Talking about Gwangju
We met up with Massimiliano Gioni for an interview about his Biennale of Gwangju, entitled 10,000 lives, which will be on until November 7, 2010. Massimiliano Gioni, artistic director of the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi in Milan, was one of the protagonists of the first two editions of the festival (he interviewed Francesco Vezzoli in the grand finale of the 2008 edition and he took part in two talks with Carlos Basualdo about the Triennial of Young Curators “The generational: Younger than Jesus”, and one with Marina Sorbello and Monica Bonvicini, focusing on the Berlin Biennial). We began our interview talking about Faenza, and then discussed the “10,000 lives of Gwangju”. We also took the opportunity to congratulate Massimiliano on his appointment as Associate Director and Director of Exhibitions of the New Museum in New York.
In Faenza, during the second edition of the festival of Contemporary art “On Biennials/Tutto sulle biennali”, we talked about biennials and you told us about your experience in Berlin, but also about “The generational: Younger than Jesus” at the New Museum in New York. Today you are in Gwangju: how do the format and your work change in different contexts?
Obviously, they change a lot, even if I’ve never been a fan of biennials, because they are too focused on their area and they boast about or try to reflect only the world around them. I always say that a biennial should also take us to other places because I’m interested in art not only because it is a sign of the places it comes from, but also and especially because it must lead us somewhere else. Therefore, I’m interested in a kind of art and exhibitions which are not merely site-specific projects, but able to move towards new directions and connections, beyond the local scenario. That said, obviously working in Korea and in Gwangju in particular, which is a “small” city even if it has 1 and a half million inhabitants, is very different from working in Berlin or in New York. In particular, what makes the Gwangju Biennale very different, especially for people from Europe like me, is the clear and unmistakable feeling of being in contact with an audience who is difficult to classify. I mean that: when you work on a biennial or on any exhibition in Berlin or N.Y., it’s easy to imagine what kind of audience you will face and create your ideal spectators, which is often made of professionals, art lovers and finally a few curious people.
On the contrary, in Gwangju – probably because the biennale’s history is strictly linjed to society – the Biennale is a very popular avent, visited by professionals, but also by primary school kids and almost all Korean students. Therefore, my biggest challenge has been to create an exhibition open to multiple points of view and an exhibition in which each artwork feels necessary. When you work on an exhibition which must involve everybody, I think that it’s important to create a display which is a relevant and topical and talks about fundamental issues for everyone. I know that it is quite ambitious, but I think that it’s a matter of responsibility: a biennial which is attended by half a million visitors in two months can’t be only a proof of talent for professionals or a list of the coolest names. It is necessary to go deeper into important issues and face them. This reflection led the choice to create a biennial in Gwangju which is conceived as a kind of museum – not only a contemporary art museum, but almost an ethnographic museum – in which to display research our obsession for images and on our need to create representations of ourselves. In some way, 10,000 lives is a big encyclopaedic exhibition or a kind of an extensive story told with images.
The title of the exhibition “10,000 lives” brings to mind the unfinished epic poem of the writer, poet and painter Ko Un, which is a monumental work started in the 1980s. What do the 10,000 lives of Gwangju, portrayed by the Biennale, consist of?
The book by Ko Un, or rather his 30 volumes and more then 4,000 poems, is only a starting point and an inspiration. The exhibition is definitely not the illustration of his work, which would be impossible. Ko Un began his book in prison, where he was locked away for his participation in the democratic uprisings of the1980s, that originated in Gwangju. Ko Un began to create a list of all the people he had met in his life, both real and imaginary, to avoid becoming mad during two years of solitary confinement. When he was released in 1982 he began writing this kind of lovely family book, which collects more than 4,000 poems that represent the portraits of all the people the writer met. When I discovered this story - whilst doing research on Korean culture – and I started reading Ko Un’s books (most of them are translated into English and some of them also into Italian) I thought that the title of his book could also refer to the exhibition I had in mind. In fact, the Gwangju biennale tries to tell a story about an obsession and perhaps the primordial need to create images of people we don’t want to lose or we have lost. It’s an exhibition that investigates our relationship with images, our desire to live together with objects and representations of ourselves and our relatives. It’s an exhibition that tells the story about fear and love of images, which seem to move our time. But the exhibition goes back until 1901, not only because the 20th is the Century of images and many traumas and wounds in which images are the only survivors, but also because it’s a retrospective and museum-like exhibition, as I wanted to create a context that can help us to understand contemporary art in relation to history. The number 10,000 in the title immediately recalls the idea of quantity, overload, which is fundamental in the entire exhibition made of thousands and thousands of images – 3,000 photos of people with bears from the Teddy Bear Project made by Ydessa Hendeles, thousand of self-portraits in the pictures of Tehching Hsieh, thousand of images in Visible World by Fischli and Weiss, 103 sculptures from the Rent Collection Courtyard, 128 monitors that describe the whole life of Dieter Roth... In totale we have displayed more than 9,000 objects. It’s an exaggerated exhibition, but I hope not a chaotic one, an exhibition which is also a kind of big catalogue or a crazy encyclopaedia.
The exhibition opened on September 2 and will close on November 7. 2 months after the opening, what do you think of the results?
Actually I don’t like to take stock of situations. I think that is the responsibility of the Biennial Foundation and especially of the visitors, who I hope had an unforgettable experience of the exhibition. I can say that it has been a complicated and tiring adventure: Imagine that you need an interpreter, tens of drawings and a good talent in gesticulation just to install the easiest work of art. But it was also a unique experience, which is not easily repeatable somewhere else: for example we worked on installing works of art for one and a half months. I’ll tell you a story to illustrate this. We presented a new version of the work of art that Franco Vaccari created in 1972 at the Venice Biennale: it’s minimal but very beautiful. It is a machine for passport photos, which is installed in the space: visitors are invited to use it and display the photos on the wall, that become simultaneously a sort of huge diary of the exhibition and a collective and contagious portrait. Well, in 1972 at the Venice Biennale 6,000 people got their picture. At the Gwangju Biennale we have already got over 10,000 photos. Probably, when the exhibition ends, we won’t have anymore space where collecting all the images. And the thing I appreciate most is that in 1972 Vaccari’s art work was also a snapshot of the ‘70s artistic community. You can find a picture of Mario Merz with his daughter, one of Gerry Schum and Jannis Kounellis and many other protagonists of that period. The faces are all western. Today, at the Gwangju Biennale, the majority are from Asiatic countries and by staying in that room you really have the feeling that the world has changed and become bigger and bigger.
You are artistic director of the Fondazione Trussardi, as well. Are there any Korean artists you would like to involve in an exhibition in Milan?
In Milan we haven’t yet decided the next solo show, but at the New Museum we will have a project by Haegue Yang, who is without doubt the most interesting Korean artist of today.
- in the related video section of this page, the conversation between Massimiliano Gioni and Carlos Basualdo for the format "The biennials of curator" during on biennials (2nd edition of the festival of Contemporary art -
