Q. How come did you become a curatorial team from the beginning? Please describe the story.
A. We have known each other for a very long time but actually only really collaborated on a project rather recently, in 2016. It was called ‘Nuit Blanche Monaco’, which was actually a festival, a one night-day festival where performances, music concerts, film-video screenings and all sorts of events where held during one whole night until the next day. Since then we decided to collaborate together.
Q. What is the competitiveness of Busan and Busan Biennale? What makes this edition of Busan Biennale more distinguished?
A. We can say that the specificity of our biennial is that it was conceived and set-up as a focused thematic exhibition on the topic of divided territories, not only in Korea but all over the world. We actually conceived this project before applying for it, which is in a way a sort of coincidence. The theme allowed us to use a substantial number of existing pieces, on which the theme in many cases will shed new light. In view of the short time frame (we were only hired this February) and the limited financial means available, we also decided to work with a limited number of artists, around 68, some of which may have various works in the show, any larger list would be irresponsible. Also, thinking of recent examples like Sculpture Projects Munster in Germany (38 artists) or the last Istanbul Biennale (56 artists), large scale, internationally renown exhibitions have actually benefited from a reduction of the number of artists. We think the time of the mega-exhibition, exhausting even the most professional visitor with ever more venues and artworks, is over.
Q. I heard that the storyline will be unfolded throughout the exhibition. What is your plan to cover the Biennale’s theme, a territorial and psychological division?
A. The exhibition’s aim is not to serve as a mere illustration or commentary to the main topic of divided territories. Instead, participating artists will deal in different ways with the overall theme. Some works will directly address the subject matter whereas others will function in a more mental, historic or conceptual way through sub-themes.
The main purpose will be to create surprises and raise questions by bringing together well-known artworks, side by side with relatively unknown pieces and new productions. The content will be rich and multi-layered presenting a wide variety of material. As for the architecture, the main idea is to create a special environment that would guide the viewer through routes containing different chapters of our main narrative. Just like in a novel that slowly unravels and gradually reveals spaces for the audience.
Q. At the press conference, held in last April, I remember that you gave a very detailed explanation of Smardar Dreyfus’s <Mother's Day> (2006-8, video/installation). What is the significance and implication the artwork has?
A. It is very difficult for us to highlight one single work and proposal in such a collective context. It is actually against our ‘ethics’, why would we give more importance to one single voice whereas we strongly believe every single approach in our show contributes to create a whole? We don’t want to be prescriptive about what people are supposed to feel, but we are not intending to make a „feel good“ show that just pleases. The work is also meant to irritate, and provoke you into thinking by way of confronting you with the sometimes uneasy material, often to do with traumatic history or dystopic futures. As the Danish director Lars von Trier, who is also participating, has famously declared, a proper artwork needs to be ”like a stone in your shoe“. That said, there are certainly moments of utter beauty, as well as comic relief.
Q. So far, how was the process of preparation of Busan Biennale 2018?
A. It was absolutely essential for us that we work from and with the South Korean context right from the start. The central idea was to set-up a board of consultants mainly constituted of Korean curators, artists, critics to discuss the overall structure and concept of the Biennial. They are Manu D. Park, Beck Jee-sook, Youngwook Lee and Lim Minouk. Gahee Park is Guest Curator, mainly focussing on a younger generation of Asian artists. An attitude of openness and flexibility towards programming was central to our approach. Rather than making purely subjective and unilateral choices, our proposal was to opt for partnership, both at the intellectual level and in terms of creating a platform.
Q. What is your next plan?
A. It is a bit too early to speak of what will happen next as our top priority now is to open the Busan Biennale properly in the next few weeks and be able to give all artists the best means to present their projects. Nevertheless, we hope that our exhibition will raise interesting, compelling questions to the audience and that the themes and ideas will have time to grow on the viewers, as they are not forced to “consume” as many artworks as possible within the limited time of their visit.