The Gwanju Biennale Foundation along with artistic director Massimiliano Gioni have announced the initial list of participating artists and provided details regarding the Biennale’s 2010 theme.  The eighth installment of the Biennale has been given the name “10,000 Lives,” and will feature more than 100 artists with works produced between 1901 and 2010, along with several commissions.

“10,000 Lives” will be constructed as a thematic exhibition in a temporary museum where the works of art and cultural artifacts presented from more than 25 countries are intended to examine people’s obsession with images.

The title of the exhibition derives from a 30 volume epic poem by Korean author Ku Un, entitled “Maninbo (10,000 Lives).” The poem was written by Ku Un while he was incarcerated for his involvement in the 1980 South Korean democratic movement. While in prison he wrote his epic poem consisting of 3,800 portraits of every person he had ever met, including those from literature and history.

“We seek comfort in images and carry out wars in their name; we congregate around images, we adore them, crave them, we consume them and destroy them,” says Gioni. “The exhibition ‘10,000 Lives’ attempts to present a series of case studies that explore our love for images and our need to create substitutes, effigies, and [stand-ins] for ourselves and our loved ones.”

The initial artists list includes:

Pawel Althamer; Carl Andre; Art Orienté objet (Laval-Jeantet  Mangin);

Anna Artaker; Tauba Auerbach; Morton Bartlett; Thomas Bayrle; E.J. Bellocq; Hans Bellmer; Nayland Blake; Jonathan Borofsky; Irina Botea; Kerstin Brätsch; Glenn Brown; James Lee Byars; Duncan Campbell; James Castle; Maurizio Cattelan; Jacques Charlier; Hyejeong Cho; Kwang-Ho Choi; Anne Collier; Roberto Cuoghi; Keren Cytter; John De Andrea; André de Dienes; Philip-Lorca diCorcia; Mike Disfarmer; Walker Evans; Eye Glass Shop; Harun Farocki; Jean Fautrier; Hans-Peter Feldmann; Fischli and Weiss; Lee Friedlander; Katharina Fritsch; Aurélien Froment; Paul Fusco; Cyprien Gaillard; Rupprecht Geiger; Franz Gertsch; Hermann Glöckner; Gu Dexin; João Maria Gusmão and Pedro Paiva; Guo Fengyi; Yang-ah Ham; Duane Hanson; Ydessa Hendeles/Teddy Bear Project; Thomas Hirschhorn; Tom Holert; Arnoud Holleman; Carsten Höller; Roni Horn; Tehching Hsieh; Huang Yong Ping; Heungsoon Im; Sanja Iveković; Jikken Kobo / Experimental Workshop (Shozo Kitadai, Kiyoji Otsuji, Katsuhiro Yamaguchi); Yasmine Kabir; Kan Xuan; Jacob Kassay; Leandro Katz; Mike Kelley; Edward and Nancy Reddin Kienholz; Hanyong Kim; Konrad Klapheck; Alice Kok; Kokdu Dolls from the collection of Ock Rang Kim; Jeff Koons; Tetsumi Kudo; Emma Kunz; Maria Lassnig; Mark Leckey; Jung Lee; Seung-taek Lee; Sherrie Levine; Herbert List; Liu Wei; Liu Zheng; Paul McCarthy; Gustav Metzger; John Miller; Rabih Mroué; Matt Mullican;Namhan Photo Studio; Bruce Nauman; Shinro Ohtake; Henrik Olesen; Eliot Porter; Seth Price; Thom Puckey; Bridget Riley; Peter Roehr; Dieter Roth; Ataru Sato; Karl Schenker; Jean-Frédéric Schnyder; Tino Sehgal; Paul Sharits; Cindy Sherman; Laurie Simmons; Hito Steyerl; Sturtevant; Paul Thek; Ryan Trecartin; Tuol Sleng Prison Photographs; Useful Photography; Franco Vaccari; Stan VanDerBeek; Danh Vo; Andy Warhol; Andro Wekua; Christopher Williams; Ming Wong; Wu Wenguang; Katsuhiro Yamaguchi; Haegue Yang; Ye Jinglu (photo album discovered by Tong Bingxue); Sergey Zarva; Zhang Enli; Zhao Shutong; Wang Guanyi and the Rent Collection Courtyard collective; Zhou Xiahou; Jakub Ziolkowski; Artur Zmijewski.

www.gb.or.kr

Massimiliano Gioni