Busan, Gwangju Biennales leave visitors in the dark with pirates, monks, pansori

Korea's art world has been in a frenzy this year as two of Korea’s largest art biennales in Busan and Gwangju have returned. Both aspire to match the prestigious Venice Biennale, but whether they can actually achieve that remains another question.

Installation view of the 2024 Busan Biennale at the Museum of Contemporary Art Busan [SHIN MIN-HEE]

[REVIEW]

Korea's art world has been in a frenzy this year as two of Korea’s largest art biennales in Busan and Gwangju have returned. Surprisingly, both aspire to match — or even surpass — the scale and level of the prestigious Venice Biennale, but whether they can actually achieve that feat remains another question. The following are the Korea JoongAng Daily’s takes on the Busan and Gwangju biennales.

″Mugunghwa Pirates″ by Koo Hun-joo on display at the 2024 Busan Biennale [SHIN MIN-HEE]

Busan Biennale The Busan Biennale, which kicked off last month in its 12th edition, is being held under the theme “Seeing in the Dark.” According to the artistic directors Vera Mey and Philippe Pirotte, it’s a metaphor for navigation — finding an alternative amid a bleak reality.

But the theme hit too close to home, because trying to comprehend the biennale was as distressing as trying to see in the dark.

Pirate enlightenment and Buddhist monasticism were the two leading ideas explored in the biennale, presented as paths leading to liberation for the sake of a re-imagined, better world. The former idea, demonstrated by the late anthropologist David Graeber in his 2023 book of the same name, is about the possibly fictional story of how European pirates settled in Madagascar and achieved an egalitarian society in the late 17th century.

The biennale’s co-directors further explained that Buddhist monasticism was similar in that it also involves departing from secular life to awaken oneself spiritually.

Buddhism is a topic widely familiar to Koreans, given its deep-rooted history in the country, but western pirates are less familiar concepts. Korea does have records of Japanese pirates that raided Busan’s port region toward the end of the Goryeo Dynasty (918-1392), but the experience was far from enlightening. If anything, commoners suffered from the pirates’ rampant plundering and smuggling.

Installation view of the 2024 Busan Biennale at the Museum of Contemporary Art Busan [SHIN MIN-HEE]

Overall, it was hard to grasp at the biennale’s theme through the artworks because the theme itself was too overwhelming. As if sea thieves and monks weren’t enough to handle, the biennale also added the concepts of financialization and securitization into the already crowded mix of ideas.

In an attempt to be clever, the biennale referenced financial concepts at the portion of the event hosted at two venues that were formerly banks: the Busan Modern & Contemporary History Museum and Hansung1918. The sudden appearance of finance terms were to encourage dematerialization — whatever that means.

After a ceaseless journey of trying to find a needle in the haystack, Koo Hun-joo’s “Mugunghwa Pirates” stood out like a miracle as it straightforwardly dealt with the biennale’s innumerable themes.

Comprised of portraits of Korean presidents-turned-pirates, the artist excluded those who had undermined democracy, like Rhee Syngman (1875-1965) and Park Chung Hee (1917-1979). Through this piece, Koo ironically takes a jab at the biennale by asking if any society truly capable of attaining a utopia.

The Busan Biennale ends Oct. 20.

Installations by Noel W. Anderson on view at the 2024 Gwangju Biennale [SHIN MIN-HEE]

Gwangju Biennale At first glance, the 15th edition of the Gwangju Biennale seemed to have a theme that would directly resonate with a Korean audience. The Korean word pansori (traditional Korean narrative music), written in big, bold letters, parades across the biennale's poster, along with a vibrantly colored modern reinterpretation of the Joseon-era (1392-1910) landscape painting “Mongyudowondo” (1447).

The realization that the biennale would have very little to do with the actual music genre dawned on this reporter when artistic director Nicolas Bourriaud explained that he used the word pansori in a literal sense — pan, meaning public space, and sori, meaning sound.

“The first important theme is space,” Bourriaud said in a news conference at the biennale earlier this month. “Space is a common ground for discussion.”

"Gwangju Recordings" by Franck Scurti on display at the 2024 Gwangju Biennale [SHIN MIN-HEE]

Bourriaud therefore used this idea to justify his integration of soundscapes that would all separately explore issues like feminism, climate change, white supremacy and boat people.

Some artists did gracefully make efforts to incorporate the actual pansori genre into their works.

Noel W. Anderson featured the sounds of pansori drums in his tapestry installations reflecting Black male identities, situating his work in the genre that was originally enjoyed among the lower class.

Marguerite Humeau, who tends to feature drum rhythms in her installations examining human existence, recorded an experimental pansori composition with an ex-member of alternative pop band Leenalchi.

But other than the clever pun, the biennale’s narrative failed to distinguish itself from those of other biennales. It’s not a good look particularly for Gwangju, considering its unique background of being founded to commemorate the city’s pro-democracy uprising in May 1980.

“Biennales are always bound to have some political implications, which Gwangju is especially no stranger to,” Park Jae-yong, an independent curator and journalist, told the Korea JoongAng Daily. “But it seems that the Korean biennales this year didn’t put much thought into each region’s identity, making it difficult to understand how these cities connect to a larger context for the international audience.”

"*stirs" by Marguerite Humeau on display at the 2024 Gwangju Biennale [SHIN MIN-HEE]

Instead of the art, it was the opening ceremony for the Gwangju Biennale that had the most politics in a single setting. Just the mere introduction of the guests — lawmakers, embassy officials, mayors and even boy band NCT Wish, the promotional ambassadors of the biennale — took up almost an hour. It was only after the excessive prequel that Bourriaud’s address finally began.

During the press preview, the Gwangju Biennale’s president Park Yang-woo confidently expressed the desire to see 1 million visitors during its three-month run. To give a rough comparison, the Venice Biennale recorded just over 800,000 attendees in its main 59th International Art Exhibition when it ran for seven months in 2022.

Naturally, one would be desperate to not waste a single millisecond to accomplish that far-fetched number. Too bad the doors to the biennale were still closed 10 minutes after opening hours.

The Gwangju Biennale ends Dec. 1.

BY SHIN MIN-HEE [shin.minhee@joongang.co.kr]