Wonil Rhee
is participant at
Where is Art Contemporary? The Global Challenge of Art Museums II
Abstract
The Exhibition-Project “Thermocline of Art. New Asian Waves” (ZKM, 2007-06-15 – 2007-11-04)
The exhibition focuses on the multiple realities and hybrid identities that have arisen in Asia through the effects of globalization, post-colonialism, and the poly-contextuality of the diverse cultural, political, religious, and economic systems. The artists react with fantasy, satire, skepticism, humor, and cynicism to the conflicts and absurdities of the social systems between tradition and innovation.
The curator, Wonil Rhee, head of the Media City Seoul and co-curator of the 6th Shanghai Biennale, is a recognized expert on Asian art. He will present not only internationally renowned artists who have immigrated to the West, but primarily up-and-coming artists who still live in their home countries, from von Kazakhstan to Korea, from Malaysia to Indonesia. This art reveals different values and criteria than Western art or the art that is produced in the West and for a Western art market. It is a contemporary and global, but also postmodern and post-ethnic art, including paintings, installations, films, videos, photographs, sculptures, and objects, that unveils the potential conflicts of globalization and its effects on the Asian realm. It opens a panorama of art that expands the boundaries of a Western concept of art.
