11th Gwangju Biennale
2. 9. – 6. 11. 2016
Korea

11th Gwangju Biennale 2016
The Eighth Climate (What does art do?)

Adam Pendleton, Ade Darmawan, Adelita Husni-Bey, Agnieszka Polska, Ahmet Öğüt, Aimée Zito Lema, Alma Heikkilä, Amalia Pica, Andrew Norman Wilson, Ane Graff, Ane Hjort Guttu with Daisuke Kosugi, Anicka Yi, Ann Lislegaard, Annie Lai Kuen Wan, Anton Vidokle, Apolonija Šušteršic with Dari Bae, Arseny Zhilyaev, Ayesha Sultana, Azar Alsharif, Babi Badalov, Barbora Kleinhamplová with Tereza Stejskalová, Bernd Krauss, Bik Van der Pol, Bona Park, Céline Condorelli, Christian Nyampeta, Christopher Kulendran Thomas, Claire Barclay, Cooperativa Cráter Invertido, Dale Harding, David Maljkovic, Diogo Evangelista, Dora García, Doug Ashford, Elena Damiani, Emily Roysdon, Eyal Weizman, Fahd Burki, Faivovich & Goldberg, Fernando Garcia-Dory, Flo Kasearu, Goldin+Senneby, Gunilla Klingberg, Hajra Waheed, Hito Steyerl, Hu Yun, Ingela Ihrman, Inseon Park, Iza Tarasewicz, Jasmina Metwaly & Philip Rizk, Jeamin Cha, Jewyo Rhii with Jihyun Jung, José León Cerrillo, Joungmin Yi, Julia Sarisetiati, Katie Paterson, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Lili Reynaud-Dewar, Li Jinghu, Mariana Silva, Marie Kølbæk Iversen, Marie-Louise Ekman, Matias Faldbakken, Metahaven, Michael Beutler, Mika Tajima, Mohammad Salemy, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, Munem Wasif, Nabuqi, Nadia Belerique, Natascha Sadr Haghighian with Ashkan Sepahvand, Nazgol Ansarinia, Nicholas Mangan, Osias Yanov, Otobong Nkanga, Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz, Philippe Parreno, Prajakta Potnis, Pratchaya Phinthong, Rana Begum, Raqs Media Collective, Ruth Buchanan, Sachiko Kazama, Saskia Noor van Imhoff, Seola Kim, siren eun young jung, Sojung Jun, Søren Andreasen, Suki Seokyeong Kang, Tania Pérez Córdova, The Otolith Group, Tommy Støckel, Trevor Paglen, Tromarama (Febie Babyrose, Herbert Hans Maruli, Ruddy Hatumena), Tyler Coburn, Walid Raad, Yu Ji, Zhou Tao.

The curatorial team: Maria Lind, artistic director; Binna Choi, curator; Azar Mahmoudian, Margarida Mendes and Michelle Wong, assistant curators

Local curatorial associate: Mite-Ugro

Location
Gwangju Biennale Exhibition Hall, Asia Culture Center, 5.18 Archives, Mudeung Museum of Contemporary Art, Uijae Art Museum, Woo Jaeghil Art Museum, Mite-Ugro, Nuribom Community Center, Hansaebong Agriculture & Eco Park, The Roundabout Revolution, Seo-gu Culture Center, Daein Market,
informationskies.com

Associates
Gwangju: Asia Culture Center, 5.18 Archives, 18 May Mothers House, Gwangju International Center (GIC), Chosun University, Chonnam University. Seoul: RAT School of Art, Hongik University, Seoul National University—Asia Center, Dongduk Women’s University. International: The New Center, Inter-Asia Biennale Forum

Premise
The exhibition part of the 11th Gwangju Biennale entitled “The Eighth Climate (What Does Art Do?)” opens to the public on 2 September 2016. The title is not a “theme” or a “concept,” but rather indicates a set of parameters of GB11. It is about placing art center-stage, art’s capacity to always say something about the future, connect dots over small and big distances, embeddedness in particular situations, and mediation. What happens if we try to tease out more of the artworks in this eclectic, kaleidoscopic, and puzzling adventure? If we accept their invitation to engage, and take their interpellation more at face value? One of the things which we might end up doing is to enter a dance of futurity where the past is neither completely forgotten nor a guiding light. In this sense, GB11 is a temperature check of art today.

