Gwangju Contributors

Ursula Biemann - Statelessness
Ursula Biemann is an artist, theorist and curator who has in recent years produced a considerable body of work on migration, mobility, technology and gender. In a series of internationally exhibited video projects, as well as in several books "Geography and the Politics of Mobility" (2003), "Stuff It - The Video Essay in the Digital Age“ (2003), „The Maghreb Connection“ (2005) she has focused on the gendered dimension of migrant labour from smuggling on the Spanish-Moroccan border to migrant sex workers in the global context. Her experimental video essays connect a theoretical macro level with the micro perspective on political and cultural practices on the ground.

Okwui Enwezor - Jihad
Okwui Enwezor is Dean of Academic Affairs and Senior Vice President at San Francisco Art Institute. He has held positions as Visiting Professor in Art History at University of Pittsburgh; Columbia University, New York; University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; and University of Umea, Sweden. Enwezor was Artistic Director of Documenta 11, Kassel, Germany (1998–2002) and the 2nd Johannesburg Biennale (1996–1997). He has curated numerous exhibitions in some of the most distinguished museums around the world, including The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, 1945–1994, Museum Villa Stuck, Munich, Gropius Bau, Berlin, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and P.S.1 and Museum of Modern Art, New York; Century City, Tate Modern, London; Mirror’s Edge, Bildmuseet, Umea, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, Tramway, Glasgow, Castello di Rivoli, Torino; In/Sight: African Photographers, 1940–Present, Guggenheim Museum; Global Conceptualism, Queens Museum, New York, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, List Gallery at MIT, Cambridge; David Goldblatt: Fifty One Years, Museum of Contemporary Art, Barcelona, AXA Gallery, New York, Palais des Beaux Art, Brussels, Lenbach Haus, Munich, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, Witte de With, Rotterdam; co-curator of Echigo-Tsumari Sculpture Biennale in Japan; co-curator of Cinco Continente: Biennale of Painting, Mexico City; Stan Douglas: Le Detroit, Art Institute of Chicago.

Patrick D. Flores - Reconquest
Patrick D. Flores (born 1969) is Professor of art history, theory, and criticism at the University of the Philippines at Diliman, and is a curator at the National Art Gallery of the Philippine National Museum in Manila. A recognized scholar in the fields of Philippine and Asian art, Flores has organized several national and international platforms, including “Luz: Traces of Depiction” at the National Museum of the Philippines (2006), and “Under Construction: New Dimensions of Asian Art” at the Japan Foundation Asia Center (2000-2003). Flores is the author of numerous articles and several books concerning Philippine art.

Ranjit Hoskote - Hindutva and Islamism: Twins in Annihilation
Ranjit Hoskote (born 1969) is a poet, cultural theorist and curator. He is the author of fifteen books, including five collections of poetry and six monographs on art and artists, as well as Kampfabsage, a critical history of Eurocentric modernity told from the perspective of lost transcultural confluences, and co-authored with Ilija Trojanow. Hoskote has curated numerous exhibitions of contemporary art, and is co-curator of the 7th Gwangju Biennale (2008).

Abdellah Karroum - Mukaddimah: Le Bout du Monde/Anwal
Abdellah Karroum (born 1970, Morocco) works as an independent art researcher, publisher and curator. He is the founder and artistic director of several art projects: ‘L’appartement 22’ (site), an experimental space for encounters, exhibitions and artists’ residencies founded in 2002 in Rabat, Morocco; the ‘Le Bout Du Monde’ art expeditions undertaken since 2000 (site); and the ‘éditions hors’champs’ art publications that have been published since 1999 (site) ; Radioapartment22 (site). He curated numerous exhibitions for capcMusée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux (Pensées bleues (1993) ; Jean-Paul Thibeau (1995) ; Urgences (1996)), and was one of the curators for the 2006 DAK’ART Biennial for African Contemporary Art. Karroum is co-curator for the "Position Papers" program in the Gwangju Bienniale 2008 (invited by the Artistic Director Okwui Enwezor) and for the L’appartement 22 project in 2008’s Brussels Bienniale 1 (Artistic Director: Barbara Vanderlinden).

Hassan Khan - Hysteria
Hassan Khan has studied English and comparative literature at the American University of Cairo. He works in the audiovisual media, producing video pieces and installations as well as performances. He has also composed, performed, and recorded soundtracks for theatre and contemporary dance, and has worked on sound and music independently.

Hyunjin Kim - Textbook
Hyunjin Kim is a curator and a writer living and working in Seoul, previously serving as a curator of Vanabbemuseum, Eindhoven and the Rooseum Center of Contemporary Art, Malmö, Sweden, among other appointments.

