Participation by Korean Artists Prior to the Establishment of
the Korean Pavilion
1986
Exhibitors: Ha DongChul, Ko Younghoon (Commissioner: Lee Yil)
1988
Exhibitors: Park Seo-bo, Kim Kwan Soo (Commissioner: Ha
Chong-Hyun)
1990
Exhibitors: Hong Myung-Seop, Cho Sung Mook (Commissioner: Lee
Seung-Teak)
1993
Exhibitor: Ha Chong-Hyun (Commissioner: Seung-won Suh)
In 1966, Nam June Paik, in collaboration with cellist Charlotte Moorman, orchestrated Gondola Happening during the Venice Biennale. As evident in his voluntary journey from New York to Venice despite not receiving a formal invitation, he already recognized the Biennale's emblematic significance within the art world. Later, in 1993, at the invitation of Klaus Bußmann, the curator of the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale at that time, Paik formally participated alongside Hans Haacke and was awarded the Golden Lion for Best National Participation. Leveraging this momentum, Nam June Paik led the initiative for the establishment of the Korean Pavilion. As a pioneer in the internationalization of Korean art through endeavors like the Whitney Biennial's tour in Korea and the Daejeon Expo, Paik persuaded President (Kim Young-sam) that creating a Korean Pavilion at the Venice Biennale would mark a pivotal moment in elevating the profile of Korean art. The president agreed and instructed the Minister of Culture and Sports to advance this project. It is said that Nam June Paik's direct and indirect efforts were crucial in overcoming the various challenges faced during the pavilion's construction in Venice. He also played a significant role in promoting the pavilion, attending its inauguration at the 1995 Venice Biennale, making television appearances, and participating in the collateral event Tiger's Tail .
Commissioner / Curator
Lee Il
Artists
Kwak Hoon
Kim In Kyum
Yun Hyong-keun
Jheon Soocheon
Date
June 11 – October 15
Prize
Jheon Soocheon
(Honorable Mention)
The year the Venice Biennale celebrated its 100th anniversary,
the Korean Pavilion celebrated its inaugural exhibition,
headed by Korean art critic Lee Yil (1932-1997). The Biennale
that year was directed by French scholar Jean Clair, the
Biennale's first non-Italian director of visual arts, and was
titled
Identity and Alterity: Figures of the Body
, exploring discourses popular among the arts and humanities
in the 1990s. In pace with the overarching theme, Lee Yil
chose to show works by Jheon Soocheon, Yun Hyong-keun, Kim In
Kyum , and Kwak Hoon. Lee Yil studied in France before
returning to Korea in 1965, and taught as a professor at
Hongik University beginning in 1966. As an art critic, he is
recognized for introducing Western art movements to the Korean
contemporary art scene. Curating was not a familiar or common
profession at the time, and it was not unusual for an art
critic to direct an exhibition.
Kim In Kyum presented
Project 21—Nature Net
, and the installation followed the stairs up to the roof,
utilizing the spatial idiosyncrasies of the Korean Pavilion.
He installed computer monitors that showed the movement of
visitors, and also played images of bubbles emerging from a
transparent acrylic wall. Yun Hyong-keun, the master of Korean
minimalist painting, presented a new work on a large canvas.
Jheon Soocheon presented the Clay Icon in
Wandering Planets – Korean's Spirit
, an installation featuring industrial waste, TV monitors, and
clay icons baked from kilns in Gyeongju. Jheon was
awardedHonorable Mention for his installation work, a
meaningful achievement for the first exhibition in a
freshly-built pavilion. His installation was compatible with
Jean Clair's main project for the exhibition of
re-interpreting art history through the perspective of the
body. As a result, after the opening of the Korean Pavilion,
Jheon was interviewed by 16 different TV stations across
Europe, and introduced in many international newspapers and
magazines.