Composition
GB11 is also a constellation of many parts happening over one year, starting in January 2016. Thinking thoroughly about what art does—without necessarily implying a utilitarian approach—how artworks land in different contexts, and how they sit in society and create ripples on the water, GB11 comprises Monthly Gatherings, or Wol-rae-hoe, made together with the local curatorial associates Mite-Ugro in Gwangju, an Infra-School in Gwangju, Seoul, and beyond, around a hundred national and international Biennale Fellows, a Forum with the Fellows, two publications and a blog designed by Metahaven, as well as an exhibition which stretches from the Gwangju Biennale building to other venues and places in the city, including Asia Culture Center and the 5.18 Archives, and online.

Opening Week
The opening week is a moment to celebrate this ongoing process of conjunction, convergence, and multiplicity together with the ninety artists who are present, but also open up the crucial nodal points for furthering the process and for debate, which includes the presentation of twenty-eight commissions and a lively program. Among the commissions are Dora García’s reconstruction of the Nokdu bookstore that played a crucial role in the 18 May 1980 Uprising in Gwangju, Cooperativa Cráter Invertido’s and Hu Yun’s engagement with the 5.18 Archives, Metahaven’s new film Information Skies, only available online (www.informationskies.com), Jewyo Rhii with Jihyun Jung’s scattering storytelling machines for makers, and Gunilla Klingberg’s feng shui inspired vinyl cut-out moon-cycle patterns applied on the windows of the Uijae Museum by the Mudeung mountain.

There will be a number of events, such as the performance by Fernando Garcia-Dory in collaboration with Hansaebong Dure in the last rice field in the city, and a series of gatherings by Apolonija Šušteršič with Dari Bae and the Nuribom community about taking town-planning into their own hands. Many existing works and projects are brought to Gwangju for our scrutiny and experience too. One of the existing works is Eyal Weizman’s 2013 Gwangju Biennale Foundation folly, Roundabout Revolution. Most of these contributing artists will give personal introductions to their own works besides the curatorial team’s own introduction to the Biennale.

“The Eighth Climate”
The “eighth climate” of the exhibition’s title refers to a state, or inter world, one might reach using imaginative capacities. The notion of the eighth climate dates back to 12th-century Persian mystic and philosopher Sohrevardi, and was elaborated by 20th-century French philosopher Henri Corbin. It is an addition to the seven physical climates of the Earth identified by ancient Greek geographers. Unlike the seven Earthly climates, the eighth climate is not based on a separation of matter and spirit, history and myth; rather, it is ontologically real and has concrete effects. It is characterized by its imaginative qualities and potentiality. In this way, the eighth climate shows interesting parallels with how contemporary art is functioning.

The eighth climate might well resonate with global warming. However, in the context of GB11, the eighth climate helps us explore art’s capacity to say and do something about the future, without either being paralyzed by its prospects or defaulting to established technologies of prediction. The eighth climate evokes art as a seismograph, detecting change before other means of observation, whether the artists are conscious of it or not, allowing for slightly different—and perhaps ambiguous and conflictual perspectives on how art engages with what lies ahead of us. This neither implies art for art’s sake nor a utilitarian approach. It is not about “art for art’s sake” but rather about “art itself.”

Monthly Gatherings—Wol-rae-hoe
Monthly Gatherings—Wol-rae-hoe—is a series of informal gatherings in Gwangju, on different scales, running January–November 2016. The term is used in Korea for regular gatherings after scheduled work time at workplaces. Each GB11 Monthly Gathering focuses on art and Gwangju and goes on for two to three days. It is a collaboration between Mite-Ugro, a Gwangju-based art collective which functions as the local curatorial associate of GB11, and the curatorial team. Mite-Ugro’s project space in the Daein Market is the main venue for the events, and the participants are GB11 artists, students, citizens, and initiatives, primarily from Gwangju. The purpose of the Monthly Gathering program is to bring closer together the Gwangju Biennale and the art world in Gwangju, especially its younger sections, through face-to-face contact and formal as well as informal exchanges and conversations. The activities of Monthly Gathering include the donation-based Mite-Ugro Art and Theory Book Collection, group readings, artists screenings, The Art Work in Focus discussion groups, and Curated Walks, and they have all been developed based on perceived needs of the local art scene.

