Gwangju Biennial

I was one two invited curators establishing the main theme, form and content of the fourth Gwangju Biennial, the largest art exposition in Asia. Together with director Wan-kyung Sung and co-curator Hou Hanru we established a concept and title ‘Pause’ focussing on the need for critical reflection on the current global situation of contemporary art, taking an Asian and European perspective.

It examined, through the selection of work, art groups and critical presentations, the dynamic shifts flowing through contemporary art against the shifting context caused by globalisation and the fields within which artists position themselves. By focusing on artists’ groups, it was the first significant biennial event to feature the collective as a core player in contemporary art production. Combining this with an invitation to artists to make architectural interventions, the exhibition broke with the pattern of East Asian biennials (to introduce western art to a local audience) and established a production engine in Gwangju itself. It also led to many new networks between artist initiatives in the region that remain significant.

”Pause” explored the necessity of negotiating different systems of time and space, especially the tension between speed, duration, fullness and emptiness and, hence, between different reactions to the globalising world from regional cultures.

Considering the geo-cultural position itself, the Biennale focused on inter-continental exchanges and negotiations between the Asia-Pacific region and the rest of the world. Working closely as a curatorial group we chose to present the dynamism of art in the Asian-Pacific and as a counterpoint, a second emphasis on the new European scene. In this aspect of the Biennial I drew heavily on my knowledge and research as director of the Rooseum Center for Contemporary Art in Malmö, Sweden.

‘Pause’ provoked strong and polarized reaction but its immediate and longer term impact was substantial.

Charles Esche

Research Interests

In line with my role as director of the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, I am busy looking at the terms in which art museums and other art institutions can function within a city and with particular communities. The question in general is: what is the point of a city art museum in the twenty-first century? It includes questions about global cultural exchanges, local communities, public identities, singularity and the public sphere. At the same time, through the Community and Art workshops series, I am exploring how creative communities in diverse parts of the world can connect, learn from each other and break down nationalistic or regional barriers to a global, but differentiated, cultural sphere. The outcome of this research is in the form of exhibitions, workshops, public projects and texts.

Charles Esche and Mark Lewis co-founded Afterall, a research and publishing organisation, at Central Saint Martins in 1998. Each issue of Afterall Journal brings together five international artists whose work seems particularly pertinent to the wider cultural debates of the moment. In 2002 Los-Angeles based artist and writer Thomas Lawson joined Afterall as co-editor of the journal. Subsequently a second Afterall office was opened at California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles.

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