Commissioner / Curator
Kwang-su Oh
Artists
Ik-Joong Kang
hyung woo Lee
Date
June 15 – November 9
Prize
Ik-Joong Kang
(Honorable Mention)
Many Korean artists had ambitions to show their work in the
second exhibition at the Korean Pavilion in 1997. Even those
who had already shown wished for another opportunity in the
new venue. This posed a challenge for Kwang-su Oh, the curator
tasked with selecting the artists that year. Oh felt that the
space of the Korean Pavilion was not sufficient to present
four artists, as they had in the previous exhibition. One or
two seemed more reasonable. In the end, he introduced works by
Ik-Joong Kang and hyung woo Lee.
The two artists chosen to represent the Korean Pavilion in
1997 were relatively young, being in their 30s and 40s.
Considering the protocols of the Korean art community at the
time, his selection was highly unconventional. However
scandalous, it was a well-informed decision based on his
insight into the overarching trends of other pavilions as well
as the Biennale itself. His strategy hit the mark when the
37-year-old Ik-Joong Kang received the Honorable Mention. The
panel of judges praised the work of Ik-Joong Kang for its
ingenuity in creating an encyclopedic world out of small
pieces. What made the award even more meaningful was that Kang
delivered a speech on behalf of the laureates at the winners'
celebration party held after the award ceremony on June 15th.
At the press conference upon his homecoming, he elaborated
that "the significance of his exhibit is to uphold and expand
tradition on a global level." Furthermore, Korea was nominated
for the Golden Lion for Best National Participation. At the
time, both domestic and international public perception
interpreted the Korean Pavilion's consecutive awards as "a
firm recognition of Korean contemporary art by the
international art community."
When Kang's work was shown in the Korean Pavilion in
consecutive exhibitions, the Korean art community started to
perceive the Venice Biennale differently: the misconception
that the Biennale was the final hurdle, approachable only by
established artists, was replaced with an understanding of it
as a place where changes in contemporary art were embraced and
commentary welcomed.
Commissioner / Curator
Misook Song
Artists
Noh Sang-Kyoon
Lee Bul
Date
June 12 – November 7
Prize
Lee Bul (Honorable Mention)
The 48th Venice Biennale on the eve of the new millennium
planned to be its most spectacular and avant-garde exhibition
yet. The legendary curator Harald Szeemann took the helm, and
the Arsenale had been renovated, transformed into commanding
exhibition spaces. The ambitious
dAPERTutto
exhibition sought to set itself apart from any other biennale.
Misook Song was curating the Korean Pavilion that year,
featuring depictions of an apocalyptic society in 1999. Song
explained that the two artists presented the ambivalence and
paradoxical nature of the inner-value system, a subject
clearly capable of connecting with the audience, even on an
international stage. Attention was drawn to the fact that it
was the Korean Pavilion's first year with a female
commissioner and a female artist. With Louise Bourgeois
winning the Golden Lion, 1999 was truly a year of women. Lee
Bul also won the Honorable Mention—a third consecutive honor
for the Korean Pavilion.
Beyond the Korean Pavilion that year, Lee also participated in
dAPERTutto
. For the main exhibition, Lee presented her
Cyborg
sculpture and the notorious Majestic Splendor of decomposing
fish adorned with sequins. For the national venue, she
presented Gravity Greater than Velocity and Amateurs, an
installation featuring capsule noraebangs (Korean karaoke
booths) and footage of uniformed schoolgirls. Noh Sang-Kyoon
presented
For the Worshippers
—Buddha, a figure of Buddha shaped using sequins and
The End
, a panel-framed piece covering three walls. Easily mistaken
at first glance for a monochrome painting,
The End
is Noh's minimalist meditation in sequins, illuminated by
dimming fixtures that cycle in brightness every 80 seconds,
maximizing the reflective properties of the sequins.
Commissioner / Curator
Kyung-mee Park
Artists
Michael Joo
Do Ho Suh
Date
June 10 – November 4
Kyung-mee Park was designated to serve as commissioner. She
had been curating exhibitions while preparing to open the PKM
Gallery. Michael Joo and Do Ho Suh were selected to examine
the dynamics and identities at play between individual and
social systems, human beings and nature. Park explained her
choice, stating, "the two artists come from an understanding
on the issue of Korean cultural identity within the trend of
pluralism and globalization, and this is apparent through
their works that are simultaneously traditional and
contemporary."
