Gwangju Biennale Announces 69 Participating Artists

Forty-one new works have been commissioned to help develop the theme of 'Minds Rising, Spirits Tuning'.

Artistic Directors Defne Ayas and Natasha Ginwala have announced the artists, theme, and format for the 13th Gwangju Biennale. The exhibition takes place across multiple venues in Gwangju, Korea, from 26 February until 9 May 2021.

Entitled Minds Rising, Spirits Turning, the event will explore myriad ways of coming together to survive threats such as cognitive capitalism, algorithmic violence, and planetary imperialisms.

Altogether, 69 artists will take part, with 41 new works commissioned especially for the exhibition.

Ayas and Ginwala said they sought to include artists whose practices 'enable mutating, itinerant, hybrid, and at times undisciplined alliances.'

'As such,' they continued, 'we are committed to artists with mind-expanding and ever-inclusive practices, those that act beyond the binary framings of insider and outsider, legal and illegal, masculine and feminine, that are each invested in interdisciplinary frameworks traversing ancestral knowledge, augmented intelligence, and healing systems.'

Among the artists taking part are Indonesian conceptual artist Timoteus Anggawan Kusno, Chilean poet and artist Cecilia Vicuña, and American technologist Lynn Hershman Leeson. Hershman Leeson's work Shadowstalker (2019), pictured above, uses the algorithm behind Predpol—a system already in use by US police departments to predict where future crimes might occur—to highlight the potential biases of such high tech tools.

The Gwangju Biennale's exhibitions and even will be held at the Gwangju Biennale Exhibition Hall, Gwangju National Museum, Gwangju Theater, and Yangnim Mountain—Horanggasy Artpolygon. Its other constituent parts include: the Minds Rising editorial platform, the Stronger Than Bone publication, and online forum GB Talks | Rising to the Surface: Practicing Solidarity Futures, which began in September and continues until January 2021.

The full list of artists participating in the Biennale follows below.

13th Gwangju Biennale Participants
(* denotes new commissions)

∞OS (Dmitry Paranyushkin and Koo Des)*
Pacita Abad
Korakrit Arunanondchai*
Katarina Barruk*
Farid Belkahia
Cecilia Bengolea
Seyni Camara*
Quishile Charan & Esha Pillay (aka The Bad Fiji Gyals)
Yin-Ju Chen & Li-Chun Lin (Marina)*
Ali Cherri
Hyun-Taek Cho*
Vaginal Davis*
Cian Dayrit*
Emo de Medeiros
Patricia Domínguez
Theo Eshetu*
Gerard Fortuné
John Gerrard
Sonia Gomes
Trajal Harrell*
Femke Herregraven*
Lynn Hershman Leeson*
Tishan Hsu
Gözde Ilkin*
Jeong Kwan
Jumaadi Karrabing Film Collective*
Sangdon Kim*
Sylbee Kim*
Timoteus Anggawan Kusno*
Kwak Duck-Jun
Gap-Chul Lee
Kangseung Lee*
Sangho Lee
Liliane Lijn
Candice Lin*
Vivian Lynn
Abu Bakarr Mansaray*
Angela Melitopoulos*
Ana María Millán*
Min Joung-Ki*
Ad Minoliti*
Moon Kyungwon*
MOON & JEON
Siyabonga Mthembu*
nasa4nasa*
Pedro Neves Marques
Kira Nova*
Fernando Palma Rodríguez*
People's Archive of Rural India – PARI\Rajni Perera*
Outi Pieski*
Angelo Plessas*
Gala Porras-Kim*
Ana Prvački*
Judy Radul*
Sahej Rahal*
Zofia Rydet
Jacolby Satterwhite
Arpita Singh
Tcheu Siong
Chrysanne Stathacos*
Alexandra Sukhareva
Shannon Te Ao
Sissel Tolaas*
Cecilia Vicuña*
Ouattara Watts
Shen Xin*
Tuguldur Yondonjamts* —[O]