Artnet News
June 17, 2008
ENWEZOR’S META-BIENNIAL IN GWANGJU
Globetrotting curator Okwui Enwezor swooped through town last Wednesday, June 11, for a press conference at the Ludlow 38 art space in New York’s Lower East Side, touting his work as creative director of the upcoming Gwangju Biennale, Sept. 5-Nov. 9, 2008. A city of some 1.4 million people in South Korea, Gwangju has hosted a biennual art exhibition since 1995 with a particular focus on themes of globalization. This year, the show promises to be especially ambitious under Enwezor’s stewardship. "The 21st century is certainly the Asian century," he declared confidently, citing as evidence that there are some 11 major biennials coinciding in Asia in November. He went on to praise the "scale of building, the scale of the imagination" in the East.
So what is Enwezor doing to capture this cultural dynamism? He’s importing the greatest hits of the rest of the world, of course! In an ambitious play to create a sort of meta-exhibition -- Enwezor claims that there is a "crisis of legitimacy" for the international biennale format, to which he is responding -- he is appropriating important exhibitions from all over the world from the 2007 art season, with a particular focus on exhibition formats and artworks that explore "theatricality."
Most notably, visitors can expect a complete restaging of the critically lauded Gordon Matta-Clark show seen at the Whitney Museum of American Art, Apr. 1, 2007-29, 2007. Also set to be imported to Gwangju is the "African Cities" exhibition seen at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Apr. 2-May 23, 2007, featuring photos of African capitals taken by British starchitect David Adjaye, and "The Asian Shore," a show by Italian artist Stefano Arienti at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, June 29-Oct. 14, 2007, which responded to the institution’s collection of Asian art.
Those familiar with the New York gallery scene might have a sense of déjà vu at the Korean fest. Among Enwezor’s reborn exhibitions are aspects of the recent Hans Haacke retrospective from Paula Cooper Gallery, Jan. 11-Feb. 17, 2008; Kohei Yoshiyuki’s suite of night vision photos depicting couples having sex in Japanese parks, seen at Yossi Milo Gallery, Sept. 6-Oct. 20, 2007; work by Jan Henle seen at Sikkema Jenkins & Co., Sept. 8-Oct. 13, 2007; and Huma Bhabha’s sculptures from Salon 94, Sept. 12-Oct. 26, 2007.
Still other U.S. shows getting a second life in Gwangju include Matthew Monahan’s exhibition "Five Years, Ten Years, Maybe Never" from the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, July 26-Oct. 29, 2007; John Zurier’s "Night Paintings" from Philadelphia’s Larry Becker Contemporary Art, Mar.1-Apr. 26, 2008; and site-specific videos and sculptures by Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadilla seen at the San Francisco Art Institute -- where Enwezor is dean of academic affairs -- last fall. Other shows are pulled from Le Plateau in Paris (Hassan Khan), Lisson Gallery in London (Gerard Byrne), as well as a variety of venues in Korea itself.
As if this weren’t enough, Enwezor has also delegated five mini-shows to international curators, who he has asked to showcase five artists each via innovative presentation and conceptual strategies. The results range from the "Bokdulbang Project," curated by Sung-Hyen Park at one of the city’s traditional markets, to Claire Tancons’ decision to stage an artist-designed procession in the streets. The other curators involved are Partrick D. Flores ("Turns in Tropics: Artist-Curator"), Jang Un Kim ("On Jouissance for Those Without Places to Return") and Abdellah Karroum ("Expedition7 (Patries relatives)").
The Gwangju Biennale garnered some unwanted press last year, when the project’s proposed co-director, Korean curator Shin Jeong-ah, was dismissed after it was revealed that she had forged her degree from Yale University [see Artnet News, July 12, 2008]. With any luck, Enwezor’s ambitious undertaking seems likely to put this association firmly in the festival’s past.
