Review: Gwangju Biennale

As part of a research project between the documenta Institut and the Gwangju Biennale, Prof. Mi You and Dr. Maria Neumann spent three days in Gwangju, South Korea, in March 2025. Together with Bella Jung, Jiye Choi, Sooyoung Leam and Lyungnam Yoo, they met scholars, artists and activists who deal with the history of the Biennale and the city of Gwangju.

Gwangju is considered the city of art in South Korea. Situated in a structurally weak region, the government in Seoul has been pursuing the idea of establishing Gwangju as the country's cultural center since the 1960s. The first Gwangju Biennale was held in 1995, making it the first ever biennale for contemporary art in South East Asia. Twenty years later, the Asia Culture Center (ACC) opened its doors. The center has set itself the goal of preserving Asia's cultural heritage and promoting cultural exchange. Gwangju has also been a UNESCO Creative City of Media Arts since 2014. The government in Seoul also endeavors to promote the local art and culture scene. However, the areas of responsibility of the individual institutions are not clearly defined, which leads to conflicts. As a result, there is also an artistic and a political perspective on the Biennale.

May 18, 1980
Art and culture in Gwangju are shaped by the legacy of May 18, 1980, when demonstrators, mainly students, took to the streets against the military government in South Korea. Their protest was bloodily crushed. Hundreds of people were murdered, injured or abducted and interned. The symbols of this resistance are weapons, rice balls and blood. While the weapons stand for the fight against the authoritarian military government, the rice balls are a reminder of how the protesters were fed by Gwangju's women and the blood is a reminder of the blood donated by the locals for injured insurgents. In the history of South Korea, May 18 is now considered a milestone for the democracy movement. The date stands for universal values such as peace and human rights, even if various groups of actors struggle for interpretative sovereignty. One of the most important places of remembrance is the May 18th Archive, a documentation center and museum. The photos of the uprising on display there have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2011.

City history “Imperialism and colonialism”
To understand the development of the city and the protest movement, you have to go back further in the city's history. Gwangju was under Japanese rule for more than 40 years at the beginning of the 20th century. Colonialism and imperialism had a strong impact on the city and its inhabitants. Practices of protest were already practiced under Japanese foreign rule. Back then, workers rose up against the poor working conditions in the textile factories.

Initial results, future scenarios
The history of the documenta in Kassel and the Biennale in Gwangju are both closely linked to experiences of dictatorship and the Cold War. In addition to artistic interests, cultural policy decisions influenced the founding and institutionalization of both exhibitions. Linked to this are questions about the connection between the institutions, the artworks shown there and their historical locations. They form derivatives of the past, linked to the promise of reconciliation, self-empowerment or a new beginning and at the same time the fear of being forgotten. Both cities are also located in structurally weak regions, far away from political, economic and other cultural centers. But while the urban population in Kassel today identifies predominantly with the documenta, many people in Gwangju remain skeptical about the Biennale. They see that the biennale represents South Korea, but criticize that local initiatives are not involved enough and fear that Gwangju could lose importance as a place for the democracy movement.
The political heritage of the two exhibitions, their founding histories and the relationships between the city and the exhibition thus emerged as possible categories of comparison. The basis for this is a multi-perspective approach that breaks up the linearity of the narratives and accepts the simultaneity of partly contradictory narratives.