A media event by Arts Council Korea takes place in Seoul on Jan. 31, 2024, to share the state art promotion agency’s plan for the 60th Venice Biennale. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
SEOUL, Jan. 31 (Korea Bizwire) — From Korean abstract art master Yoo Young-kuk (1916-2002) to Seundja Rhee (1918-2009), one of the few female first-generation Korean abstract artists, the Korean Pavilion has a lot to offer at this year’s Venice Art Biennale.
The 60th edition of the Biennale, one of the world’s largest and most influential art events, takes on added importance for South Korean art, as the country plans to celebrate the 30th anniversary of its pavilion.
At a press event Wednesday, Arts Council Korea (ARKO) Chairperson Choung Byoung-gug recalled an occasion in 1993, when visionary visual artist Paik Nam-june met then South Korean President Kim Young-sam to appeal for the need to build a Korean pavilion in Venice. Choung was working as an aide to the former president at that time.
Led by Paik, who represented Germany and won the Golden Lion earlier that year, and his like-minded peers, the Korean Pavilion opened as the last national pavilion at the sprawling Giardini park in 1995. It has since served as a launching pad for talented, yet lesser-known Korean artists, including young, emerging ones, on the global art stage.
To put on a more effective show, the state art promotion agency ARKO invited seven other public and private art institutions, including the Gwangju Biennale Foundation, to the press event to paint a holistic picture of what the visitors to the Korean Pavilion are in for.
The Korean Pavilion at the Venice Biennale is shown in this file photo provided by Arts Council Korea on May, 19, 2023. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
In a special exhibition, titled “Every Island is a Mountain,” ARKO will chronicle and highlight the works by the 38 artists who have represented the country at the Biennale in the past three decades, underlining the power of art in bridging social divisions and resentments.
Multimedia and installation artist Koo Jeong A, who will represent the country at this year’s event, will have a separate show, ARKO said. Known for her site-specific works, Koo reinvents space and conjures up subjective memories through invisible elements.
Major paintings by abstract art master Yoo will go on display at the Fondazione Querini Stampalia, a historic cultural institution founded in 1869, in his first-ever exhibition in Europe.
The show, “A Journey to the Infinite,” includes 30 oil paintings and 14 prints that have rarely been seen in public, the exhibition’s curator Kim In-hye said during the event.
“I expect the exhibition to serve as a moment to hint at South Korean art’s diversity,” she said, adding the late artist’s mostly large oil paintings were painted during the late 1960s when the artist produced some of his best works.
“One of the 1968 paintings is actually borrowed from RM,” she said, referring to K-pop superstar BTS’ leader, one of the country’s most influential art patrons.
Other prominent artists to be featured include visual artist Lee Bae and Shin Sung Hy (1948-2009) who pioneered a unique art world to overcome the limitation of the canvas frame and invented “Nouage,” the method of weaving and knotting painted strips of canvas.
The Biennale is set to open April 20.
(Yonhap)
