The Incheon Women Artists' Biennale, held in Incheon,

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eas ...

, and inaugurated in 2004, subsequently had editions in 2007, 2009, and 2011 that focused on the work of

contemporary Contemporary history, in English-language historiography, is a subset of modern history that describes the historical period from approximately 1945 to the present. Contemporary history is either a subset of the late modern period, or it is o ...

women artists. It is the first and only art biennale in the world focused on the work of female artists.

Founding and challenges

The Biennial was first conceived by local women artists in Incheon; many were

fine art In European academic traditions, fine art is developed primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from decorative art or applied art, which also has to serve some practical function, such as pottery or most metalwor ...

teachers in public and private schools. They had aspired to have large exhibitions that would connect with the rest of the world since 1996. They had to fight, however, against the prejudices against women artists' gatherings. Local male artists mounted an anti-biennale in 2006.

2009 edition

The 2009 edition featured works by American

feminist art Feminist art is a category of art associated with the late 1960s and 1970s feminist movement. Feminist art highlights the societal and political differences women experience within their lives. The hopeful gain from this form of art is to bri ...

ists

Faith Ringgold Faith Ringgold (born October 8, 1930 in Harlem, New York City) is an American painter, writer, mixed media sculptor, and performance artist, best known for her narrative quilts. Early life Faith Ringgold was born the youngest of three children ...

and

Judy Chicago Judy Chicago (born Judith Sylvia Cohen; July 20, 1939) is an American feminist artist, art educator, and writer known for her large collaborative art installation pieces about birth and creation images, which examine the role of women in history ...

as well as 99 other artists from 25 other countries. Organized by Dr. Eunhee Yang, along with curators Dr. Thalia Vrachopoulos and Sutthirat Supaparinya, the main exhibition "So Close Yet So Far Away" brought together artists from diverse countries whose works question and go beyond the cultural boundaries of given identities. Heng-Gil Han was the operating committee chairman and

curator A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...

of the Tuning Exhibition of 2009 entitled "The 21st Century, the Feminine Century, and the Century of Diversity and Hope," and the work exhibited encompassing a larger variety of media like

multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradit ...

performances A performance is an act of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. It is also defined as the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function. Management science In the work place ...

, film, writing, discussion, and animation, and included male-identifying artists. It included artwork by Eun Mi Choi, Disband,

Coco Fusco Coco Fusco (born Juliana Emilia Fusco Miyares; June 18, 1960) is a Cuban-American interdisciplinary artist, writer, and curator whose work has been exhibited and published internationally. Fusco's work explores gender, identity, race, and power th ...

, Donna Huanca,

Akiko Ichikawa Akiko Ichikawa (市川明子, ''Ichikawa Akiko,'' or アキーコー・イーチカーワ, ''Akiko Ichikawa'') is a transdisciplinary artist, editor, and writer-activist based in New York City. She has written on contemporary art and culture fo ...

, Chang-jin Lee, Hyuk Kang, Bo Sub Kim, Se Won Kim, Lee Mingwei, Xaviera Simmons, Carolee Schneemann, and

Lorna Simpson Lorna Simpson (born August 13, 1960) is an American photographer and multimedia artist. She came to prominence in the 1980s and 1990s with artworks such as ''Guarded Conditions'' and ''Square Deal''. Simpson is most well-known for her work in c ...

. The Participation Exhibition showed the work exclusively of Korean artists, and, like the main exhibition, the work only of women. Kyung-ae Kwon was the president of the biennale organizing committee, and Eunhee Yang the commissioner of the main exhibition.

2011 edition

The main exhibition for the 2011 edition, entitled "Terra Incognita," was curated by Jane Farver, former director of

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

List Visual Arts Center Established in 1950, the List Visual Arts Center (LVAC) is the contemporary art museum of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It is known for temporary exhibitions in its galleries located in the MIT Media Lab building, as well as its admini ...

. It included the art of

Joan Jonas Joan Jonas (born July 13, 1936) is an American visual artist and a pioneer of video and performance art, and one of the most important artists to emerge in the late 1960s and early 1970s.LaToya Ruby Frazier LaToya Ruby Frazier (born 1982) is an American artist and professor of photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. From Braddock, Pennsylvania, Frazier began photographing her family and hometown at the age of 16, revising the socia ...

, and

Yael Bartana Yael Bartana ( he, יעל ברתנא; born 1970) is an Israeli artist, filmmaker and photographer, whose past works have encompassed multiple mediums, including photography, film, video, sound, and installation. Many of her pieces feature polit ...

, and 25 other women from a total 13 countries. The Tuning Exhibition that year was co-curated by Han, Gyoung Mo Rhee, Kyoeng Sub Yue, and two others, and the work shown focussed on social practice art by artists regardless of gender. The Participation exhibition included the work of female artists active in women's artists organizations around the world and those who specifically contributed to the advancement of the Incheon Women Artists' Biennale.

2013 edition

The organizing committee lost its momentum in 2013 as the political environment was unfriendly enough to secure government funding. That year's version was held at a smaller scale with Korean artists, which became its last.

References

{{List of Biennales Korean art Art biennials Feminist art organizations Incheon Recurring events established in 2004 Feminist organizations in South Korea 2013 disestablishments in South Korea