“The Power of Failure”
NOON: an annual journal of contemporary art and visual culture
Issue 4 out now
with Lisa Le Feuvre, Jalal Toufic, Sumi Kang, Taek-Gwang Lee, Donna De Salvo, Richard Vine, Young Min Moon, Sabine B. Vogel, and Yongwoo Lee
A journal of contemporary art and visual culture, NOON was established in 2008 by the Gwangju Biennale Foundation to overcome the limitation of the biennial as a one-off exhibition and provide a platform for a strong and continuous connection between the biennial and contemporary practices and discourses of art, culture and society.
The fourth issue of NOON reexamines the discourse of failures and their history, which has been a dynamic driving force behind anti-aesthetic and avant-garde movements. With contributors from diverse backgrounds, “The Power of Failure” delves into the question of the power of anti-aesthetic dynamics within the fields of fine art and popular culture. Further, it draws questions as to why such failures are at the center of history, recorded as significant historical moments. From there, the contributors to the current issue engage with the discourse of failure formulated by Walter Benjamin, providing analyses on the grave ironies and powerful impressions marked by the ruins left by failures.
Lisa Le Feuvre discusses failure in art, stressing the potential for criticality present in failures in the realm of art. She explains how failure is inscribed in the production, reception and distribution of the artwork. Sumi Kang formulates a theory that failure is at the heart of the development of the human worldview and civilization, which connects to the notion of failure as one of the most significant forces in the history of avant-garde art. Jalal Toufic takes the notion of failure into ontological considerations by employing the idea of aura from diverse literary, theoretical and religious references.
The current issue of NOON also includes an interview with Donna De Salvo, the deputy director of the Whitney Museum. Yongwoo Lee, the editor of NOON and general director and CEO of the Gwangju Biennale Foundation, exchanges ideas with Donna De Salvo on the status of biennials within the field of contemporary art and the diverse discourses employed by different biennials. The interview reflects on the Whitney Biennial’s commitment to social engagement and contemporary issues as well as on the question of biennials appearing as cultural partners of global capitalism, contributing to the branding of cities that host them, among other related topics.
The issue also features reviews by Richard Vine and Sabine B. Vogel. Richard Vine explains the effect of capital on art and recapitulates the global art scene in 2012. From his observations of the global art scene, he draws four notable trends that emerge from the ‘net effects’ of complex communication within the art world: an East-West cultural retrenchment, Asian growth, the resurgence of the super-wealthy and the lingering incubation of new technologies. Sabine B. Vogel reviews Roundtable, the 2012 Gwangju Biennale, with an emphasis on its plurality, a trend that is increasingly observed within the field of contemporary art.
Since its founding, NOON has sought to provide the global art community with a report on the diverse communication and research in contemporary visual culture, with particular emphasis on the relationship between theories and contexts of a wide variety of fields. NOON has presented topics and debates in popular culture, audience studies, visual culture, aesthetics, art history and semiotics with contributions from more than 50 artists, curators, writers, thinkers and academics, including Jacques Ranciere, Sylvere Lotringer, Nicolas Bourriaud, Thierry Raspail, Ai Weiwei, Hisashi Muroi, Massimiliano Gioni, Marieke van Hal, Seo Dongjin, Goran Therborn, Sven Lutticken, Joseph Grima, Carol Lu, and Pelin Tan, among others.
For additional information, please contact:
The Gwangju Biennale Foundation
Policy Planning Team, 111 Biennale-ro, Buk gu, Gwangju, Republic of Korea, 500-845
noon@gwangjubiennale.org