{"id":3605,"date":"2026-10-02T21:01:37","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T01:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/at-gwangjus-16th-biennale-you-must-change-your-life-is-tested\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T21:01:37","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T01:01:37","slug":"at-gwangjus-16th-biennale-you-must-change-your-life-is-tested","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/at-gwangjus-16th-biennale-you-must-change-your-life-is-tested\/","title":{"rendered":"At Gwangju\u0019s 16th Biennale, \u001cYou must change your life\u001d is tested"},"content":{"rendered":"

Night after night in Gwangju, the fa\u0000d0ade of the Gwangju Biennale Exhibition Hall ignites with James T. Hong\u00019s<\/strong> Apologies<\/em> (2012\u00013\t8), an ever-expanding anthology of contrition by government officials and heads of state. Hong calls it \u001ca timeline of political progress as unrepentant recidivism and contrite repetition.\u001d The reel stretches from 1937\u0014 Japanese ambassador Hiroshi Saito<\/strong> regretting the sinking of the USS Panay<\/em>\u0014 to Willy Brandt<\/strong> kneeling before the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising monument, and closes in 2023 with the Dutch king apologizing for his nation\u00019s role in slavery. In a biennale titled \u001cYou must change your life<\/strong>,\u001d the work surfaces a paradox: ceremonial penitence stages transformation even as it defers it.<\/p>\n

The directive is lifted from the closing line of Rainer Maria Rilke<\/strong>\u00019s 1908 sonnet \u001cArchaic Torso of Apollo.\u001d Artistic director Ho Tzu Nyen<\/strong> has described encountering the poem on an exhausted day and feeling an \u001cexpanded capacity.\u001d With co-curators Gahee Park<\/strong>, Brian Kuan Wood<\/strong>, and Che Kyongfa<\/strong>, Ho treats change as layered across scales and tempos\u0014 sometimes seismic, sometimes barely perceptible.<\/p>\n

Molecules and Me<\/h2>\n

The opening section pools nearly two tons of pine resin across the floor in Goldin+Senneby<\/strong>\u00019s Resin Pond<\/em> (2026), a luminous amber slick that fuses toxin and sealant, wound and closure. Resin is energy-dense, terpene-rich, and harvestable for biodiesel and aviation fuel; the duo\u00019s Jakob Senneby<\/strong> lives with multiple sclerosis, a condition of autoimmune assault on the nervous system, which has reoriented their scrutiny of capital\u00019s absurdities. Nearby, clusters of volcanic rocks from Jeju<\/strong> compress unequal durations\u0014sediment, eruption, cooling\u0014while Sasaki Ken<\/strong>\u00019s more than sixty small paintings\u0014Converse sneakers, workers\u00019 boots, a light switch, a tennis ball, and an ominously overcast Tokyo<\/strong> sky in the days after the 2011 T\u00014hoku<\/strong> earthquake\u0014thread the spaces with the tempo of the everyday.<\/p>\n

Maya Watanabe<\/strong>\u00019s Liminal<\/em> (2019), a single-channel projection produced by the Han Nefkens Foundation, offers extreme close-ups of human remains exhumed from mass graves of Peru<\/strong>\u00019s internal armed conflict (1980\u00142000). Tens of thousands remain missing or nameless, and many crimes unacknowledged; the camera\u00019s oscillation between focus and blur refuses closure.<\/p>\n

Bodies, Bonds, and Beyond<\/h2>\n

In \u001cBodies and Bonds<\/strong>,\u001d Mona Benyamin<\/strong> casts her parents\u0014who lived through the mass displacements of Palestinians during the Nakba<\/strong> (1948) and the Naksa<\/strong> (1967)\u0014into a sitcom and a newscast. In Trouble in Paradise<\/em> (2018), gallows humor lands over a canned laugh track (\u001cHow do you make a Palestinian cry? You kill his family\u001d). In Tomorrow, Again<\/em> (2023), the pair return as anchors and bystanders in a condition of perpetual emergency. Nearby, Amanda Heng<\/strong>\u00019s Another Woman in Gwangju 1996, 2014, 2023<\/em> (2026) restages a mother\u0013daughter portrait across three decades as roles of care reverse; Sohrab Hura<\/strong>\u00019s Bittersweet<\/em> (2019) and Life Is Elsewhere<\/em> (2005\u00142011) chronicle life alongside a mother diagnosed with schizophrenia and her dog, Elsa, including a letter noting, \u001cAs the years passed, I forgot all the reasons for not wanting her.\u001d<\/p>\n

\u001cCosmos and Change<\/strong>\u001d turns outward: Bhenji Ra<\/strong>\u00019s Biraddali Dancing on the Horizon<\/em> (2024) draws from pangalay, a dance of the Tausug<\/strong> of the Sulu Archipelago<\/strong>; Hura\u00019s The Coast<\/em> (2019) follows devotees of the goddess Kali<\/strong> on Tamil Nadu<\/strong>\u00019s shores; and Saodat Ismailova<\/strong>\u00019s Melted into the Sun<\/em> (2024) trails \u001cThe Veiled One\u001d across the Amu Darya<\/strong>, the Chillpiq<\/strong> burial ground, and a Soviet-era solar furnace.<\/p>\n

The finale, Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork<\/strong>\u00019s Not Exactly BPM (Variation Rrose)<\/em> (2026)\u0014commissioned by the 16th Gwangju Biennale\u0014is a deconstructed nightclub of centrifugal blowers, feedback, and transparent, sound-absorbing inflatables that swell and exhale. A hypnotic score built with the psychoacoustic artist Rrose<\/strong> replaces euphoria with a low hum of anxiety under burnt-orange light. After so many propositions for change, this enclosure stages a pause\u0014and leaves the question of return unresolved.<\/p>\n

V\u00eda artasiapacific.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the 16th Gwangju Biennale, titled “You must change your life,” works by James T. Hong, Goldin+Senneby, Maya Watanabe, Mona Benyamin, Sohrab Hura, Amanda Heng, Bhenji Ra, Saodat Ismailova, and Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork probe how transformation plays out across bodies, histories, and tempos.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-happening-now"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}