• The Journal of Art Theory & Practice
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• no.3
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• pp.85-106
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• 2005

As biennale exhibitions has been expanded into all of the world since 1990s, these trends of blockbuster exhibitions have caused several problems. For instance, some major curators monopolized most global size exhibitions despite of a variety of cultural and historical backgrounds. Besides, due to a strong connection between these curators and their own artists, the young emerging artists' opportunities tend to be reduced as a result of the power game. In addition, major curators' power have influence on the exhibition style as well as on the theme itself. Some artists who did not involved that kind of huge scale exhibitions dispute that the direction of the exhibition is concentrating on the curator's interest instead of artists or viewers. Although these dissatisfactions could not portray correctly the process of organizing and managing system of a biennale exhibition, those biennale exhibitions held in recent have shown tautologic discourses without any passion and positive attitude direct to the exploitation of our society as a vanguard. In the process of comparing several kinds of biennale exhibitions, I could find that some artists who participated several biennale exhibitions at the same time did not present their creative vision, although the triumph of an exhibition was typically measured by the amount of visitors. Thus, the aim of this article is to prove that the biennale can show us new cultural discourse as well as progressive method of understanding our times. Is biennale producing the real 'global standard'? If biennale has done it, could this global standard present upto-date paradigm for the unique exhibition system? Is biennale providing an useful opportunity for the understanding and communicating of contemporary art through the recontextualization which is pronounced by the publicity of curator and organizing committee? How can we find the distinctive strategy from each biennale exhibition including Venice Biennale? Biennale, as a blockbuster exhibition, always requires a degree of hype, otherwise it would not be a special event and would not attract a big enough audience. It is the actual reason why major biennale exhibitions seem to be similar artistic events. Unfortunately, it seems that the excess of biennale exhibitions might bring about the lack of contents. In this case, the biennale syndrome would being a kind of the center of poverty, in spite of the visual splendor. After all, following the global standard may not be a matter of great importance now. What really matters is how each biennale exhibition which started under the different conditions can search their own identity.

• The Journal of Art Theory & Practice
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• no.8
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• pp.185-215
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• 2009

In Malaysia, figurative painting has increasingly become a means for artists to pose questions about presumptions of power and assumptions of history. The body, its potentially breached boundaries and defenses, forms an integral component of the battle for political influence. The degree of control over one's own and other people's bodies has become a measuring stick to determine the power of potential political leaders. Anxiety about boundaries and access to powerful bodies is intertwined with the questions of who has the right to hold power; the relevance of moral bodies and of what comprises an ideal self or selves. These questions are raised in intriguing ways in contemporary Malaysian art. While eschewing a direct take on current politics, Malaysian artists have increasingly turned to the body to address issues in Malaysian history, culture and the distribution of power. This paper will explore some works by three artists in particular, Wong Hoy Cheong, Nadiah Bamadhaj and Ahmad Fuad Osman use the figure to problematise dominant narratives in Malaysian history. Their work variously challenge political, racial and gender hierarchies and in so doing, reveal them as social constructions.

• The Journal of Art Theory & Practice
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• no.1
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• pp.49-70
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• 2003

