Sep 30 2019

Gwangju Biennale 2020 Reveals Title And First Artist List

by Ophelia Lai

ANGELO PLESSAS, who will participate in the 2020 Gwangju Biennale, pictured in Kiasma, Helsinki. Photo by Pirje Mykkänen / Finnish National Gallery. Courtesy Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki.

GALA PORRAS-KIM will participate in the 2020 Gwangju Biennale. Photo by Mark Hanauer / University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA). Courtesy UCLA.

YIN-JU CHEN will participate in the 2020 Gwangju Biennale. Image via the Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textile, Hong Kong.

CIAN DAYRIT will participate in the 2020 Gwangju Biennale. Courtesy Bellas Artes Projects, Manila.

The 13th Gwangju Biennale, directed by Defne Ayas and Natasha Ginwala, is titled “Minds Rising, Spirits Tuning.” A press release dated September 28 revealed that the upcoming edition will focus on “the spectrum of the extended mind,” exploring different notions of organic intelligence and systems of knowledge, including indigenous, animist, and “anti-systemic” paradigms. The Biennale will consider these plural approaches in its engagement with the contemporary rise of artificial intelligence and “algorithmic regimes.”

The year 2020 marks the 40th anniversary of the Gwangju Uprising, which has informed the themes of the Biennale since its inception. According to the press release, this event “provides an impetus to metabolize journeys through the threshold between life and death—the middle world of the undead—to extend analyses of current strategies of solidarity building and global alliances, and to strive for a deeper understanding of the intrinsic relationship between healing, dissent, and renewal.”

The festival will kick off in Gwangju on October 1–2, 2019, with a public program of discussions and other events focused on sustainability, scale, and questions related to the Biennale’s theme. The program coincides with the first series of site visits by participating artists, including multimedia artists Angelo Plessas, Yin-Ju Chen, Sangdon Kim, and Gala Porras-Kim.

The 13th Gwangju Biennale is slated to run from September 4 to November 29, 2020. The first roster of participating artists is as follows:

Pacita Abad (Philippines)

Korakrit Arunanondchai (Thailand / US)

Cecilia Bengolea (Argentina / France)

Yin-Ju Chen (Taiwan)

Hyuntaek Cho (South Korea)

Vaginal Davis (US)

Patricia Domínguez (Chile)

Cian Dayrit (Philippines)

John Gerrard (Ireland)

Sonia Gomes (Brazil)

Trajal Harrell (US)