Jang Un Kim - Pig
Jang Un Kim (born 1975) is a curator and art critic based in Seoul, South Korea. A member of several contemporary art collectives in Seoul (including the Pidgin Collective and Friendly Enemies), Kim has engaged issues of cultural policy, the Korean postcolonial situation, and the use of alternative space by working as an educator, an editor of various publications, and through organizing numerous events in nontraditional venues. Kim has worked recently as curator of the Anyang Public Art Project Foundation and as a lecturer at the Korean National University of Arts in Seoul.

Abdoulaye Konaté - Jeunesse fougue
Konaté worked as a graphic designer at the Musee National in Bamako. He was appointed to be the Director of the Palais de la Culture. Now, he works as the Director of the Conservatoire of Arts & Media in Bamako. Plasticien, directeur du Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers Multimédia, Konaté tend vers une approche plastique autonome et revendicatrice en choisissant des thèmes d'actualités géopolitiques. Son travail engagé incite à la méditation de problèmes comme le racisme, la corruption politique, les conflits ethnico religieux. L'artiste utilise des matériaux tels que le textile, les œufs, le sable. Il donne une troisième dimension à ses toiles avec l'insertion d'objets comme des gris-gris, des balles et des vêtements usagés.

Jarbas Lopes - Change of Game
Jarbas Lopes is an artist who lives in a small town north of Rio de Janeiro. He works in the tradition of such artist-activists as Joseph Beuys, whose notion of “social sculpture” views art as a means through which people can shape their society and views social interaction as an art form as well. Jarbas uses whatever art medium and materials suit his purposes including sculpture and drawing. His informal drawings are often made collaboratively, frequently with his own children as co-authors. He uses performance, video, music, and poetry, all of which will be welcomed in this project.

Kerry James Marshall - Full Spectrum Dominance
Kerry James Marshall (October 17, 1955- ) is an artist born in Birmingham, Alabama. He grew up in South Central Los Angeles and now lives in Chicago where he previously taught at the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Marshall is known for large-scale paintings, sculptures, and other objects that take African-American life and history as their subject matter. His work often deals with the effects of the Civil Rights movement on domestic life, in addition to working with elements of popular culture. One work, "Rythm Mastr", is a superhero comic book based on African mythology and art set in an urban environment. His first major solo exhibition, which traveled throughout the country, was organized at the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago in 1998. His work has been exhibited in many American and international exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale (2003) and the Documenta (1997 and 2007).

Jo Ractliffe - State of Emergency
Jo Ractliffe engages photography to investigate recent and not-so-recent histories of southern Africa. She taught in the Fine Arts Departments at Stellenbosch University and UCT between 1985 and 1991 and in 1991 took up a post at the Department of Fine Arts at the University of the Witwatersrand, where she teaches studio practice and theory. She has held three solo exhibitions and her work has been selected for several critically acclaimed group exhibitions in South Africa and abroad. Ractliffe lives and works in Johannesburg.

Chung Seoyoung - Continuity
Chung Seoyoung b. 1964 ,Seoul lives and works in Seoul 1989 M.F.A. in Sculpture, Seoul National Universtiy, Seoul 1991 Graduate courses, Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Kuenste, Stuttgart, Germany 1992-1994 Artist's grant , Baden-Wuerttmberg Art Foundation, Germany 1994-1996 Artist's grant, Landesgraduierte Foerderung, Baden-Wuerttmberg, Germany SOLO EXHIBITIONs 1989 Han Gallery, Seoul 1994 HP Schuster Gallery, Stuttgart 1995 Kumho Gallery, Seoul 2000 Artsonje Center, Seoul Sonje Museum of Contemporary Art, Gyeongju 2005 Leave the campfire there., Portikus, Frankfurt 2007 On top of the table, please use ordinary nails with small head. Do not use screws., Atlier Hermes, Seoul SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 1997 "Gwangju Biennale", Gwangju "Seoul-Dialog-Hamburg, Hamburg-Dialog-Seoul", International Cultural Factory Kampnagel, Hamburg 1998 "Defrost", Sonje Museum of Contemporary Art, Gyeongju 1999 "To Infiltrate", alternative space POOL, Seoul 1999 "To Draw a Line", Total Museum, Seoul 2000 "The Song of the Earth", Museum Fridericianum, Kassel 2001 "Promenade in Asia", Shiseido Gallery, Tokyo 2002 "Community and Art", international workshop, Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju 2003 "The 50th Venice Biennale", The Korean Pavilion, Venice 2005 "Seoul; Until Now", Charlottenborg Udstillingsbygning, Copenhagen 2006 Something Mr.C Can't have, KIAF, Seoul

Praneet Soi - Narrating a time of war
Educated in India and the United States, Praneet Soi engages two concepts: One is the possibility of recovering a sense of landscape in an epoch of fragmentation and media overload. The other is the challenge of presenting the figure in an age that has reduced the individual to a nullity through surveillance, the circumscription of rights, and total (if at times, undeclared) war. Praneet Soi lives and works in Amsterdam.

James Merle Thomas - Pundit