Michael Joo presented four different works that made use of
the many windows of the Korean Pavilion. Joo presented
Tree
, a large oak tree 1.4 meters in diameter sourced locally in
Italy, cut along its length and reattached using stainless
steel poles, alongside
Family, Access/Denial
, and
Improved Rack. Joo's
Tree
was particularly eye-catching, as it appeared to extend beyond
the exhibition space and outdoors into the pavilion terrace.
Do Ho Suh showed works exploring the dynamics between the
individual and the collective. His
Some/One
, which had been presented earlier that year at the Whitney
Museum, reappeared alongside
Who Am We?
and
Public Figures
. Suh also participated in Harald Szeeman's main exhibition
Plateau of Humankind
with
Floor
, featuring a two- centimeter thick glass panel upheld by
thousands of little human figures that visitors could step on.
Suh's work was featured on the cover of some of the Biennale's
promotional materials.
That year, the Korean Pavilion hired a publicity specialist.
Promotional activities were actively pursued, including a
luncheon party held for the first time on the second-floor
terrace of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, and a
party in the Korean Pavilion yard on the eve of the exhibition
opening. The Korean Pavilion promotion luncheon party at the
Guggenheim Collection was sponsored in full by the Samsung
Foundation of Culture.
Commissioner / Curator
Kim Hong-hee
Artists
Bahc Yiso
Chung Seoyoung
Inkie Whang
Date
June 15 to November 2
Commissioner Kim Hong-hee turned her eyes toward the
site-specificity of the Korean Pavilion, a structure that
resembled the traditional Korean gazebo, or pavilion. The
Korean Pavilion exhibition in 2003 focused on the transparent
structure of the venue, maximizing the architectural
characteristics so as to recognize the venue not as a mere
container for artwork, but as part of the content. Inkie
Whang's digital interpretation of the sansuhwa (traditional
landscape painting) 〈i〉Like a Breeze〈/i〉, was a
28-meter-wide relief mural spanning the undulating wall in the
main hall to the glass wall, overlapping with the outside view
through the glass.Chung Seoyoung's 〈i〉The New Pillar〈/i〉
transformed the cylindrical column in the semicircular space
into a passive pillar using Styrofoam and cement. Bahc Yiso's
Venice Biennale installed in the front yard of the Korean
Pavilion featured a rectangular wooden frame, each of its legs
standing on a basin containing water, pebbles, and tiles. On
one corner of the frame, he carved all 26 national pavilions
in the Garden and the 3 main exhibition halls of the Arsenale
as a comment on the biennale's cultural hegemony. 〈i〉World's
Top Ten Tallest Structures in 2010〈/i〉 was a caricature of
the world's tallest buildings, made cartoonish with seemingly
careless construction from pipes and plasticine. It was a
satirical jab at the exhibiting countries' competition to be
the "best in the world."
The focus shifted from individual presentations to building
upon specific details and differences in the Korean Pavilion.
With that intention, the identity of Korean art was
conceptualized with the here and now of contemporary
Korean-ness, rather than by sifting through past traditions.
Under the theme “Landscape of Differences”, the Korean
Pavilion's structural, spatial, and local characteristics and
furthermore the aesthetic and ideological differences between
Bahc Yiso, Chung Seoyoung, and Inkie Whang inspired multiple
dimensions of difference that gave the exhibition and its
curation a distinct identity.
