Ho Tzu Nyen to Bring ‘Resonant Vision’ to 2026 Gwangju Biennale Director Role
Ho Tzu Nyen, 2024. Courtesy a+ Singapore. Photo: Stefan Khoo.
Singaporean new media artist and filmmaker Ho Tzu Nyen will be the artistic director of the 16th Gwangju Biennale, set to open this September.
The Gwangju Biennale Foundation said they sought a curator who could bring ‘a distinctive and resonant vision’ to its next edition, which will aim to ‘foreground collective artistic practices and solidarities that respond to the intersecting crises of our time’.
Ho’s proposal centred ‘the transformative power of art’, while his curatorial approach, ‘designed to ignite a much-needed driving force in a time of global uncertainty’, is expected to steer the event in a new direction.
Foundation President Lee Sang-Gap said ‘under the direction of [Ho], who is deeply attuned to the cultural diversity of Asia, this edition will offer a renewed perspective on the Biennale, both globally and within its regional context.’
Ho, meanwhile, said it was a ‘dream come true’ to return to Gwangju not just as an artist but as artistic director and looked forward to embarking on a ‘unique journey in this remarkable city’.
He added that the upcoming edition will bring together ‘energies, propositions, practices, and ideas that have inspired and propelled [him] over the past two decades’ and possibly explore Gwangju’s legacy of democratic change.
‘I am much more drawn to questions than answers. Good questions open things up, while the typical answer narrows things down,’ the artist told Ocula in 2024.
Ho has participated in the 2018 Gwangju Biennale, Imagined Borders, and contributed commissioned work to the 2021 edition, Minds Rising, Spirits Tuning.
As a curator, he co-organised the 2019 Asian Art Biennale, The Strangers from Beyond the Mountain and the Sea, hosted by National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts.
His extensive exhibition history includes the Singapore Pavilion at the 2011 Venice Biennale and the 2014 Shanghai Biennale while his films have been screened at the 2009 Venice International Film Festival and the Cannes Film Festival, and the 2015 Berlin International Film Festival. —[O]
Main image: Ho Tzu Nyen, 2024. Courtesy a+ Singapore. Photo: Stefan Khoo.
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