Infra-School
The Infra-School is a program in which GB11 connects its curatorial and artistic knowledge to the existing formal and informal educational institutions in Gwangju and beyond. Infra-School consists of lectures, presentations, group discussions, and seminars by GB11 artists and curators. Instead of establishing a new independent educational arm, the Infra-School taps into resources which are already there and intends to multiply connections and expand relations. In doing so, it aims at embedding GB11 in the local, regional, and national ecosystem of art, whereby the mutual benefits and interdependence between different entities become strengthened. Among the Infra-School associates are Chosun University, Gwangju; Chonnam University, Gwangju; Dongduk Women’s University, Seoul; Gwangju International Center; Hongik University, Seoul; RAT School of Art, Seoul; The New Center, New York and online; Seoul National University—Asia Centre; and the Inter-Asia Biennale Forum.

Forum: To All the Contributing Factors
On 2–4 September the Forum: To All the Contributing Factors will also take place at which the Biennale Fellows—small- to mid-scale art organizations whose “differential” work is genuinely valuable to the art ecology—peers and colleagues, artists, and other interested people are invited to come together, share experiences, and discuss the future of this kind of work, especially with regards to questions of value, continuity, and scale. Around sixty Biennale Fellows will attend the Forum. A handful of lectures are scheduled, with the author of the outstanding 2007 novel The Vegetarian, Han Kang, writer and researcher Andrea Phillips, poet, gallerist, and “gardener” Hu Fang, Fernando Garcia-Dory, and the author of Minority Commune Shin Ji Young. They will be followed by fellow-led workshops on the second day, to be concluded with hiking together up the Mudeung mountain on the third day. The Forum will be live-streamed by The New Center, our Infra-School associate whose co-founder and GB11 artist Mohammad Salemy also moderates a session.

Fellows
Roughly one hundred small- and medium-scale art organizations whose work makes important contributions to the art of today are invited as the Biennale Fellows. While being “appointed” Biennale Fellows, they simply go on doing the great work they are engaged with in their own contexts without being concretely involved with the Biennale in Gwangju. Distinct from bigger-scale art organizations such as museums, art fairs, and biennales, these organizations often function as the research and development department of the art world, nurturing artistic, curatorial, educational, social, and political experimentation. Above all, they actively support artists to cultivate their practices and foster contact and conflict zones around themselves, including neighbors and various practitioners from other fields.

Yet the significance of their works is not fully acknowledged in a wider art and social ecology, while their self-determined “marginal” or “minor” positions, as well as increasing precarity in the climate of austerity and various crises, are palpable. What if we “connect dots” through such a “molecular campaign” and manifest a critical mass to commit to these shared concerns?

