Burning Down the House, the 10th Gwangju Biennale, explores the process of burning and transformation, a cycle of obliteration and renewal witnessed throughout history. Evident in aesthetics, historical events, and an increasingly rapid course of redundancy and renewal in commercial culture, the Biennale reflects on this process of events of destruction or self-destruction burning the home one occupies followed by the promise of the new and the hope for change.
Olafur Eliasson participates in this Biennale with his burning fire ring. Please come and enjoy 'No nights in summer, no days in winter'(1994)!
No nights in summer, no days in winter:
This consists of a two-foot diameter metal ring hung at eye level in a darkened room and punctured by gas nozzles around its circumference. When natural gas is pumped through the nozzles and lit, a ring of small flame jets casts blue light into the space in which the work is installed. Continuously consuming propane, the artwork not only illuminates, but also heats the space and fills the soundscape with a constant hiss. The title No nights in summer, no days in winter refers to the phenomenon that occurs in regions north of the Arctic Circle in which the sun does not rise or set for months at a time.
The Gwangju Biennale runs through Nov. 9. For more information, visit www.gwangjubiennale.org.