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Gwangju Biennale / Gwangju Folly

Press Release 16 November 2012

– Markus Weisbeck/ Surface, Gwangju Folly II, 2012.

Gwangju Folly II Announces Participants

Selected by Nikolaus Hirsch (director), Philipp Misselwitz and Eui Young Chun

(curators) Gwangju Folly II will commission new works from these outstanding

practitioners in the field of architecture, art and literature:

David Adjaye and Taiye Selasi

Ai Weiwei

Seok Hong Go & Mihee Kim

Rem Koolhaas & Ingo Niermann

Raqs Media Collective

Do-Ho Suh

Superflex

Eyal Weizman

Throughout history, follies have been used widely in architecture, visual arts, and

literature as a provocation, a frivolous diversion or strategic place of madness and

satire freed from the constraints of societal norms. Follies have been employed as a

critical medium or object, oscillating between aesthetic autonomy and socialpolitical

potential and situated in a field between decontextualized status

and contextualized condition.

Nikolaus Hirsch, Philipp Misselwitz and Eui Young Chun have developed a curatorial

approach for Gwangju Folly II, which uses the ambiguities of a Folly as a critical tool

of inquiry to address the condition of public space. The negotiation of public space in

Gwangju has played a crucial role in the democratization of South Korea and has

eventually become a global model and reference point for effective grassroots

political mobilization. During the May 18, 1980 Democratic Uprising the city center

became an urban stage for public demonstrations that triggered political

transformation in the country. Today, a multitude of commemorative plaques, signs

and memorials mark historical sites of the uprising throughout Gwangju. In 2011, the

Gwangju Uprising received global recognition through UNESCO, which included the

movement into the UNESCO Memory of the World Register.

Gwangju Folly II will revisit some of these historic sites. A series of newly

commissioned Follies seek to investigate the present day constitution of spatial

practice more than 30 years after the Democratic Uprising – in contemporary

Gwangju as well as in the broader global arena. The project features crossdisciplinary

collaborations between artists, architects, writers and collectives from

diverse contexts. The physical manifestations of the project will be accompanied by

a symposium, a workshop and a publication.

About the Gwangju Biennale and the Folly Project

Founded in 1995 in memory of the civil uprising and the 1980 Gwangju

Democratization Movement, the Gwangju Biennale is one of Asia’s oldest and most

prestigious biennials of contemporary art. Under the helm of previous curators-

including Yongwoo Lee, Massimiliano Gioni, Okwui Enwezor, Charles Esche, Hou

Hanru, Honghee Kim, Kwangsoo Oh, Wankyoung Sung, and Harald Szeemann-the

Gwangju Biennale has established itself as a highlight of the international

contemporary art biennale circuit. Previously conceived of and presented as an

integral part of the 4th Gwangju Design Biennale in 2011 by Artistic Directors Seung

H-Sang and Ai Weiwei, the second edition of the Gwangju Folly project will be held

as an independent event for the first time with a series of new Follies in the urban

space of Gwangju. 

For information about the Folly project, webpage : http://www.gwangjufolly.org

For information about the Folly project, contact: gfolly@gwangjubiennale.org

For press related inquires, contact: jisu.cook@gwangjubiennale.org