Busan Biennale 2008
06 Sep - 15 Nov 2008
Expenditure
06 September - 15 November
Artistic Director: Won Bang Kim
Expenditure
Expenditure is a concept that originated from the thought of the French philosopher, Georges Bataille. Georges Bataille is a leading philosopher on post-structuralism and post-modern cultural theories and is being reevaluated as one of the most unique and remarkable thinkers in the 20th century.
Expenditure is a concept opposite to production, moderation, accumulation, acquisition, system, control, etc. and is interpreted as consumption, discharge, exhaustion. It also means extravagance and reckless spending. Bataille believed that human civilization and culture could be maintained through the meaningless process of discharging, consuming, disintegrating such accumulation and production. In this regard, Bataille's expenditure is at the antipode of goal-oriented and production-centered values and in itself a major cultural activity and driver. Furthermore, Bataille's expenditure has positive meanings such as presents, unconditional giving and benefits, distribution of possessions, and relaxation of tension and it is directly linked to the meaning of artistic activity. In this aspect, Bataille reckoned that the highest and holiest values of religion, human body discharging wastes, eroticism, crime and war, and art could all meet in the same dimension.
Expenditure and similar concepts like consumption, and discharge are not just concepts in philosophy and sociology. It can also serve as an significant approach of art criticism that can analyze artworks or reinterpret the entire contemporary art history. Bataille had already employed relevant theories as specific theories for artworks, like surrealism. After the 1980s, several leading post-modern critical theorists expanded the concept of informe, which is a concept similar to expenditure, into a theory reinterpreting the entire contemporary art. This approach is aesthetics pursuing degenderization, decategorization, eroticism, disintegration of reproductive order, aesthetics of entropic degeneration, grotesqueness, disintegration of artwork concepts, disruption of subjects, others, collapse ofconfrontational structure between the center and the peripheral, an end to the confrontation between the conservative and the radical aesthetics, as well as the aesthetics of transgression. This aesthetics constitutes the most important trend in today's world art and the Busan Biennale will broadly highlight the art following this trend.
In addition, the concept of expenditure well represents the characteristics of cutting-edge cyber culture, as well as those of contemporary art. Moreover, expenditure is a self-reflective, self-destructive concept that challenges the symbolic system of culture and criticizes the structure of culture itself. Thus, this concept will entail a strong intention of the Biennale reflecting upon the basic production conditions of culture and art and their philosophical foundation, rather than contributing to fantasy about a new type of art, cultural fetishism. It will also shift the focus of the Biennale from the production-centered perspective, like the production of newer types of art and more cultural events, to the disintegration, consumption and disappearance of culturally symbolic values. It turns out that this aspect is actually a significant driver of culture and a source of values.
Artists:
ADAM PUTNAM
AEHEE
AIDA RUILOVA
ALAN VEGA
ALEX MCQUILKIN
ANDRO WEKUA
BEOM SOO KIM
BHARTI KHER
BRUCE LABRUCE
Chongbin PARK
CHOONG-HYUN ROH
CHRISTINA MACKIE
CHRISTODOULOS PANAYIOTOU
CHRYSTEL EGAL
CODY CHOI
DAVID ASKEVOLD
DAVID NOONAN
DONG YEON KIM
DOUG FISHBONE
EDUARDO ABAROA
ERIK VAN LIESHOUT
Eun Young PARK
GO KATO
GU-YOUNG HE
GUANGXIN LI
GUIDO VAN DER WERVE
GWANG JOON AHN
HAN SU LEE
HANAZAWA YOTA
HEA-JIN JUNG
HERNAN BAS
HOJIN LEE
IVETTE ZIGHELBOIM
JAEHO JEONG
JESSE BRANSFORD
JEUNG EUN SHON
JIM SHAW
JONATHAN BERGER
JONG HEON BAE
JULIET JACOBSON
JUN-HO JEUN
KAMIN LERTCHAIPRASERT
KAREN RUSSO
KIRA KIM
KRITI ARORA
LIGYUNG
LISA RUYTER
LYLE ASHTON HARRIS
MARILYN MINTER
MARLENE MCCARTY
MARNIE WEBER
MARTIN SASTRE
MICHAEL RAEDECKER
MONTRI
MYUNG SEOP HONG
NATE LOWMAN
NICOLE AWAI
PHILIPPE TERRIER-HERMANN
PINAREE SANPITAK
PORNTAWEESAK RIMSAKUL
PRINCESS DRAGONMOM
REN LIU
ROGER HIORNS
ROSS BLECKNER
RURIKO MURAYAMA
RYAN TRECARTIN
SAM SU Meng-Hung
SEUNG-TAEK LEE
SHIMIZU JIO
SOUN HONG
STEVEN CLAYDON
SUE DE BEER
TERENCE KOH
TETSUYA NAKAMURA
THE BLUESOUP GROUP
TOCUTOMI MITSURU
VARDA CAIVANO
VICTOR MAN
WANG LUYAN
WEI LIU
WENLING CHEN
XIAN JI CUI
XIAOCHUN MIAO
YAMAKAWA FUYUKI
YANG QIAN
YASUMASA MORIMURA
YASUYUKI NISHIO
YEO-RAN JE
YEORROCK
YONG-BAEK LEE