Busan Biennale
The Busan Biennale is a biannual international contemporary art show that integrated three different art events held in the city in 1998: the Busan Youth Biennale, the first biennale of Korea that was voluntarily organized by local artists in 1981; the Sea Art Festival, an environmental art festival launched in 1987 with the sea serving as a backdrop; and the Busan International Outdoor Sculpture Symposium that was first held in 1991. The biennale was previously called the Pusan International Contemporary Art Festival (PICAF) before it launched.
The biennale has its own unique attribute in that it was formed not out of any political logic or need but rather the pure force of local Busan artists’ will and their voluntary participation. Even to this day their interest in Busan's culture and its experimental nature has been the key foundation for shaping the biennale’s identity.
This biennale is the only one like it in the world that was established through an integration of three types of art events such as a Contemporary Art Exhibition, Sculpture Symposium, and Sea Art Festival. The Sculpture Symposium in particular was deemed to be a successful public art event, the results of which were installed throughout the city and dedicated to revitalizing cultural communication with citizens. The networks formed through the event have assumed a crucial role in introducing and expanding domestic art overseas and leading the development of local culture for globalized cultural communication. Founded 38 years ago, the biennale aims to popularize contemporary art and achieve art in everyday life by providing a platform for interchanging experimental contemporary art.
2008 Creature-Evolution(From Sea to Space)
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관리자 2009-08-28 10:59
From 1995 to 97 stone works showed various body parts protruding from the stone, while from 1998 to 2002 his work stressed the visual through rectangular form and illumination, and after 2003 presented themes of time and the universe while maintaining the texture of the stone.
A proponent of traditional sculpture, Seongjoo Moon makes his forms of stone, while keeping the innate characteristics of the material. The materiality of the stone is always stressed over the figure. His work merely trims the stone from the quarry rather than cutting. So, it is as if the figure resides within the stone he works with, such as found in African sculpture and the work of Rodin.
After 1998 he added light to the sculpture. From within the background of a frame, the figure, circles and rectangles were inserted and illuminated. When the lights were turned off, the texture of the stone was revealed, and when illuminated figures of constellations or ancient relics appeared.
Recent works explore the dichotomy between the hardness of stone and the softness of such ancient relics. Roundness and verticality, the achromatic and the colorful, stillness and movement. The rough texture of the granite is supplemented by the smoothness of mother-of-pearl, and the sharp angles?ardness keeps equilibrium with the round, streamlined curves. This relic harks back to the ancient, while at the same time suggesting the future. While presenting this image of the relic, the texture of the stone can still be seen. Like an alchemist of stone, Moon shows the skin of the stone as well as the interior through cracking it, and slices the rock and places it on another stone.
The biennale? Creature-Evolution (From Sea to Space) is reminiscent of Moon? 2003 work. The creature emerges from the Suyoung River and enters Naru Park to rest and dry its skin. Antennae and legs will transform into huge wings. This heavy and massive a body will need wings large enough to shadow all of Busan to keep it aloft. Before the creature makes its flight into space, why not try meeting it?
ⓒHyungtak Jung _ Independent Curator