List of Fellows
98weeks (Beirut), Al-Ma’mal Foundation (Jerusalem), Art Group 705 (Bishkek), Arts Initiative Tokyo (Tokyo), Artspace (Auckland), Artsonje Center (Seoul), Art Space Pool (Seoul), Ashkal Alwan (Beirut), Asia Art Archive (Hong Kong), Audio Visual Pavilion (Seoul), BAR Project (Barcelona), Beta-Local (San Juan), Bétonsalon – Center for Art and Research (Paris), Britto Arts Trust (Dhaka), Bulegoa (Bilbao), CAMP (Mumbai), Campus in Camps (Palestine), Careof (Milan), Casa do Povo (São Paulo), Casco – Office for Art, Design and Theory (Utrecht), CCA Glasgow (Glasgow), CCA Tallinn (Tallinn), Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos (Lagos), Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo (Madrid), Chimurenga (Cape Town), Chto Delat (What is to be done?) (St Petersburg), Clark House Initiative (Mumbai), Community Space LITMUS (Ansan), Cooperativa Cráter Invertido (Mexico City), Council (Paris), Delfina Foundation (London), DiscLab (Manila), Di Tella (Buenos Aires), Eastside Projects (Birmingham), e-flux (New York), Forum Lenteng (Jakarta), Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst (Leipzig), Grizedale Arts (Cumbria), Henie Onstad Kunstsenter (Oslo), If I Can’t Dance (Amsterdam), Institute for New Connotative Action (Seattle), Institute of Modern Art (Brisbane), The Israeli Center for Digital Art (Holon), Jubilee (Brussels), Kadist (Paris/San Francisco), KHOJ (Delhi), kim? Contemporary Art Centre (Riga), Konsthall C (Stockholm), KUNCI Cultural Studies Center (Yogyakarta), Kunsthal Aarhus (Aarhus), Kunsthalle Lissabon (Lisbon), Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art (Riga), Les Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers (Paris), Lugar a Dudas (Cali), Marabouparken (Sundbyberg, Sweden), Minatomachi Art Table (Nagoya), Mite-Ugro (Gwangju), Museo Experimental el Eco (Mexico City), Mustarinda (Hyrynsalmi), National Centre for Contemporary Arts (Ural), Nile Sunset Annex (Cairo), NTU CCA Singapore (Singapore), OCAT Shenzhen (Shenzen), Office of Culture and Design (Manila), Open School East (London), P! (New York), P74 (Ljubljana, Slovenia), Pages Project/Magazine (Rotterdam/Tehran), Para Site (Hong Kong), Pathshala South Asian Media Institute (Dhaka), Portes et Passage (Joal), Pro qm (Berlin), RAW Material Company (Dakar), REDCAT (Los Angeles), Riwaq (Al Bireh, Palestine), ruangrupa (Jakarta), SA SA BASSAC (Phnom Penh), SAVVY Contemporary (Berlin), SBC Gallery of Contemporary Art (Montréal), Space Heem (Busan), SPOT Projects (Istanbul), Spring Workshop (Hong Kong), ST PAUL St Gallery (Auckland), Taipei Contemporary Art Center (Taipei), Talking Art (Seoul), Tensta konsthall (Tensta), TEOR/éTica (San José), The Bamboo Curtain Studio (Taipei), The Book Society (Seoul), The Center for Land Use Interpretation (Los Angeles), The Common Guild (Glasgow), TheCube Project Space (Taipei), The Reading Room (Bangkok), The Showroom (London), Times Museum (Guangzhou), Townhouse Gallery (Cairo), tranzit.cz (Prague), tranzit.hu (Budapest), Triangle (New York), Triple Canopy (New York), Vitamin Creative Space (Guangzhou), Western Front (Vancouver), What, How & for Whom / WHW (Zagreb), Witte de With (Rotterdam), and Work on Work (Seoul)

Curatorial Process
The curatorial team went on a first site visit to Gwangju in September of 2015, together with a dozen artists with strong and relevant practices, who were invited to make new work. They were encouraged to think about local production in terms of materials, techniques, and skills rather than just making straightforward site-specific or context-sensitive work. Another dozen were invited during the winter and, together with the oeuvres, practices, and methodologies of the first group of invited artists, they indicated the direction of the exhibition, and eventually several methodological and thematic strands were noticed and developed. Subsequently, another seventy odd artists have been invited to show existing works which emphasize and complicate the various strands.

Strands
Many of the art projects pertain to more than one strand, which hint at possible readings of works rather than aiming at firmly framing them. The strands include “above and below ground,” “right to opacity,” “the image people,” and “new subjectivities.” For example, siren eun young jung’s intriguing video Act of Affect (2013) is pertaining to “new subjectivities” as well as “the right to opacity,” in terms of how gender is performed beyond norms and how the condition of illegibility is necessary for certain kinds of self-determination. The video is part of her long-term research on the Korean theater tradition of gukgeuk, a type of vaudeville performance where all the roles are played by women actors, who form tightly knit communities. Gukgeuk was particularly popular during the Korean War and siren’s project highlights how the tradition is carried on from generation to generation, into the future.

Commissions
The artists who have been commissioned to make new work for GB11 are Ahmet Öğüt, Amalia Pica, Ane Hjort Guttu, Annie Lai Kuen Wan, Apolonija Šušteršič, Babi Badalov, Bernd Krauß, Bik Van der Pol, Céline Condorelli, Christopher Kulendran Thomas, Claire Barclay, Cooperativa Cráter Invertido, Dale Harding, Dora García, Doug Ashford, Fernando Garcia-Dory, Gunilla Klingberg, Hu Yun, Jewyo Rhii, Julia Sarisetiati, Metahaven, Natascha Sadr Haghighian, Ruth Buchanan, Saskia Noor van Imhoff, Søren Andreasen, Tommy Støckel, Trevor Paglen, and Tyler Coburn. In addition to a production budget for the GB11 commissions, there are, for the first time in the history of the Gwangju Biennale Foundation, fees for all participating artists.

