This is the question Artistic Director, Maria Lind and Curator, Binna Choi ask. They have chosen Australian artists Nicholas Mangan and Dale Harding to exhibit in the 11th Gwangju Biennale focusing on artworks with ‘agency’ in an effort to side step so-called esoteric practices the curatorial team believes miss an opportunity to ‘say something’ about the world today.
In the past Harding has repurposed objects, like hessian sacks and weapons, to memorialise the history of his family and the unfair treatment they were subject to. In his formative years the artist participated in the Brisbane collective ProppaNOW, a group known for their mixed-media approach critical of colonial dispossession and the continued inequity experienced by Aboriginal people. Mangan’s video work Limits to Growth: A Numismatic study of dead and dying currencies will be revisited in a second iteration looking at the O’Keefe stones that lead to inflation within the Yapase economy.
Elsewhere in Asia, Curator, Bose Krishnamachari has selected Brook Andrew, Danie Mellor and some 80 international artists for the inaugural Yinchuan Biennale, ‘For an Image, Faster Than Light’. Building (Eating) Empire by Andrew presents an alternative history to empower the disenfranchised making use of ephemera like postcards and press photos gathered from his travels. The spatial intervention was previously shown by curator, Alexie Glass-Kantor in Art Basel, Hong Kong. Mellor will present new work and an immersive and large-scale piece installed for QAGOMA’s APT8. The concept of ‘the sublime’ and a transcendent experience of nature inform his work, as such the artist is looking forward to being included in the footprint of a biennale set in this unique desert landscape, where Arab and Chinese culture intersect against the backdrop of the Yellow River and Silk Road.
11th Gwangju Biennale: The Eighth Climate (What Does Art Do?)
Exhibition Hall, Asia Culture Center, Uijae Art Museum, Mudeung Mudeung Museum of Contemporary Art
South Korea
2 September to 6 November, 2016
Yinchuan Biennale: For an Image, Faster Than Light
Museum of Contemporary Art Yinchuan, Peoples’ Republic of China
9 September to 18 December, 2016
Danie Mellor, Deep (forest), 2015, mixed media on paper, 360 x 900cm (overall, dimensions variable), 27 panels, each 120 x 100cm
Courtesy the artist
