Fall/Winter program 2020/2021

Trilogy of Contemporary Art in China – The Scar 
September 25, 2020~February 28, 2021

The Chinese Economic Reform (gaige kaifang, or “reform and opening up”) that began since 1978 has led to China’s rapid growth, but this advancement has not come without the darker side of capitalism. Public outcry demanding democratization led to demonstrations like the Tiananmen Square protests, while income bipolarization was exacerbated. While the first generation of Chinese contemporary artists manifested a critical attitude towards the system and the government, the most recent trends have involved increasingly diverse responses to the Western modernism that young artists have been exposed to since the opening. In particular, we seek to not merely show a few important historical moments and their representative artistic styles, but provide a condensed overview of chronological developments starting from the Tiananmen Square protests, which represented an indelible turning point in modern Chinese history.

This exhibition also bears the title Trilogy of Contemporary Art in China. From Zhu’s “Stars Group” to Liu’s “Post-Sense Sensibility Movement,” while the gap between the three participating artists’ generations covers a span of less than 20 years, their sensibilities come from very diverse contexts, reflecting the extraordinary speed of social change in China, while all of them reveal the wounds from the swift social transformation caused by struggles for democratization, the influx of Western capitalism and the resulting urbanization. Subtitled “The Scar,” this exhibition presents three exemplary artists who work reflects the trauma that has stemmed from the struggle for freedom, from capitalism, and from the urbanization that resulted from China’s reform and opening up—three keywords essential for understanding contemporary Chinese art.

Lee Ufan and His Friends II: Bill Viola, Encounter
October 21, 2020~April 4, 2021

In 2019, the Busan Museum of Art inaugurated “Lee Ufan and His Friends” as part of its annual project. The project aims to use Space Lee Ufan as a venue for introducing artists who share the art-historical significance with Lee Ufan.

In 2020, the museum presents Bill Viola as the artist of the project “Lee Ufan and His Friends.” As two artists encounter in this exhibition, artworks that have common keywords with Lee Ufan will be displayed at Space Lee Ufan, and Bill Viola’s significant works will be shown independently in the museum.

A total of 16 works, ranging from his major works in the early 1970s to recent large-scale video installations, are on display in the exhibition. Viola’s works share the interpretive possibility with Lee Ufan’s works in that they attempted to discover “the relationship between man and the world and the essential structure of existence.” On display in Space Lee Ufan are his early works Migration (1976), The Reflecting Pool (1977-79), and Chott el-Djerid (A Portrait in Light and Heat) (1979). Exhibited in the main gallery of the museum are works produced in 1990-2000’s, such as The Greeting (1995), which was presented in the 1995 Venice Biennale, Martyrs (2014), a series which is permanently installed at London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral, and Going Forth By Day (2002), a large-scale video installation composed of five video works.

While there had been few opportunities to appreciate Bill Viola’s diverse works in a single exhibition, the current exhibition provides an opportunity to see the artist’s major works at once. At the same time, it examines the artistic world of Bill Viola through a holistic approach, providing a ground to experience the artist’s authentic visual language through all senses.