A viewer-participant memoir
In May 1980 the South Korean Democracy Movement began in the southern city of Gwangju. The uprising was met with brutal force by the dictatorship. Hundreds of people died in the uprising. The Democracy Movement then quickly spread. This backdrop is an important key to understanding the significance of the Gwangju Biennale within South Korea and Asia generally. Established in 1995 the Gwangju Biennale crystallises in a very real and immediate sense what are perhaps in the western world the somewhat flawed and romantic notions of freedom of expression. 2004 was the lOth anniversary exhibition. Significantly Roh Moo-hyun, President of South Korea, and his wife opened the exhibition. Unlike the ambivalent relationship that Australians have with their own Biennale of Sydney, in Gwangju there is a real affection and pride in the event.
Whereas earlier exhibitions had showcased art that mirrored European and United States tendencies, the 2004 Gwangju Biennale was very loosely themed around the Zen sounding 'A Grain of Dust, A Drop of Water'. Overall there was a 1970s' flavour to the exhibition.
The notion of the social responsibility of artists was at the heart of the curatorial model for the show. Called 'The Viewer-Participants Workshop', this is a bold initiative and an intriguing new model of exhibition development. After the perceived failure of Hou Hanrou's Biennale 'Pause' in 2002, the 2004 director Yang-woo Lee decided to implement a process to give the exhibition back to the people of Gwangju and South Korea. Yangwoo Lee wanted to give audiences more ownership of the artistic processes. He had a desire to shift the traditional top-down imposition by curator and artist in order to create a more open discourse with... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline