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Enid Tsui

The 15th edition of the Gwangju Biennale, Asia’s largest contemporary art exhibition, opened on September 7 during a month in which South Korea is brandishing its visual-arts soft power.
As well as the Gwangju event, which runs until December 1, there is also a smaller biennale being held in Busan and, earlier in the month, two major contemporary art fairs took place in Seoul.
The main exhibition in Gwangju – this year titled “Pansori”, after the Korean traditional folk opera genre – has moments that enthral, transform and intrigue. But it also stirs questions about the value of biennales today.
According to the curatorial statement, the operatic title symbolises a world where discordant voices can be heard simultaneously. Different sections of the exhibition, each having a sound-related theme, are meant to bring out the idea that more space should be given to other species, and to each other.

One quietly affecting piece is Peter Buggenhout’s monumental The Blind Leading the Blind #91 (2018-2023). It is one of the first works visitors come across in a section titled “Feedback Effect” – a reference to how our world has become an echo chamber of knee-jerk reactions.
The Belgian artist’s giant, minimalistic assemblage of household waste, animal hair and dust suggests a natural melding together of man-made detritus and organic matter that has little to do with human agency.
There are other highlights that pluck us out of the confines of human-centred thinking.
These include Andrius Arutiunian’s Below (2024), a haunting cluster of monstrous beings made of bitumen, singing in an ancient, subterranean language; and Hayden Dunham’s The Return: Finally Free (2024), a piece of “generative art” where the artist sets an autonomous process in motion that is completed not by artificial intelligence – as is often the case – but by an entirely new material based on activated charcoal.
There is also Jakob Kudsk Steensen’s Berl-Berl (2021-). The film is accompanied by an ASMR sound composition that sends tingles through the viewer while they watch the slow movements of the work’s central protagonist: a swamp.


Apart from exploited nature, suppressed, alternative voices of humans are heard at the biennale too.
Among the most poetic are Amol K Patil’s Who is Invited in the City? (2024), a tribute to the Dalit poets and artists expelled from Mumbai because of their caste; and Jura Shust’s multimedia Neophyte, inspired by ancient Slavic myths and rituals.
Shust’s work is located in a gallery called “Primordial Sound”, an area dedicated to the “om” in Hindu tradition, which some consider the residual sound of the Big Bang.
This tranquil, meditative section seems to be at the heart of the utopian vision of the biennale’s artistic director, Nicolas Bourriaud, in which we can start over again.
Dominique Knowles’ mural of horses, The Solemn and Dignified Burial Befitting My Beloved for All Seasons (2024), resembles ancient cave paintings, while Marguerite Humeau’s *stirs (2024), a sound installation centred on a ghostly figure representing the origin of life, is surrounded by vessels containing ancient bacteria.
Restorative it may be, but the biennale’s attempt to be an all-embracing one smacks of political correctness rather than an effort to proffer a compelling thesis.
Bourriaud made his name as a curator with the concept of “relational aesthetics”, a way of seeing participatory art that offers a convivial, levelling space for different people to come together.

In Gwangju, he equates an ecocritical perspective with all-too-human “emancipation struggles” – from feminism and decolonisation to LGBT+ rights – which is why many of the artworks included represent the plight of marginalised voices.
There are indeed powerful pieces, such as Choi Haneyl’s “Uncle” sculptures, which reflect the difficult compromises required of Korea’s ageing queers, and Noel W. Anderson’s tapestries and sound installations about black male identity.
And among the strong showings by Southeast Asian pavilions, Filipino filmmaker Sari Raissa Dalena’s Guerrera (2024) – an extraordinary feminist vision of a counter-history that acknowledges the role of women in the Philippines’ quest for freedom – is a wonderful encounter.
Yet collectively, they present an echo chamber within which the liberal art world finds self-confirmation.
One justification for biennales, which have enormous carbon footprints, is that they are mega events that expose a lot of people to a lot of interesting art – and this biennale has done that. But one would also hope to be bombarded with challenging new perspectives, instead of moralising virtue signals that seem to increasingly dominate high-profile exhibitions of this kind.


There are also moments in Gwangju that seem slightly off-key.
The first American Pavilion at Gwangju – one of 31 pavilions curated independently of the main exhibition – is designed by two immigrant curators from the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco with the admirable intention of destabilising the idea of what is American.
It consists entirely of works by artists of Asian and Middle Eastern descent and is located inside a museum set-up to commemorate the Gwangju massacre of 1980, when many pro-democracy demonstrators were killed by the military – which, incidentally, many in Gwangju believe was condoned by the American government of the time, which supported South Korea’s military dictatorship.
If having the American Pavilion there was not risky enough for that reason, the exhibition shows works by Taiwanese, Hong Kong and other artists who have nothing to do with America. Instead of simply putting forth the idea of America as a migrant country, which is the curators’ intention, it seems to confirm that America thinks it can speak for the whole world.