Biennale City Lounge
The first floor of Gwangju International Center will operate as the city center lounge for the Gwangju Biennale during the opening week.

website: Maurits de Bruijn
Monthly gatherings and Infra-School
every month from January–November

Professional and press preview
August 31–September 1

Exhibition
September 2–November 4

Forum
September 2–4, To All the Contributing Factors

Finnisage with Inter-Asia Biennale Forum
November 4–6
Founded in 1995 in memory of spirits of civil uprising of the 1980 repression of the Gwangju Democratization movement, the Gwangju Biennale in South Korea is Asia’s oldest biennial of contemporary art.

The Gwangju Biennale shows contemporary art under a theme along with special guest exhibitions and various performances.

Under the helm of previous curators that include Kerry Brougher, Sukwon Chang, Okwui Enwezor, Charles Esche, Massimiliano Gioni, Hou Hanru, Honghee Kim, Yongwoo Lee, Youngchul Lee, Kwangsoo Oh, Wan-kyung Sung, and Harald Szeemann, the Gwangju Biennale has established itself as a highlight of the international contemporary art biennial circuit.

Centered around the Biennale Hall in Gwangju’s Jungoui Park, the Gwangju Biennale has elevated the city of 1.4 million to become a cultural hub of East Asia and reflects the growing interest in Asian art, culture and Asia’s new cities and culture trends.

Temperature check

December 31, 2016

What did the 11th Gwangju Biennale do?

The yearlong run of the 11th Gwangju Biennale—The Eighth Climate: What Does Art Do? has come to an end. Officially beginning with a Monthly Gathering organized in collaboration with the Gwangju-based art collective and “local curatorial associate” Mite-Ugro in December 2015 and the first Infra

December 7, 2016

The Mite-Ugro Art and Theory Book Collection

One month after the official ending of the 11th Gwangju Biennale, the donation-based Mite-Ugro Art and Theory Book Collection consists of more than 600 volumes. Friends, peers and colleagues have generously donated books which are kept in the Mite Ugro project space in the Daein Market, Gwangju. A r

November 25, 2016

Tyler Coburn's GB11 Commission acquired by Seodaemun Museum of Natural History, Seoul

We are happy to announce that Tyler Coburn's GB11 Commission Ergonomic Futures was acquired by Seodaemun Museum of Natural History in Seoul. Tyler Coburn’s Ergonomic Futures begins with a question: Is it possible, at some point in the future, that our bodies experience such a degree of evolutio

November 6, 2016

GB11 Publication by Metahaven on sale online

The first of two publications of GB11, titled The Eighth Climate: What Does Art Do?, it provides an introduction to the work of each participating artist, an introduction to this edition of the Gwangju Biennale, Q&As between artists and curators exploring possible and multiple ways of reading the wo

November 2, 2016

Infra-School - lecture by Ingela Ihrman at RAT SCHOOL

Saturday, 5 November, 8.00 PM Ingela Ihrman's practice moves freely between performance art, installations, and writing. Costumes and staged situations are reoccurring elements in her presentations, bringing creatures into life while i.e. giving birth or blooming. Her work is characterized by tac

October 29, 2016

SNUAC-Gwangju Biennale Workshop - Concrete Responses: What Does Art Do?

Tuesday 1 November 11:00-18:00 Gwangju Biennale Exhibition Hall, Geosigi Hall The workshop “Concrete Responses: What Does Art Do?” gather scholars, GB participating artists and curators, and other cultural producers to share articulating responses to the question, “what does art do?” a

October 29, 2016

Inter-Asia and the Other Worlds: Wild Connectivity

Inter-Asia Biennale Forum, organized with the 11th Gwangju Biennale as part of its Infra-School program On the occasion of the finissage of the 11th Gwangju Biennale, an Inter-Asia Biennale Forum co-organized by Inter-Asia School and the 11th Gwangju Biennale will take place over three days fro

October 28, 2016

You buy a collection of frogs - Bernd Krauß by Candace Goodrich (CuratorLab)

The different modes of transportation that we utilize while traveling to a foreign land, unequivocally dictate the level and type of experience and engagement we have with a place and culture. On the surface, the seemingly minuscule distinction between an air-conditioned taxi verse a bus that fills

October 28, 2016

I feel like a mobile partisan artist - Babi Badalov in conversation with Domna Gounari (CuratorLab)

Babi Badalov’s Car-Pet-Alism installation spreads all the way through the corridor leading towards the 2nd floor of the 11th Gwangju Biennale main exhibition space. Hundreds of multi-sized paper and fabric cut outs, photos, personal objects, intelligently manipulated words and phrases with strong

