Inmidst the uproar about the nuclear bomb tests of North Korea, I went to Korea to check out Media_City Seoul and the Busan Biennale, where I was invited. As I recently went to see also the Gwangju Biennale, this means that I've witnessed all of Korea’s three big Biennales this year. As usual, there were quite a few things that made me think. Rather than contents-related issues, once again it were mainly organizational and administrative flaws that revealed the weak points of international art shows held in Asian countries.
The first one I visited this time was Media_City Seoul (through 12/10). The first thing I realized upon entering the venue — using three floors of the Seoul Museum of Art — was that about half of the works displayed on the ground floor were more or less black and white. Watanabe Go’s "face "portrait"", which I would call a depicion of a neotenic albino; Chen Shaoxiong’s video "Ink City", illustrating the rapidly transforming city with an ink painting kind of touch; Miao Xiaochun’s "The Last Judgment in Cyberspace", a computer animation of 400 naked bodies dashing across the sky; Sawa Hiraki’s videos "Dwelling" and "Trail", letting the silhouettes of toy ariplanes and camels in the desert wonder about in the room… After that come several works using colors, but the dominance of monochromatic (or, actually white) pieces in the introductory part reflects the idea of the organizers behind the exhibition’s theme, "Dual Realities". We're living in an age where reality mixes with virtuality, and this duality is symbolized here with veil-like, milky shades of white. Many of the images deal with "floating" or "descending" motion, which I don't want to comment on further because this is not the place for critique.
The second half of the show seemed to run a bit out of gas, but my overall impression was not bad. Supposedly a budget-related measure, there was a large number of video works, which had the positive result of creating a sense of consistency. However, there were several problems on the administerative side. The painting Liu Ding placed on top of his "Tracing the Wind and the Shadows" was damaged by visitors, and some interactive pieces didn't work properly. In the case of Mathieu Briand, the artist got upset and left the country because the management was unable to provide the necessary materials to set up his work. What surprised me personally was the fact that only about 30 people (including officials) attended the lecture of Lev Manovich at Ewha Womans University. Manovich is a leading media art theorist and one of this event’s curators. An artist couple I met the following day explained regretfully that they didn't know about the event. I wonder why it wasn't promoted better….
The theme in Busan this year is "A Tale of Two Cities: Busan-Seoul / Seoul-Busan" (under the general theme "Everywhere", which embraces also the Sea Art Festival, open through 11/25). Works gathered as part of an ambitious plan to amplify the present phenomenon of all of a country’s functions being concentrated in its capital to global magnitude, included some really excellent pieces with clear and cleverly realized concepts: Cao Fei’s video installation "SIEMENS Art Project — What are you doing here" with images from a light bulb factory in Guangzhou; Mika Rottenberg’s ironical video "Tropical Breeze" that illustrates in a humorous way how capitalist society and industrial establishment are being upheld by minorities; Yodogawa Technique’s "Naktong Chinu", a giant fish made from garbage fished out of the Naktong River that runs through Busan, and others. Nonetheless, I didn't see much attention being paid to the theme of "A Tale of Two Cities". As last time, the setup and display methods were not the best as well.
A surprisingly nice discovery was the "Living Furniture" exhibition, held as part of the Sea Art Festival (through 11/25) at SK Pavilion near the coast. Director Ryu Byoung-hak proclaimed, "It was only 100 years ago when art was easily found to be 'breathing' with our daily lives. But since the beginning of the 20th century, art has lost that link to our lives due to the ideology of 'art for the sake of the art'", and with the help of three commissioners (Kim Jyeong-Yeon, Minato Chihiro and Victoria Lu) he turned the entire exhibition space into a house containing a "Child Room", a "Kitchen", a "Living Room", a "Rest Room" etc., in which slightly more than 100 items were placed like furniture. The whole thing looked like a tastefully equipped model room, with contributions from such great artists as Ai Wei Wei, Lee Dongi, Lee Sookyung, Kim Kira, Higashionna Yuichi, and Mitamura Midori.
Personally I find Ryu’s statement too simple, and I wouldn't want to live in a house like this, but it’s definitely a refreshingly new way of exhibiting works of art. There do exist small-scale shows and art fairs held in hotel rooms, but as a group show, this one here makes more sense. One of my gallerist friends reported in an email that, "Compared with the displays of conservative Biennales, the show in Busan pleased with some interesting new ideas." Indeed, such attempts to introduce art into daily life are commendable not only for gallerists. I hope that this concept and the exhibition it resulted in is an occasion for many people to ponder the relationship between art and (interior) design.
Shortly before returning to Japan, I heard that Rhee Wonil, the artistic director of Media_City Seoul and one of the curators of the Shanghai Biennale, was accused of plagiarism. A text published in the official Biennale guide is said to be a copy of a manuscript a Dutch art critic had prepared for a seminar in Busan in 2005. Rhee explained that "the translator omitted the footnotes by mistake when translating the text from Chinese into English", but the critic was apparently not convinced by that.
This is just another example that hints at the fact that there are lots of problems occuring at international art exhibitions in Asia. While themes and selections of participating artists are often questionable, those exhibitions have surely reached a high level. But issues like setup and display methods, promotion, and other administrative tasks can't hold a candle to how such things are done in Europe and the United States for example. As the case of Rhee Wonil shows, it happens that the production of catalogues and other documents isn't sufficiently supervised.
According to several professionals from the business, there are almost no educational institutions in Asia where exhibition preparators are being educated properly, and the number of firms specializing in exhibition setups is very limited. In advertising agencies or film promotion companies, it sometimes happens that PR experts are being recruited, but like in the case of setup and display, a transmission and accumulation of know-how is usually not taking place. Even the tastiest dish doesn't attract people to a restaurant when it’s not properly prepared and promoted. Budgets are of course limited everywhere, so it may be difficult to put into practice, but I think that those Asian countries should now work hand in hand and do their best to improve the situation.
Ozaki Tetsuya / Editor in chief / REALTOKYO