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 Entrusted with the Empire
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관리자 2009-08-28 11:45
Titarubi's first solo exhibition took place in 2002. Se[tubuh] literally meaning on body includes some of these works, but also presented a major installation (240×120cm) titled Lindungi Aku Dari Keinginanmu(Protect Me From What You Want). Bodies, minus their limbs, hang in a semi-dark space space set with eggs and champor balls on the floor. The bodies hint at injustice from deep within the inner self of the artist.
Exploring the body is used alternately to criticize and protest, socially, politically, and personally. But in society where such directness is frowned upon, particularly when it comes from a woman, Titarubi? message is a subtle one, channeled through the setting of small figures in large spaces, torsos, or the image of her children.
A recent exhibition highlights new developments in these explorations of the body. In Bodyscape, she challenges the medium used to depict the male form in sculpture. Playful and ironic, this installation transforms the sculptures, usually made of bronze or resin, into lace. Yet, she found that the conventions associated with the medium and form overpowered it and she ended up went strengthening their typical macho image.
Her works continued to inspire. Kisah Tanpa Narasi(Tales without Narration), for example, depicts an iron truck from colonial times filled with emaciated terracotta figures that represent victims of violence and repression.
Entrusted with the Empire is an attempt to questioning our taken for granted beliefs, an eternal quest for the veracity behind the veil of desire. Our live is full of shallowness, offering us the superficial reality, and we never try to press onward through the things that show, to the depth of shallowness, to the forgotten deepness. While our beliefs are feelings of certainty, we never realized how fragile our beliefs are, and we easily trapped as if our beliefs were the absolute truth. The muscular male? body in femininity, with a beautiful wing but fragile. Flying high in the sky seeking for a bright light, whereas you stand on the earth, in middle of darkness.
(Edited from Carla Bianpoen et.al., Indonesian Women Artist: The Curtain Opens,
Jakarta: Yayasan Seni Rupa Indonesiam 2007, pp. 244-246.)