Renowned French curator Nicolas Bourriaud has been appointed artistic director of the 15th Gwangju Biennale in South Korea, which is scheduled to open in September 2024. Bourriaud, the former co-director of the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, will focus on the impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic, says the Gwangju Biennale Foundation in a statement, with the exhibition “defining the role of art in recovery”.
The statement adds: “For the 15th Gwangju Biennale, Bourriaud plans to integrate his artistic philosophy into a discourse-driven exhibition, focusing on the spaces where the human species lives and the redefinition of its boundaries with other spheres. Bourriaud was appointed director of Beaux-Arts de Paris in 2011 and general manager of Montpellier Contemporain in 2015. He addressed the climate crisis during the 16th Istanbul Biennale held in 2019.
Meanwhile, the Gwangju Biennale has scrapped its new art award, the Park Seo-Bo Award, which was won in April by the South Korean artist Oum Jeongsoon who exhibits elephant without a trunk (2023) at the 14th edition of the biennale. The prize, worth $100,000, was funded by the eponymous artist who underwrote the prize with a $1 million donation through his Gizi Foundation.
Park is represented by White Cube Gallery, which states online that he “is widely regarded as one of the leading figures in contemporary Korean art.” [and] credited as being the father of the Dansaekhwa movement [refers to artists who painted only in monochrome]”. But according to ART news, protesters said Park’s formalist art did not align with the political values of the biennial which was founded in 1995 to commemorate the massacre of protesters in 1980, sparking South Korea’s democratic transition in 1987.
Park wrote about instagram that the “Gwangju Biennale Foundation agreed to abolish the Park Seo Bo Art Prize,” noting that it was “regrettable that the issue was raised on the day of the event” when the prize was announced in February last year, leaving “plenty of time for differences of opinion”.
The biennale said in a statement, “In response to the opposition to the Gwangju Biennale Park Seo-Bo Art Prize that has emerged recently, the Gwangju Biennale Foundation has solicited various opinions from the artistic community regarding subsequent operational plans for the Prize and continued discussions with GIZI. Foundation.”