October 28, 2016

United to what? - On a new film commission by Ahmet Öğüt for GB11 by Florin Bobu (CuratorLab)

I encountered the latest work of Ahmet Öğüt United-for the first time in Gwangju, in the frame of the 11th Gwangju Biennale The Eighth Climate (What does art do?), displayed in the public space on an advertising billboard. I thought about it and saw it again in my hotel room in Stockholm and once

October 28, 2016

In Focus: The off-site artist commissions of GB11 - by Jérôme Malpel (CuratorLab)

The Eight Climate (What does art do?) biennale takes place in the South Korean city of Gwangju. The city became an important and powerful location in the struggle for democracy in the country, where peaceful demonstrations were suppressed by military forces, their political uprising leading to a vio

October 28, 2016

The material world is very existential - Ane Graff in conversation with Madelene Gunnarsson (CuratorLab)

One of my most enriching encounters during the 11th Gwangju Biennale, 2016, was meeting Norwegian artist Ane Graff who exhibited the work “Mineral Breath, Metal Mouth”. Her work is an ongoing artistic investigation in the nature of matter and how we understand and experience the physical world a

October 28, 2016

Uninhabitable spaces for contemporary art - Céline Condorelli in conversation with Nikki Kane and Christine Langinauer (CuratorLab)

For her 11th Gwangju Biennale commission, artist Céline Condorelli has occupied in-between spaces in the exhibition areas, a balcony and an entryway between galleries in the Biennale Hall. Here, she presented two of three new works made for the Biennale, each of which creates an active, ‘living

October 28, 2016

Q/A with Ayesha Sultana by Saima Usman (CuratorLab)

Ayesha Sultana was born in Jessore, Bangladesh and is now based in Dhaka. She received her Post-Graduate Diploma in Art Education from Beaconhouse National University, Lahore Pakistan, in 2007-2008. As a constantly evolving process, Ayesha’s work could not be identified as belonging to a single ar

October 25, 2016

Interview with Babi Badalov - video by the Gwangju Biennale International Curator Course

BABI BADALOV CAR-PET-ALISM, 2016 We have followed artist Babi Badalov during his on-site realization of CAR-PET-ALISM. The work is a collection of images forming a large-scale wall installation, where fragmented and combined words in many languages are juxtaposed with pieces of painted textile

October 25, 2016

"Dawn Breaks" by Jewyo Rhii and Jihyun Jung - video by the Gwangju Biennale International Curator Course

JEWYO RHii + JIHYUN JUNG DAWN BREAKS, 2016 This short video followssequences from rehearsals of Dawn Breaks, project by artists Jewyo Rhii and Jihyun Jung. This multiple-installation project, occupying both inside and the outside spaces of the Biennale structure, required an intense and fascinat

October 25, 2016

Fernando García-Dory's "The Lament of The Newt" - video by the Gwangju Biennale International Curator Course

FERNANDO GARCÍA-DORY + DULE NALE THE LAMENT OF THE NEWT, 2016 The video shows the beginning of the production of The Lament of the Newt, a collective performance in defense of the last rice field in Gwangju. Fernando García-Dory, Hyun Yeoung-Eun, and Lim Inza, together with the Hansaebong Dur

September 30, 2016

Monthly Gathering - October

Program: ​20 October 4-5pm The Art Work in Focus group discussion of Toxic, Opaque, To Valerie Solanas and Marilyn Monroe in Recognition of their Desperation by Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz. At Biennale Exibition Hall (G5) 21 O

September 30, 2016

Online streaming from Flo Kasearu House Museum's garden

Follow this link to accompany the works at Flo Kasearu's House Museum Garden, where South Korean gardeners are undertaking a collective project. Stay tuned! flokasearu.eu

September 30, 2016

Meditation: Ingela Ihrman and Gwangju Federation for Environmental Movement

During the opening days, artist Ingela Ihrman met up with collective A Drop of Water and a Trap of Earth, from the Gwangju Federation for Environmental Movement to discuss her research and work on view at GB11.

September 29, 2016

Mediation: Doug Ashford meeting with Gwangju Trauma Center

As a part of the Mediation program of GB11, Doug Ashford gathered with members from the Gwangju Trauma Center for a conversation around his installation, focused on the experience of the 5.18 victims' family.