Commissioner / Curator
Sunjung Kim
Artists
Kim Beom
Sora Kim
Gimhongsok
Nakyoung Sung
Sungsic Moon
Kiwon Park
Park Sejin
Bahc Yiso
Nakhee Sung
Bae Young-whan
Heinkuhn Oh
Jewyo Rhii
Yeondoo Jung
Choi Jeong Hwa
Ham Jin
Date
June 12 – November 6
The exhibition title was taken from Fritz Lang's 1948 film of
the same name. Breaking the conventional mold of a minimum
number of artists, the commissioner Sunjung Kim invited the
largest number in the Korean Pavilion's history. Kiwon Parkn
transformed the walls of the venue into jade-colored
fiberglass-reinforced- plastic partitions, and Nakhee Sung's
mural painted directly on the pavilion's wall changed the
overall atmosphere. Gimhongsok's Oval Talk, installed
before it, resembled a large red egg. To the left of the red
oval was Sora Kim's video installation, and on the wall were
Kiwon Park's works, as well as photographic portraits of girls
by Heinkuhn Oh. On the structure connecting the indoor
exhibition space to the rear exit was Nakyoung Sung's mural,
and on the second floor was ChoiJeong-Hwa's large installation
Site of Desire made by stacking red rectangular plastic
colanders.
Bahc Yiso made a posthumous return to the Biennale with
World Chair—too spacious for a single seat, yet
uncomfortable for two. World Chair was not so much a
tribute to the artist as it was a symbol encouraging
contemporary artists to seek emotional connections and share
their conceptual attitudes. Jewyo Rhii did, however,
commemorate his senior and advisor Bahc Yiso by daring himself
to draw at the highest point of the Korean Pavilion, on the
upper edge of the column and on the ceiling nearby. Kim Beom
showed a reconstruction of TV news, and Ham Jin presented a
miniature installation on the balcony, viewable through a
magnifying glass, that drew curious visitors. Painter Sungsic
Moon exhibited Rectangular Garden, while Sejin Park
showcased Landscape. Young-whan Bae presented a work
from the Pop Song series, which had already been
introduced at the 2002 Gwangju Biennale, and Yeondoo Jung
displayed Evergreen Tower. Additionally, Nakion took
the stage as a DJ during the opening party and delivered a
music performance.
Commissioner / Curator
Soyeon Ahn
Artist
Hyungkoo Lee
Date
June 10 – November 21
Website
Commissioner Soyeon Ahn chose Hyungkoo Lee, introducing the
artist as "a highly conceptual sculptor who still believes in
the value of handiwork and hard work." The Korean Pavilion
opened with the title The Homo Species, with its
exhibition space modified to resemble a museum of natural
history and a laboratory. To create dramatic spatial effects,
the exhibition space was divided into a completely darkened
black room and a contrasting bright white room. Hyungkoo Lee
presented a series titled The Objectuals, which
distorts the human body utilizing optical devices, and the
Animatus series, where personified imaginary cartoon
characters are reconstructed into three-dimensional skeletons.
Dimly lit corridors lead to a central hall where a bone
sculpture depicting the chase scene from the cartoon
Tom and Jerry is installed against entirely black
walls, ceilings, and floors. Furthermore, he also exhibited a
five-minute, 19-second performance video in which he wandered
around Venice wearing an optical helmet from his The
Objectuals series, and staged a performance in a
glass-walled exhibition space on the opening day.
Ahn oversaw the Tiger's Tail exhibition held in Venice
more than a decade ago in 1995, and Hyungkoo Lee was known in
the community as an assistant under Ik-Joong Kang and hyung
woo Lee at the 1997 Venice Biennale. As returnees to the
Venetian venue, the commissioner and the artist focused their
efforts on overcoming the limitations of the relatively small
space and complex structure while maximizing the effects of
the exhibition. Their answer was to completely block out all
natural light into the exhibition space to create a lab-like
ambiance. The artificially secluded space presented an uncanny
contrast with the bright, natural setting of the Castello
Gardens. The agenda of “selection and concentration”
corresponded to the commissioner's appointment of Lee as the
first sole exhibiting artist.
Commissioner / Curator
Eungie Joo
Artist
Haegue Yang
Date
June 7 – November 22
Website
For the first time, the Korean Pavilion appointed a non-Korean
as its commissioner: Eungie Joo, a Korean-American expatriate.
