The Incheon Women Artists' Biennale, held in

Incheon Incheon is a city located in northwestern South Korea, bordering Seoul and Gyeonggi Province to the east. Inhabited since the Neolithic, Incheon was home to just 4,700 people when it became an international port in 1883. As of February 2020, ...

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

, and inaugurated in 2004, subsequently had editions in 2007, 2009, and 2011 that focused on the work of

contemporary Contemporary history, in English-language historiography, is a subset of modern history that describes the historical period from about 1945 to the present. In the social sciences, contemporary history is also continuous with, and related t ...

women artists. It is the first and only art

biennale In the art world, a biennale ( , ; ), is a large-scale international contemporary art exhibition. The term was popularised by the Venice Biennale, which was first held in 1895, but the concept of such a large scale, and intentionally internationa ...

in the world focused on the work of female artists.

Founding and challenges

The Biennial was first conceived by local women artists in Incheon; many were

fine art In European academic traditions, fine art (or, fine arts) is made primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from popular art, decorative art or applied art, which also either serve some practical function (such as ...

teachers in public and private schools. They had aspired to have large exhibitions that would connect with the rest of the world since 1996. They had to fight, however, against the prejudices against women artists' gatherings. Local male artists mounted an anti-biennale in 2006.

2009 edition

The 2009 edition featured works by American

feminist art The feminist art movement refers to the efforts and accomplishments of feminists internationally to produce feminist art, art that reflects women's lives and experiences, as well as to change the foundation for the production and perception of co ...

ists Faith Ringgold and Judy Chicago as well as 99 other artists from 25 other countries. Organized by Dr. Eunhee Yang, along with curators Dr. Thalia Vrachopoulos and Sutthirat Supaparinya, the main exhibition "So Close Yet So Far Away" brought together artists from diverse countries whose works question and go beyond the cultural boundaries of given identities. Heng-Gil Han was the operating committee chairman and

curator A curator (from , 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 particular ins ...

of the Tuning Exhibition of 2009 entitled "The 21st Century, the Feminine Century, and the Century of Diversity and Hope," and the work exhibited encompassing a larger variety of media like

multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms, such as Text (literary theory), writing, Sound, audio, images, animations, or video, into a single presentation. T ...

performances A performance is an act or process of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. It is also defined as the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function. Performance has evolved glo ...

film A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...

, writing, discussion, and

animation Animation is a filmmaking technique whereby still images are manipulated to create moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Animati ...

, and included male-identifying artists. It included artwork by Eun Mi Choi, Disband,

Coco Fusco Coco Fusco (born Juliana Emilia Fusco Miyares; June 18, 1960) is a Cuban-American interdisciplinary artist, writer, and curator whose work has been widely exhibited and published internationally. Fusco's work explores gender, identity, race, and ...

, Donna Huanca, Akiko Ichikawa, Chang-jin Lee, Hyuk Kang, Bo Sub Kim, Se Won Kim, Lee Mingwei, Xaviera Simmons, Carolee Schneemann, and Lorna Simpson. The Participation Exhibition showed the work exclusively of Korean artists, and, like the main exhibition, the work only of women. Kyung-ae Kwon was the president of the biennale organizing committee, and Eunhee Yang the commissioner of the main exhibition.

2011 edition

The main exhibition for the 2011 edition, entitled "Terra Incognita," was curated by Jane Farver, former director of

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

's List Visual Arts Center. It included the art of

Joan Jonas Joan Jonas (born July 13, 1936) is an American visual artist and a pioneer of video and performance art, "a central figure in the performance art movement of the late 1960s".LaToya Ruby Frazier LaToya Ruby Frazier (born 1982) is an American artist. Early life From Braddock, Pennsylvania, Frazier began photographing her family and hometown at the age of 16, revising the Social documentary photography, social documentary traditional of ...

, and Yael Bartana, and 25 other women from a total 13 countries. The Tuning Exhibition that year was co-curated by Han, Gyoung Mo Rhee, Kyoeng Sub Yue, and two others, and the work shown focussed on social practice art by artists regardless of gender. The Participation exhibition included the work of female artists active in women's artists organizations around the world and those who specifically contributed to the advancement of the Incheon Women Artists' Biennale.

2013 edition

The organizing committee lost its momentum in 2013 as the political environment was unfriendly enough to secure government funding. That year's version was held at a smaller scale with Korean artists, which became its last.

References

{{List of Biennales Korean art Art biennials Feminist art organizations Incheon Recurring events established in 2004 Feminist organizations in South Korea 2013 disestablishments in South Korea