September 15, 2016

"New Eelam" by Christopher Kulendran Thomas on view at ACC

All over the world, citizenship – the right to belong somewhere – is tied to specific nations. But what if technology could allow a more liquid citizenship beyond national borders? New Eelam, by Christopher Kulendran Thomas, is a long-term artwork in the form of a startup – a real-estate techn

September 14, 2016

Download Tommy Støckel's "The Gwangju Rocks" emoji board

The Gwangju Rocks are based on actual rocks found in the city of Gwangju – placed as “nature sculptures” in the city’s gardens and parks. The artist made 3D scans of a selection of six rocks, simplified and animated each to appear as a digital character with individual behaviour and distinct

September 14, 2016

Tyler Coburn's "Ergonomic Futures" short story website

Tyler Coburn's "Ergonomic Futures" 2016— comprises a series of ergonomic furniture, designed for imagined future humans, available for use in the exhibition area. Accompanying this furniture is a website of short stories, www.ergonomicfutures.com, which mimics the structure of Aristotle’s “gr

September 13, 2016

Mediation: Ann Lislegaard meet up with the Gwangju Science High School for gifted

On the sequence of her participation at GB11, artist Ann Lislegaard met up with the Gwangju Science High School for gifted to discuss science fiction in relation to the works on view at the exhibition halls.

September 6, 2016

Maria lind on Nazgol Ansarinia

Maria lind on Nazgol Ansarinia in Art Review Summer 2016

September 6, 2016

Forum "To All the Contributing Factors" on stream online

To All the Contributing Factors is a forum organized as part of the 11th Gwangju Biennale, titled The Eighth Climate (What Does Art Do?), discussing works by small- and medium-scale art organizations across the world with regards to questions of value, continuity, and scale, and imagining acts in co

September 6, 2016

Independent publishing meeting at Nokdu bookshop

Independent publishing meeting at Dora Garcia's installation "Nokdu bookshop for the living and the dead" moderated by Hana Park from McGuffin cafe. Sunday 4 September

September 6, 2016

Maria Lind on Flo Kasearu

Maria Lind on Flo Kasearu in Art Review March 2016

September 6, 2016

Maria Lind on Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz

Maria Lind on Pauline Boudry and Renate Lorenz, in Art Review September 2015

September 6, 2016

Maria Lind in conversation with Marie Kølbæk Iversen

Maria Lind in conversation with Marie Kølbæk Iversen Kaleidoscope Magazine

September 6, 2016

Maria Lind in conversation with Trevor Paglen

Maria Lind in conversation with Trevor Paglen Kaleidoscope Magazine

September 3, 2016

United - a new film commission by Ahmet Öğüt for GB11

Ahmet Öğüt United, 2016, two channel HD animation, one channel of the two-channel animation shown in a pubic screen in Gwangju, the other channel of which is being simultaneously shown Alt Art Space and YAMA in Istanbul, 1’ each. trailer:

August 24, 2016

Event Program of 'Master Plan for Duamdong'

Apolonija Sustersic & Dari Bae invite us to the program of events they will develop at Nuribom Community Center! Please come and join the 1st event scheduled this Saturday 27th August! Program of events: [b] Sat 27 August 2016 16:00-18:00 Presentation of the Master Plan for Duamdong by

August 6, 2016

Annie Lai Kuen Wan at work - video by the Gwangju Biennale International Curator Course

ANNIE LAI KUEN WAN EVERYDAY A RAINBOW, 2016 The video follows Lai Kuen Wan during the production process of her artwork Everyday a Rainbow. We followed the artist within the surroundings of the Biennale Exhibition Hall, as she was shopping and searching for objects of everyday life, taking meas

August 4, 2016

Tommy Støckel in residency

Berlin-based artist Tommy Støckel is in residency in town building the installation The Gwangju Rocks, one of the new commissions of GB 11. This work comprises a series of rock characters inspired by the artificial nature and rock fixtures in the city of Gwangju. In Gwangju, as well as in many o

August 4, 2016

A walk around an imaginary lake - curated walk July

Hainuwele myth of Kyungyang dike was the title of the path drawn by Nam Soo Kim (Choreography critic from Seoul), on this edition of the curated walks at Monthly Gathering. Walking around the half moon shaped Kyungyang lake in central Gwangju, which disappeared many decades ago, a group of 25 atten