Haegue Yang, who had been active primarily in Europe and Korea
since studying abroad in Germany in 1994, had already garnered
much attention through international exhibitions such as
Manifesta 4 (2022) and the Carnegie International (2008), and
domestic exhibitions such as the Hermès Foundation Missulsang
(2003). When Eungie Joo initially selected and invited Haegue
Yang to represent the Korean Pavilion, the artist reportedly
declined participation due to doubts about whether art should
represent a nation. Afterward, they tried to approach the
exhibition differently and started by working together on a
plan to execute part of the project in Korea for Korean
audiences who could not travel to Venice.
In this context, as a preliminary step to the Biennale, the
commissioner and artist framed a pre-project titled
An Offering: Public Resource, for which they received
donations of various books and archival materials from
acquaintances in the art world. The collected materials,
including 1,500 books and records, were showcased in the lobby
of the Art Sonje Center from March 2009, preceding the
exhibition in Venice, until December, following the conclusion
of the Venice exhibition. Artist Choi Jeong Hwa was in charge
of space design, and Sunjung Kim, the commissioner of the
Korean Pavilion in 2005, collaborated on the project. Bae
Young-whan, Doryun Chong Gimhongsok, Im Heung-soon, siren eun
young jung, as well as Reality and Utterance, alongside other
young artists and students, participated in this project,
expanding the format of the national pavilion exhibition held
in Venice.
Haegue Yang and Eungie Joo sought to create a supportive
environment surrounding artistic production and explore
innovative approaches to their work within the limits of the
Biennale's spectacle. They also aimed to restore the “dignity”
of the Korean Pavilion's architecture. They broke down the
temporary walls, repaired damaged floors, and replaced leaky
ceiling glass. This restoration was an essential part of the
exhibition preparation. In this space, the artist led
explorations of wind, natural light, the kitchen, the absence
of locals , and mysterious scents.
Commissioner / Curator
Yun Cheagab
Artist
Lee Yongbaek
Date
June 4 – November 27
Website
Yun Cheagab presented media artist Lee Yongbaek in a solo
exhibition entitled “The Love Is Gone but the Scar Will Heal”.
Yun Cheagab was an independent curator active throughout Asia
including in Korea, China, and India. As the commissioner, he
wanted Lee's art to tell the story of pain and hope in Korea's
modernization and cultural development.
Since the '90s, Lee has been producing diverse forms of art
using technology, and is widely recognized for work that
captures the unique political and cultural issues of the time.
For the Korean pavilion, he showed 14 major works ranging in
genre from video and photography to sculpture and painting,
taking advantage of the multifaceted and multi-layered
structure of the Korean Pavilion. The video performance Angel
Soldier, featuring a floral-patterned military fatigue,
creates an extreme contrast between angel and soldier which
conveys a candid representation of contemporary social
situations. The floral fatigues hanging outdoors on the roof
of the Korean Pavilion were a symbol of ceasefire and peace,
and attracted many visitors.
Pieta: Self-hatred, then installed in the curved window
space at the front of the pavilion, recreates the figures of
Christ and the Virgin Mary with a molded figure being held by
the mold that created it. The mold and the molded figure
appear either to be engaged in a gruesome fight, or posed so
as to depict the original Pietà, with the Virgin Mary cradling
the dead body of Christ. Lee's video work
Broken Mirror comprises a mirror and a flat screen
which displays the viewer's reflection in the mirror before
suddenly breaking with an ear-splitting shatter. At the
opening ceremony, Korean Pavilion staff members donning the
floral fatigues enacted a performance, and during the
previews, the fatigues were spotted marching around the
Gardens, raising publicity.
Commissioner / Curator
Seungduk Kim
Artist
Kimsooja
Date
June 1 – November 24
Website
Seungduk Kim was the commissioner, and Kimsooja was the
selected artist. Both Kim’s left Korea early in their careers,
worked in the United States and France, and were perceptive of
changes in the international art scene. Within the special
circumstances of the Venice Biennale, anthropological and
literary concepts were effectively and successfully introduced
into the indoor architectural setting of the Korean Pavilion.
