ScholarWorks@숙명여자대학교

초록

While the Incheon Women Artists' Biennale (2004-2011) was recognized and listed in the directory of world biennials in The Global Contemporary and the Rise of the New Art Worlds (2013) along with three major Korean biennials such as Gwangju, Busan and Seoul, it was nevertheless suspended. It is not surprising that the latter three major biennials continued given the fact that their host cities promoted and supported the events with stable funding and staffs. Incheon's biennial garnered press and attention but it failed to survive the precarious political and social climate. This paper examines the ways in which Incheon Women Artists' Biennale appeared, its reception, and some of the reasons the first women artists' biennale was suspended despite the general positive response from the outside Korea. The Biennale was initiated by female artists in 1996 who despite their struggle as women to maintain family life, pursued opportunities to found a forum for women artists of various backgrounds. Triggered by the birth of the Gwangju Biennale in 1995, the Incheon Biennale was not only the outcome of local women artists's efforts but also a potential site for 'global feminisms' in an era of subalterns. However, the Biennale abruptly lost its funding and did not survive after 2011. One of the reasons is that from its inception, the Biennale was hardly endorsed by the local male population who aggressively and overtly expressed antimony. They disagreed that women could represent the city of Incheon in the name of a biennial. The second reason was that the Korean elite feminist artist sector refused to participate in the Biennale arguing that the Incheon women artists were not 'feminist' enough. The third was the ongoing conflict between artists' organizations which accidentally publicly posed the Incheon Biennale artists as being on the far right. Finally, the heavy reliance on governmental funding brought about the biennials' cessation as it fell victim to the unending change in the political cycle that effected the organizing committee members' loyalties.

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