Won-il Rhee (; 2 November 1960 – 11 January 2011) was a South Korean

digital art Digital art refers to any artistic work or practice that uses digital technology as part of the creative or presentation process, or more specifically computational art that uses and engages with digital media. Since the 1960s, various names ...

curator A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...

. He was born and died in

Seoul Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as stated iArticle 103 ...

. Rhee was the artistic director in 2002 and 2006 of the ''Media City Seoul''

Biennale Biennale (), Italian for "biennial" or "every other year", is any event that happens every two years. It is most commonly used within the art world to describe large-scale international contemporary art exhibitions. As such the term was popularis ...

. He was the leading curator of the Total Museum of Art and co-ordinator of the Korean Pavilion for the 1995

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

. Also, he served as executive head of the exhibition team for the Third

Gwangju Biennale The Gwangju Biennale is a contemporary art biennale founded in September 1995 in Gwangju, South Jeolla province, South Korea. The Gwangju Biennale is hosted by the Gwangju Biennale Foundation and the city of Gwangju. The Gwangju Biennale Founda ...

and was one of the curators of the Fourth

Prague Biennale The Prague Biennale is an international art exhibition in Prague, Czech Republic, held in alternate (odd-numbered) years. It was founded in 2003 by Helena Kontova and Giancarlo Politi. It is supported by the Czech Minister of Culture and the City ...

in 2009. From 1996 to 2002, he was head curator at the Sung-Kok Museum of Art and in 2002 he was appointed artistic director of the ''Media City

Biennale''. In 2003, he became chief curator at the

Seoul Museum of Art The Seoul Museum of Art is an art museum operated by Seoul City Council and located in central of Seoul, South Korea. History A girl named Jayla opened the museum first after getting the idea from another museum. It was opened in the Gyeonghuig ...

. He also served as the Asian Editor for art publications such as Contemporary Magazine in London and Flash Art in Milan.

Curatorial projects

*''Media City Seoul Biennale'', Seoul, Korea, 2002 & 2006 *''ElectroScape'',

Zendai Museum of Modern Art Shanghai Himalayas Museum ( zh, 上海喜玛拉雅美术馆), formerly known as Shanghai Zendai MoMA (), is a privately funded, non-profit art institute in Pudong, Shanghai, China, focusing on art exhibition, education, collection, research and ...

, Shanghai, China, 2005 *Co-Curator for ''Shanghai COOL'' Duolun Museum of Art, Shanghai, 2005 *Advisory Programmer to ''DMC'', Seoul, 2004 *Curator for ''Portrait-Landscape'', Gwangju, 2005 *Curator for ''City Net Asia'', Seoul, 2003 *Curator for the Asia-Oceania-Korea Section of the ''Gwangju Biennale'', 2004 *Curator of the ''Asian Section at the Lodz Biennale'', Lodz, Poland, 2004 *Curator for ''Digital Sublime'', Taiwan, 2004 *Curator of ''Grounding Reality-25 Young Chinese Artists'', Seoul Arts Center, Seoul, 2005 *Curator of ''Silent Power-German Expressionists'', Zendai Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai, 2006 *Curator of ''Thermocline of Art: Asian Waves'',

ZKM The ZKM , Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe (until March 2016: ZKM Center for Art and Media Technology), a cultural institution, was founded in 1989. and since 1997 is located in a listed industrial building in Karlsruhe, Germany, a former muni ...

Karlsruhe Karlsruhe ( , , ; South Franconian: ''Kallsruh'') is the third-largest city of the German state (''Land'') of Baden-Württemberg after its capital of Stuttgart and Mannheim, and the 22nd-largest city in the nation, with 308,436 inhabitants. ...

, 2007 *Curator of '' Julian Schnabel'', World Art Museum, Beijing, China, 2007 *Co-Curator of ''Asia-Europe Mediations'', Poznan Museum, Poland *Co-Curator of ''BIACS 3'': 3rd International Biennial of Seville, ''YOUniverse'', 2008 *Artistic Director of ''DIGIFESTA 2010'', Gwangju Biennial, Korea *Curator of ''Nanjing Documenta 2010'', China *Co-Curator of ''Prague Biennial'', 2009–2013, Czech Republic *Co-Commissioner of ''Vancouver Olympic Sculpture Biennial 2009-2011'', Canada On January 11, 2011, Rhee died suddenly of a heart attack.
Wonil Rhee (1960-2011) In memory of Wonil Rhee Obituary by

Peter Weibel Peter Weibel (; born 5 March 1944 in Odessa, USSR) is an internationally known Austrian post-conceptual artist, curator and new media theoretician. He started out in 1964 as a visual poet but soon jumped from the page to the screen within the sen ...

External links

On June 24, 2006, Wonil Rhee speaking at the podium of the conference ''The Global Challenge of Art Museums''. Remarks on the question ''What is Contemporary Art''?

Footnotes

References

* Christiane Paul (curator), Christiane Paul, ''

Digital Art Digital art refers to any artistic work or practice that uses digital technology as part of the creative or presentation process, or more specifically computational art that uses and engages with digital media. Since the 1960s, various names ...

'', Thames & Hudson Ltd. * Frank Popper, ''Ecrire sur l'art : De l'art optique a l'art virtuel'', L'Harmattan 2007. *

Robert C. Morgan Robert C. Morgan (born 1943) is an American art critic, art historian, curator, poet, and artist. Biography Robert C. Morgan received his M.F.A. in sculpture from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1975 and his Ph.D. in art education f ...

, ''Digital Hybrids'', ''Art Press'' volume #255.
ZKM Karlsruhe
''Thermocline of Art: Asian Waves'', exhibition website, 2007. {{DEFAULTSORT:Rhee, Won-Il South Korean art critics 2011 deaths Cultural historians Postmodern theory Postmodernists Art curators People from Seoul 1960 births