What is an exhibition? Is it of the system which is designed to serve Art Works in their representation, or is it a place where the artistic presentation could be considered as art work itself? After modernist era, the role of exhibitional space might have been shifted from those two principle raison d'$\^{e}$tre of exhibitional space into another, a new one. What Deleuze would call it as he borrowed the term from Spinozian philosophy : the Affectional Space. This new type of exhibitional space has been announced since 1969 when a Harald Szeeman, young independent curator and art critic from Swiss, has organized his brilliant exhibition "When Attitudes become Form" in Bern. For sure, these intensities in curatorial practices have been existing before like some early 20th century exhibitional efforts by Marcel Duchamp, El Lissitzky, Yve Klein, etc. It has influenced much on many of, otherwise most of contemporary art exhibiting practices. And now it seems to be necessary to give it a conceptual idea which could enlighten better the new paradigm of exhibitional practices that we try to clarify. I would propose the idea of that new exhibitional space as "space of non-organic becoming". This idea is inspired by Deleuze's ever famous philosophical work Thousand Plateaus, which, with Folds by the same author, has contributed to many contemporary and aesthetical debating issues. What is "affect"? Explaining about Spinoza's principle concepts, Deleuze defines it as a kind of durations or variations which are constituted by different levels of perfection. One perfection is precedented or followed by certain perfection bigger or lesser through lived transitions or passages. So each time it actualizes and reflects the state of All as a cut of Reality while each state of affections, images or ideas can not be separated from the duration which binds it to the precedent state and extends it to following one. Affect is also a term of changes. One affects at the same time it is affected. Exhibitional space as affect (or affectional space) is distinguished from representational and presentational space in the way it attributes movement, produces arrangements and generates new factors of artistic creation including those which are outside of ever accepted artistic elements. The concepts of affectional space are used especially to enlighten contemporary situation of artistic and curatorial processes. Art is no more limited to be seen as mere objects of aesthetical admiration, nor as art vis-$\`{a}$-vis art relationship apart from the whole. It includes possibilities and virtuality that appear in the imperceptible and undescribable manners if delimited in given language. As once noticed by Kuhn, we might be living in a paradigmatically shifting world, not only in Art but also in Life. And we need to express it more with Art as moving and affectional nods than as just a clean window or a distinct manual book.

• 지역과문화
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.1-29
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• 2020

The purpose of this study is to have an opportunity to enhance the role of cultural intermediaries in the region as interest in the cultural media sector increased with the implementation of the Law for Promotion of Regional Culture. First, I discussed the need to pay attention to the local Cultural Intermediaries group as the background of the discussion, confirming that the existing research on the cultural mediation sector was focused on cultural workers in public institutions and government projects. Next, for the theoretical discussion, I reviewed the role of cultural intermediaries contributing to the production of meaning via the concept of cultural intermediaries by Pierre Bourdieu, and described that the mediation of regions and cultures began to emerge as an alternative to the existing centralized structure of cultural production in the context of Korea after the late 1990s. It was found that practices that mediate the region and culture were developed around the group of public artists and cultural activists and the intermediary group played a role in revealing various aspects of the region and dynamically constructing the local public sphere through these cultural practices. Lastly, local curator's cases (Space Beam, Space Imsi, Incheon Spectacle) were studied. The actual cases of activity were analyzed through the cultural practices by focusing on what alternative meanings had been produced in the region and how the region was represented. Each case showed the mediating activity that attempts to change the environment of life while sharing local issues with communities, projects that reconstructs the local professional art sector into a public sphere, and mediating activity that represents local daily culture and form networks through independent publications.

• MISULJARYO - National Museum of Korea Art Journal
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• v.98
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• pp.226-241
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• 2020