With Bottari as the title of the exhibition, the
architecture of the Korean Pavilion was approached as a
bottari (a traditional wrapping cloth), wrapping the outer
wall—the boundary between the outdoor and indoor.
The bottari concept had been a regular theme for Kimsooja over
three decades, and for the Biennale, she used a seemingly
immaterial material to expand the notion to cover the entire
structure. The architecture of the Korean Pavilion was
presented as-is, while the translucent film wrapped over the
outer surface as a conceptual bottari offered a curious and
constantly changing prismatic experience. While visitors
experienced refracted and changing light, the inner space of
the Korean Pavilion was filled with
The Weaving Factory 2004-2013, a sound performance
featuring the breathing of the artist herself.
Meanwhile, To Breathe: Blackout created an encounter
completely devoid of light and sound—an increasingly rare
experience for the modern city-dwellers. The deprivation
encourages thoughts on the most primitive of subjects, not
least mortality. Due to space constraints, the deprivation
chamber could only allow 1-3 entrants for 1-2 minutes at a
time. By introducing visitors to the emptiness of space, the
space itself functioned as art. Full, yet empty, boundlessly
expanding inwards and outwards, not as an individual work but
as the entirety of the space itself, visitors had to
personally experience this piece. Yet not everyone has the
means to visit Venice. The experience is digitally available
on the Korean Pavilion website and through video records,
albeit in a limited format.
Commissioner / Curator
Sook-Kyung Lee
Artists
Moon Kyungwon & Jeon Joonho
Date
May 9 – November 22
Website
Sook-Kyung Lee commissioned and curated the artistic duo Moon
Kyungwon and Jeon Joonho in 2015. As Sook-Kyung Lee noted,
"2015 marks the 20th anniversary for the Korean Pavilion. It
is an opportunity to look back on what has been achieved, and
also look onwards to new horizons." She shared her wish not
only to deal with the more acute issues in contemporary art,
but also to provide perspectives on changes to come. Coupled
with the 2015 Biennale's theme of
All the World's Futures, the artists' imagination
allowed visitors to experience a future-retrospective.
Titled The Ways of Folding Space & Flying, the 2015
Venice Biennale Korean Pavilion exhibition made the most of
the venue's structural specificity with a 7-channel film
installation, the largest scale attempted by the duo. The Ways
of Folding Space & Flying is a visual story of a
post-apocalyptic future, the image wrapping the Korean
Pavilion from the outside-in.
The world in which
The Ways of Folding Space & Flying is set is a
post-apocalyptic Earth of the future, where most of the
world's landmass is submerged and only the Korean Pavilion has
remained afloat like a buoy where Venice once stood.
Chukjibeop, or, when literally translated, "ways of folding
ground," is a concept originating from Taoist practice, a
hypothetical method of contracting physical distance so as to
cover a greater distance in less time. Out more simply,
Bihaengsul, or "divination of levitation," means flying. An
ambitious project by Moon Kyungwon and Jeon Joonho for the
Venice Biennale, The Ways of Folding Space & Flying is
not simply about a dystopian future in the manner of a typical
sci-fi film backdrop, but ventures into the true meaning of
what art can stand for in this contemporary age of uncertainty
and instability, even if it may seem absurd at times, or is
difficult to explain logically.
Commissioner / Curator
Lee Daehyung
Artists
Lee Wan
Cody Choi
Date
May 13 – November 26
Website
Just prior to the 2017 exhibition, the official title of the
artistic director of the Korean Pavilion changed from
commissioner to curator. Arts Council Korea also changed the
way it names the curator to selection from the candidates who
entered the open call for applications. Lee Daehyung, art
director of Hyundai Motor Company at the time, named Lee Wan
and Cody Choi as the two artists to represent the Korean
Pavilion in his exhibition proposal presented during the
review of open call applications and followed through with his
proposal upon selection. In addition to the two artists, Lee
Daehyung adopted Mr. K as the third voice of the exhibition
entitled Counterbalance: The Stone and the Mountain.
