition and exhibition-connected programs
□ The city and the Organizing Committee have been preparing for the exhibition to decide its theme and select entries and exhibitors. The exhibition is being led by Co-Directors Vera Mey and Philippe Pirotte.
○ The exhibition theme, 《Seeing in the Dark)》 proposes to re-imagine today’s human beings as being positioned in the “Dark” and symbolizes a new kind of perspective about the current times.
○ As its background, the exhibition has adopted the concepts of a “Pirate Utopia”, like the early forms of autonomous anarchic societies, and the “Buddhist Temple”, which operates apart from the secular world. The exhibition is designed to explore various mental worlds and cultures, including the concepts of a communal society that makes collective decisions and spaces of liberation, and to re-design spaces and the world required by the times.
□ Dedicated exhibition halls will be housed in venues in the original downtown area, as well as the Busan Museum of Contemporary Art.
○ New exhibition spaces embodying the exhibition’s theme can be discovered in various spaces of the original downtown area, including Choryang, Jungang-dong.
□ Related programs are being prepared for the exhibition to expand collaboration with local and overseas culture and art organizations, exhibition planners, and participating artists. Based on the exhibition theme and purpose, collaborative programs combining various genres, such as the Pirate Panel, the Pirate Carnival, and the Sound Project, will also be prepared.
○ The Pirate Panel starts with「Another Art World」, the writings of Nika Dubrovsky & David Rolfe Graeber. This program addresses the concepts, such as the relationship between reality and illusion, the embodiment of “piracy” and deception, and Pirate Utopia.
○ The Pirate Carnival is an event where partnered organizations, participating artists, and visitors come together as though at a festival that symbolizes existing values or worldviews that have been overturned. The program features lectures, sound performances, and costumes. The exhibition hall will feature a sound station, a DJ table, and a sound system for performances, and will also operate listening sessions and online pop-up live radio programs.
○ In addition, the exhibition will feature related programs, such as “Removing the Mask of Portals” and ”Sustainable Project” that will satisfy visitors’ visual and auditory senses, address contemporary issues, and invite visitors to enter a space full of imagination and possibilities by thinking outside the box.
□ The “2022 Busan Biennale” was praised as a “well-made exhibition” thanks to its successful exhibition management and thorough planning. It won the first grade in the Korean government’s Biennale evaluation, conducted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Arts Management Service. It was also introduced as one of the world's top 10 exhibitions in the British art magazine <Frieze>.
□ Mayor Park Heong-joon commented, “A cultural environment is something that cannot be left out from the foundation of a hub city. The city will not spare its support for the Busan Biennale to be positioned as a global top-class exhibition representing Korea.”
Event outline
○ Theme: 《Seeing in the Dark》
○ Period: Aug. 17 – Oct. 20, 2024 (65 days)
○ Venue: Busan Museum of Contemporary Art, Busan Modern and Contemporary History Museum, HANSUNG1918, and Choryang House
○ Exhibition Directors: Vera Mey & Philippe Pirotte
○ Size: 70 participants (teams) from Korea and abroad
○ Hosted by: Busan Metropolitan City, Busan Biennale Organizing Committee