Located on the right side of the third floor of the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, the "Art of Central Asia" exhibition boasts the world's finest collection of artworks and artifacts from the Silk Road. Every item in the collection has been classified by region, and many of them were collected in the early twentieth century through archaeological surveys led by Russia's Pyotr Kozlov, Mikhail Berezovsky, and Sergey Oldenburg. Some of these artifacts have been presented around the world through special exhibitions held in Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Korea, Japan, and elsewhere. The fruits of Russia's Silk Road expeditions were also on full display in the 2008 exhibition The Caves of One Thousand Buddhas - Russian Expeditions on the Silk Route on the Occasion of 190 Years of the Asiatic Museum, held at the Hermitage Museum. Published in 2018 by the Shanghai Chinese Classics Publishing House in collaboration with the Hermitage Museum, Kuche Art Relics Collected in Russia introduces the Hermitage's collection of artifacts from the Kuche (or Kucha) region. While the book focuses exclusively on artifacts excavated from the Kuche area, it also includes valuable on-site photos and sketches from the Russian expeditions, thus helping to enhance readers' overall understanding of the characteristics of Kuche art within the Buddhist art of Central Asia. The book was compiled by Dr. Kira Samosyuk, senior curator of the Oriental Department of the Hermitage Museum, who also wrote the main article and the artifact descriptions. Dr. Samosyuk is an internationally renowned scholar of Central Asian Buddhist art, with a particular expertise in the art of Khara-Khoto and Xi-yu. In her article "The Art of the Kuche Buddhist Temples," Dr. Samosyuk provides an overview of Russia's Silk Road expeditions, before introducing the historical development of Kuche in the Buddhist era and the aspects of Buddhism transmitted to Kuche. She describes the murals and clay sculptures in the Buddhist grottoes, giving important details on their themes and issues with estimating their dates, and also explains how the temples operated as places of worship. In conclusion, Dr. Samosyuk argues that the Kuche region, while continuously engaging with various peoples in China and the nomadic world, developed its own independent Buddhist culture incorporating elements of Gandara, Hellenistic, Persian, and Chinese art and culture. Finally, she states that the culture of the Kuche region had a profound influence not only on the Tarim Basin, but also on the Buddhist grottoes of Dunhuang and the central region of China. A considerable portion of Dr. Samosyuk's article addresses efforts to estimate the date of the grottoes in the Kuche region. After citing various scholars' views on the dates of the murals, she argues that the Kizil grottoes likely began prior to the fifth century, which is at least 100 years earlier than most current estimates. This conclusion is reached by comparing the iconography of the armor depicted in the murals with related materials excavated from the surrounding area (such as items of Sogdian art). However, efforts to date the Buddhist grottoes of Kuche must take many factors into consideration, such as the geological characteristics of the caves, the themes and styles of the Buddhist paintings, the types of pigments used, and the clothing, hairstyles, and ornamentation of the depicted figures. Moreover, such interdisciplinary data must be studied within the context of Kuche's relations with nearby cultures. Scientific methods such as radiocarbon dating could also be applied for supplementary materials. The preface of Kuche Art Relics Collected in Russia reveals that the catalog is the first volume covering the Hermitage Museum's collection of Kuche art, and that the next volume in the series will cover a large collection of mural fragments that were taken from Berlin during World War II. For many years, the whereabouts of these mural fragments were unknown to both the public and academia, but after restoration, the fragments were recently re-introduced to the public as part of the museum's permanent exhibition. We look forward to the next publication that focuses on these mural fragments, and also to future catalogs introducing the artifacts of Turpan and Khotan. Currently, fragments of the murals from the Kuche grottoes are scattered among various countries, including Russia, Germany, and Korea. With the publication of this catalog, it seems like an opportune time to publish a comprehensive catalog on the murals of the Kuche region, which represent a compelling mixture of East-West culture that reflects the overall characteristics of the region. A catalog that includes both the remaining murals of the Kizil grottoes and the fragments from different parts of the world could greatly enhance our understanding of the murals' original state. Such a book would hopefully include a more detailed and interdisciplinary discussion of the artifacts and murals, including scientific analyses of the pigments and other materials from the perspective of conservation science. With the ongoing rapid development in western China, the grotto murals are facing a serious crisis related to climate change and overcrowding in the oasis city of Xinjiang. To overcome this challenge, the cultural communities of China and other countries that possess advanced technology for conservation and restoration must begin working together to protect and restore the murals of the Silk Road grottoes. Moreover, centers for conservation science should be established to foster human resources and collect information. Compiling the data of Russian expeditions related to the grottoes of Kuche (among the results of Western archaeological surveys of the Silk Road in the early twentieth century), Kuche Art Relics Collected in Russia represents an important contribution to research on Kuche's Buddhist art and the Silk Road, which will only be enhanced by a future volume introducing the mural fragments from Germany. As the new authoritative source for academic research on the artworks and artifacts of the Kuche region, the book also lays the groundwork for new directions for future studies on the Silk Road. Finally, the book is also quite significant for employing a new editing system that improves its academic clarity and convenience. In conclusion, Dr. Kira Samosyuk, who planned the publication, deserves tremendous praise for taking the research of Silk Road art to new heights.