Bourriaud should certainly be credited for his insistence on including only living artists, and the commissioning of many new works helps to balance the more historic focus at other major biennales, such as the last two Venice biennales.
But nearly 30 years after it was created, this major highlight of the Asian cultural calendar also raises uncomfortable questions for the art world.


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The 2024 Gwangju Biennale is full of great art. But enough of moralising virtue signals

“The Blind Leading the Blind #91”, Peter Buggenhout (2018-2023). This work is part of “Pansori”, the main exhibition of the 15th Gwangju Biennale

The Blind Leading the Blind #91, by Peter Buggenhout (2018-2023). The work is part of “Pansori”, the main exhibition at the 2024 Gwangju Biennale, a contemporary art biennale in South Korea. Photo: Gwangju Biennale

External view of the Gwangju Biennale Exhibition Hall. Photo: Gwangju Biennale

Lysis Field (2024), by Max Hooper Schneider, at the Gwangju Biennale. Photo: Gwangju Biennale

Objects of the Wind (2024), by Mira Mann, commemorates Korean nurses who worked in Germany in the 1960s and 1970s. Photo: Gwangju Biennale

Nicolas Bourriaud, artistic director of the main exhibition at the 15th Gwangju Biennale. Photo: Gwangju Biennale

There Is No More Place in This Place (2019-2024), by Cinthia Marcelle, resembles an empty office with dishevelled ceiling panels. Photo: Gwangju Biennale

Empty House, an abandoned home in Gwangju’s Yangnim-dong area, is one of the venues for the 15th Gwangju Biennale. Photo: Gwangju Biennale

The Horanggasinamu Glass Polygon in Gwangju is one of the venues used for the 15th Gwangju Biennale. Inside is the installation Suspension of Disbelief #3; Contact (2018) by Jun Hyoung San. Photo: Gwangju Biennale 

Art fairs in Seoul affirm the city’s status as a leading art hub despite market drop

This year’s Kiaf Seoul art fair in South Korea was well-attended and visitors were enthusiastic, despite the art market downturn. Photo: Kiaf Operating Committee

South Korean actor Park Hae-jin was among the many celebrities attending Frieze Seoul 2024. Photo: Frieze Seoul

Visitors walk through the Kiaf Seoul art fair. Photo: Kiaf Operating Committee

Hiroshi Senju’s Waterfall on Colors (2024) was sold for US$410,000 at Sundaram Tagore Gallery’s booth at Kiaf Seoul. Photo: Hiroshi Senju

American artist Derrick Adam talking to visitors at the Gagosian booth at Frieze Seoul 2024. Photo: courtesy of Frieze Seoul

Hong Kong collector Evan Chow gives a talk, titled Collector’s Gaze on the New Wave of Art Market, at the COEX Convention & Exhibition Centre in Seoul. Photo: Kiaf Operating Committee

Van Gogh exhibition at London’s National Gallery finally brings one of his visions to life

Two of Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” paintings flank The Lullaby at the National Gallery in London. Photo: EPA-EFE

Two of Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” paintings flank The Lullaby at the National Gallery in London. The triptych is part of a major new exhibition of the Dutch painter’s works. Photo: EPA-EFE

Van Gogh’s Starry Night over the Rhone (1888) is displayed at the exhibition. Photo: EPA-EFE

The three works on display at the National Gallery. Photo: EPA-EFE

Why has World Expo 2025 so excited host Osaka? It triggers memories of 1970 Expo in Japan

Jimi Hanako, Japan’s minister for the World Expo 2025, takes a picture with the expo’s mascot, Myaku-Myaku, in Hong Kong on July 21, 2024. Photo: May Tse

Jimi Hanako, Japan’s minister for the World Expo 2025, to be held in Osaka, takes a picture with the expo’s mascot, Myaku-Myaku, in Hong Kong in July 2024. Photo: May Tse

The World Expo 2025’s “Grand Ring” under construction in Osaka. Photo: AP

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Arts & Culture

Asia’s largest contemporary art exhibition, the 2024 Gwangju Biennale is enthralling, intriguing – and smacks of political correctness


Asia’s largest contemporary art exhibition, the 2024 Gwangju Biennale is enthralling, intriguing – and smacks of political correctness.


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An assessment or critique of a service, product or creative endeavour.  Film reviews, restaurant reviews, reviews of art exhibitions. (Eg. Crazy Rich Asians: an important film, yes, but a good one?)


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Review | The 2024 Gwangju Biennale is full of great art. But enough of moralising virtue signals

Asia’s largest contemporary art exhibition, the 2024 Gwangju Biennale is enthralling, intriguing – and smacks of political correctness