Mr. K served as the figure embodying the exhibition concept as
well as a critical figure in one of Lee Wan’s works that takes
its title from him. Through the life of the late Mr. Kim
Kimoon, to whom the 1,412 photographs Lee Wan purchased in
Hwanghakdong for the trivial sum of 50,000 KRW (less than 50
USD) belonged, Lee Wan showed not only an individual’s life
full of fierce battles but also the process of Korea’s
modernization. Lee Wan presented six works in total, including
Mr. K and the Collection of Korean History and
Proper Time.
Cody Choi presented a large neon light installation entitled
Venetian Rhapsody on the façade of the Korean Pavilion
as an attempt to overcome the building’s spatial limitations.
The installation that drew from the symbolic images of Las
Vegas and Macao was a lampoon of “casino-capitalism” that had
also laid roots in the international art circle. While
examining the geo-cultural characteristics of Venice where art
and commercialism go hand in hand, Choi came to realize that
Venice makes artists chase rainbows and that artists
(including himself), collectors, galleries, and curators
participating in the Venice Biennale are swayed by it, making
bluffs.
Each belonging to a different generation, Choi and Lee created
an interesting narrative that corresponds with the concept of
“counterbalance,” cutting through the three-generation
perspective of “grandfather-father-son.” Though this
trigenerational framework was criticized in Korea as
“convoluted,” foreign media raced to name
Counterbalance: The Stone and the Mountain as an
exhibition not to be missed. Visitors from around the world
commented that “the exhibition took an illuminating approach
of converging “trans-national” and “trans-generational”
issues, thereby revealing that the issues of Korea, Asia, and
the world are closely interlinked.
Commissioner / Curator
Hyunjin Kim
Artists
Hwayeon Nam
siren eun young jung
Jane Jin Kaisen
Date
May 11- November 24
Website
Independent curator Hyunjin Kim led the 2019 Korean Pavilion
exhibition and invited Hwayeon Nam, siren eun young jung, and
Jane Jin Kaisen as the participating artists. The exhibition
borrowed its title,
History Has Failed Us, but No Matter, from the first
sentence of Min Jin Lee’s novel Pachinko(2017) and
staged those who were banished, veiled, forgotten, abandoned,
and condemned by history as the principal voices of a new
narrative. The exhibition attracted attention with all of its
participants being women, possibly appearing as a narrative
that reversed the male-centric history presented by the Korean
Pavilion’s previous exhibition in 2017 or as a preview of
The Milk of Dreams, the main exhibition of the 2022
Venice Biennale. Kim stated, “We have recently witnessed
expansions in ways the history of modernization is read,
written, and imagined anew, thanks to the language and
imaginative power of visual arts. I believe the main engine
that will drive such change more innovatively is gender
diversity.”
Hwayeon Nam presented
A Garden in Italy and Dancer from the Peninsula,
which contemplates the dance and unusual trace of the life of
Choi Seung-hee, a modern female artist who was in conflict
with and broke free from nationalism amidst colonization and
the Cold War. siren eun young jung produced a multichannel
video installation entitled
A Performing by Flash, Afterimage, Velocity, and Noise,
which follows the most talented surviving male-role yeoseong
gukgeuk (a genre of Korean theater featuring only women
actors) actor Lee Deung Woo and examines the aesthetics and
political nature behind the works of later performers who
carried on the genealogy of contemporary queer performance.
Jane Jin Kaisen’s new work for the Korean Pavilion was
Community of Parting, which reframed the shamanic myth
of Princess Bari as the root of diasporic women in the process
of modernization, thereby interpreting the legend as a story
that transcends divisions and borders.
Through these research-based works,
History Has Failed Us, but No Matter unfolded a
multifarious video narrative that delved into the deep and
long-standing layers of the history of modernization in East
Asia. The three artists’ unique video installations also
incorporated dynamic visibility, tactile sound, colorful light
and rhythm, while working with the surrounding architectural
structure based on organic curves, thus highlighting the
“placeness” of the Korean Pavilion on the whole.
