• Journal of the Korean association of regional geographers
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.543-562
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• 2007

Busan Biennale, began from 2000, has been argued that it would improve 'intrinsic introspection related to localism' against 'a lifestyle forced by capitalism in a global dimension', by promoting urban esthetic imagination in the public sphere of the city and reflecting it upon exhibited artworks. But Busan Biennale seems to reflect partly an attempt for new place marketing or urban reimagineering as a part of postmodern culture, even thought it has been planned to be an authentic stage or public-place art for citizens. This paper is to examine Busan Biennale 2006, held from Sep.16 to Nov.25 in Busan main theme of which is 'everywhere', constituted with three major projects: the Contemporary Art Exhibition, Sea Art Festival, and the Busan Sculpture Project. Ths paper considers first some implications of the transformation of modem to postmodern city, focusing on spatial representation of the city and public place art, and then tries to evaluate whether Busan Biennale is really embedded in the local authenticity and esthetic imagination for citizen or not. As concluding remarks, this paper suggests that Busan Biennale would be continuously developed, when it is oriented more towards local public-place art for citizens with their active participations rather than towards urban reimagineering strategy to make and promote an image of Busan as a global city.