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| The Gwangju Biennale Foundation has abolished the brand-new Park Seo-bo Art Prize after just one edition. Detractors from local artist groups argued that the award named after the "dansaekhwa" (monochrome painting) master failed to reflect the founding political spirit of the biennial art event. Courtesy of Gwangju Biennale Foundation |
By Park Han-sol
The Gwangju Biennale Foundation has officially abolished the brand-new Park Seo-bo Art Prize after drawing flak from local artists, who argued that the award named after the "dansaekhwa" (monochrome painting) master failed to reflect the founding political spirit of Asia's longest-running survey of contemporary art.
Established in 1995 in Korea's southwestern city that witnessed the 1980 pro-democracy uprising against the military dictatorship, the Gwangju Biennale has continuously revisited the so-called "Gwangju Spirit" in both its mission and exhibition themes.
The new prize, funded by Park's non-profit GIZI Foundation, was launched at this year's biennale to recognize one outstanding artist or collective participating in the show. The sum of $1 million was set to be divided into 10 prizes for the next 10 iterations of the event until 2042 in order to support contemporary creators and their practice.
The inaugural $100,000 award went to Korean artist Oum Jeong-soon for her "Elephant without Trunk" ― life-size fabric sculptures of trunk-less elephants representing the artist's decades-long project of collaborating with the visually impaired.
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| The inaugural $100,000 Park Seo-bo Art Prize went to Korean artist Oum Jeong-soon for her fabric sculpture, "Elephant without Trunk" (2023), during the opening ceremony of this year's Gwangju Biennale, April 6. Courtesy of the artist, Gwangju Biennale Foundation |
However, the award became the subject of criticism after several local artist groups took issue with Park's apparent detachment from the country's tumultuous modern political history throughout his creative career ― and therefore, from Gwangju's own history.
"While in pursuit of Abstract Expressionism, Art Informel and monochrome paintings, Park Seo-bo stayed silent about the April 19, 1960 protests (against the autocratic rule of then-president Syngman Rhee), conformed to the military regime of the 1970s and turned a blind eye to the pro-democracy movements of the 1980s," the detractors wrote in a leaflet that was distributed during the biennale's opening ceremony on April 6.
Park, a seminal figure in the Korean modern abstract art scene and one of the founding members of the formative dansaekhwa movement, has been most well-known both here and abroad for his decades-long signature "Ecriture" series ― which emphasized the purposeless and endless repetition of the artist's activities, to the point of "emptying himself out."
In a statement released on Wednesday, the Gwangju Biennale Foundation announced that the decision to abolish the prize came after taking note of the various concerns raised within the domestic art circle and vowed to take more progressive measures to develop an award system in the future.
Excluding the prize money of $100,000 that was awarded last month, the remaining fund will be returned to the GIZI Foundation, it added.
"It is regrettable that the issue was raised on the day of the event (Gwangju Biennale)," the 91-year-old artist wrote on Facebook and Instagram. "I have a dream ― to create my own art museum, regardless of size, to establish a scholarship to support the next generations of creators and to establish an art award. All three were making steady progress. But it looks like I will have to proceed with my last dream in another way."
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| Nicolas Bourriaud, the newly appointed artistic director of the 15th Gwangju Biennale / Courtesy of Gwangju Biennale Foundation |
The French curator and art critic has extensive experience in curating large-scale shows such as the 2009 Tate Triennial, the 2014 Taipei Biennale and most recently, the 2019 Istanbul Biennale.
"The exhibition will address a universal and apparently simple theme; our relation to space," he said in a statement.
"This theme will be challenging to explore, because re-drawing or redefining space appears as a common issue between climate change, feminism, post-colonialism and the future of the planet."
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