Commissioner / Curator
Young-chul Lee
Artist
Yunchul Kim
Date
April 23 – November 27
Website
The Korean Pavilion's exhibition, themed around “Gyre,”
illustrated the swollen boundary between the tumultuous
present and the emerging era. Initially, seven works were
planned to be exhibited under three themes: The Swollen Sun,
The Path of Gods, and The Great Outdoors. However, to better
align with the architectural structure of the Korea Pavilion
and the ambiance of the surrounding environment, the
exhibition was revised to showcase six works, including one
on-site drawing and three new installation pieces. Notably,
for the first time in the history of the Korea Pavilion, the
ceiling was completely removed to maximize the harmony between
light and the artworks. Curator Young-chul Lee described the
presentation as "a space-specific exhibition where the
artworks and the space breathe as one, revealing both the
inside and outside of the Korean Pavilion."
After majoring in electronic music in Korea, Yunchul Kim
studied abroad in Germany under composer Wolfgang Rihm , where
he transitioned to experimental visual media, focusing on the
study of media art. He explored the "potential properties of
matter" and studied photonic crystals and metamaterials. The
artist introduced the exhibition, stating, "In this
exhibition, nameless materials are connected to the universe,
space, and the viewers in their own right, regardless of their
use or value. I intended to demonstrate a new era of many suns
rather than the absoluteness of a single sun, and a new sense
swirling and awakening herein.” The exhibition, structured
around three themes, The Swollen Sun, The Path of Gods, and
The Great Outdoors, projected the labyrinthine world through
the entanglement of nameless materials, mechanical devices of
unknown purposes, microcosms, and cosmic events, and presented
a narrative in which the exhibition space is transformed into
a horizon teeming with events of creation through the flow of
objects, humans, sensations, and meanings. The Art Newspaper
selected Korea, along with the United States, Belgium, Canada,
France, the Nordic countries, and Romania, as the seven
must-see national pavilions at the Venice Biennale.
Commissioner / Curator
Seolhui Lee
Jacob Fabricius
Artist
Koo Jeong A
Date
April 20 – November 24
Website
In March 2023, Seolhui Lee (Chief Curator, Kunsthal Aarhus)
and Jacob Fabricius (Director, Art Hub Copenhagen) were
selected as the curators of the exhibition, drawing even more
attention than usual as it is the first time since the opening
of the Korean Pavilion in 1995 that an art exhibition had a
joint curatorial system and a foreign director. Jeong A Koo,
who has been steadily gaining attention on the international
stage for her work that brings to light the poetic aspect of
the ordinary by capturing the everyday scenes and
characteristics of objects prone to breaking or disappearing,
participates as an artist. The exhibition is titled "Odorama
City," a combination of "odor," meaning scent, and "rama,"
referring to drama. The artist, focusing on encounters and
coincidences through scent, is motivated by the energy
connection between the space and the viewers. Curators Seolhui
Lee & Jacob Fabricius and artist Jeong A Koo, all of whom
practice as foreigners in their respective professional
environments, contemplate the broadening definition of Korean
and look forward to expanding the scope of Korea and
interacting with people who are not necessarily categorized as
Korean through the scent journey of the Korean Pavilion.
The scent, based on "scent memories" collected from people
around the world, runs through the Korean Pavilion through a
sculpture that functions as a diffuser to spread the scent, an
infinity symbol engraved into the exhibition floor, and two
wooden installation pieces in the form of a Möbius strip. This
theme also serves as an echo of "OUSSS," a concept of infinite
transformation coined by the artist in the 1990s. OUSSS
suggests "another extension of sensory experience" beyond the
realm of the material and immaterial, to a place without clear
boundaries. Reminiscent of a fetus, the androgynous creature
often appearing in this cosmos traverses the darkness,
conveying playful humor and uncanny sensation through gestures
transcending human nature.