Busan to host Korean edition of Barcelona-based new media art festival LOOP

The southeastern port city of Busan will soon become home to the Korean edition of LOOP, a Barcelona-based new media art festival, from April to June.

"Screen as a Display Body" by Tao Hui at Museu Picasso Barcelona, a project by Museu Picasso Barcelona & Loop [STAVROS EFREMIDIS COLLECTION, ESTHER SCHIPPER GALLERY]

The southeastern port city of Busan will soon become home to the Korean edition of LOOP, a Barcelona-based new media art festival, from April to June.

Since 2003, LOOP annually holds exhibitions, conferences and a fair highlighting the digital art genre in multiple venues across the city.

Titled “Loop Lab Busan,” the Korean version of the festival is a public-private partnership between the Busan Museum of Art (BMA), LOOP Barcelona and local culture agency A Fluxion. The project comes after Busan Mayor Park Heong-joon signed a memorandum of understanding last May with Barcelona Mayor Jauma Colboni to strengthen sisterhood ties between the two cities.

From April 10 to June 10, exhibitions will be held across 23 venues in Busan, including the BMA, galleries and cultural complexes like F1963, Kukje Gallery’s Busan branch, the Johyun Gallery, the Carin Gallery and the Goeun Museum of Photography.

Forums will take place from April 22 to 26 at the Grand Josun Busan and Domoheon, the former official residence of the Busan mayor. Experts and artists will get together to tackle topics relevant to new media art, such as archiving, digital assets and collecting.

Loop Lab Busan’s art fair is set to feature some 40 local and overseas galleries that previously participated in Barcelona’s LOOP and will be held from April 24 to 26 at the Grand Josun Busan. It’s the first art fair in Asia to focus solely on digital art, like media installations, non-fungible tokens, virtual reality and augmented reality.

Suh Jin-suk, the director of the BMA, likened Loop Lab Busan to “seeing Frieze and the Venice Biennale simultaneously in one city.”

The goal for Loop Lab Busan is to become a “platform that fosters fresh artistic discourses in the age of technology,” he said.

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