August 2, 2016

Mundus Imaginalis - Maria Lind on the cheeky and imaginal institutional critique of Walid Raad

in Art Review January 2016 "Have you ever heard of a world that exists between the natural and the spiritual worlds? One that mediates between sensory reality and the mystical realm of the divine? This intermediate world welcomes imaginative consciousness and allows cognitive imagination to thriv

August 2, 2016

Dirty Fingers, Sticky Shoes - Maria Lind on Nadia Belerique

Maria Lind on the return of the artist’s hand in post-Internet art, from Art review October 2015 issue "There is a steep increase in traces of sticky fingers on contemporary art. Especially in the art that has been placed under the rather strange label of ‘post-Internet’. Those traces are

August 2, 2016

Networked Nations

In the second of her ‘Gwangju Series’, the biennale’s artistic director, Maria Lind, looks at an idea of homeland as a distributed network. In Art Review April 2016

July 12, 2016

Maria Lind in conversation with Joungmin Yi

Maria Lind in conversation with Joungmin Yi Kaleidoscope Magazine

June 29, 2016

Donate your books:

We are creating an art and theory book collection for Mite-Ugro project space, and ask our friends and colleagues to bring/send publications. The books will be collected and registered in an online database (Blog) at Mite-Ugro, with titles translated into Korean. After one year the collection wo

June 29, 2016

Maria Lind on Jeamin Cha's work in Art Review, May issue

"There is no lack of traumatic events, big and small, in the world.Both today and through history. Thirty-one people killed in the recent Brussels bombings and yesterday 60 casualties in a Lahore park, most of them women and children. Not to speak of the innumerable cases – most of them likely to

May 31, 2016

Program of events at Nokdu Bookshop for the Living and the Dead

Monday 29 August 15:00–17:30 Lectures by Dora García and Kim Sang-yoon on the Nokdu bookstore project and a conversation moderated by Professor Seo Ki Moon, as part of Infra-School at Chonnam University College of Art, 77 Yongbong-ro, Buk-gu, Gwangju Tuesday 30 August 14:00–18:00

April 30, 2016

Talk at Nuribom Community Center

Saturday 3 September 5pm at Nuribom Community Center parallel to Apolonija Sustersic and Dari Bae's program Elke Krasny is a curator, cultural theorist, and writer. She is professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Austria. Her theoretical and curatorial work is firmly rooted in socially eng

April 30, 2016

'Information Skies' premiere online

'Information Skies' a GB11 new commission by Metahaven will premiere online this Thursday 1September at 1pm Korean time at informationskies.com

April 30, 2016

'Lament of the Newt'

Fernando Garcia-Dory is presenting a performance at the Hansaebong Agriculture & Eco-Park, as his new commission to GB11. Performance hours: September 3rd 16:30–17:30 / 18:30–19:30 Sunday 4th 17:00–18:00 address: at Hansaebong Agriculture & Eco-Park, 932-1 Ilkok-dong, Buk-gu, Gwang

April 29, 2016

Curated Walk in May as part of the Monthly Gathering

Every month, as part of the Monthly Gathering, practitioners from various discipline such as sociology, history, urban studies curate different walking paths through the city and suburbs to experience and engage with other urgencies in Gwangju city. So far it has been transformative experience for t

March 14, 2016

Monthly Gathering - Curated walk September

Artist in Residency Bernd Krauss was leading this Month's edition of curated walk, in the Mudeung area.

March 6, 2016

Fernando Garcia-Dory's

The collective performance and agricultural ritual "Lament of the Newt" (2016) by Fernando Garcia-Dory was presented last weekend in Gwangju. In collaboration with DureNale from Hansaebong Dure, Hee-Sang Noh, Mi-ja Park, Eun-Sil Jeong, You-kyeung Cho, Seon-nim Kim, and Young-dae Kim, and co-ordinate

March 6, 2016

May Mothers and Bik Van der Pol

Every Monday and Wednesday from 11:00-12:00 and 13:30-14:30 the May Mothers gather for exercise and leisure activities at Bik Van der Pol’s installation "How Does a Straight Line Feel?" (new commission 2016) at the Biennale exhibition hall (Gallery 3).

March 6, 2016

Monthly Gathering - September

The next Monthly Gathering starts this week. Program: Thursday 8 September 16:00 – 17:00 The Art Work in Focus group discussion of Medium Earth by The Otolith Group. At Biennale Exhibition Hall (Gallery 2) Friday 9 September 16:00 – 17:00 The Art Work in Focus group discussion of