The Animamix Biennale is a new, alternative biennale operating on an innovative format of the present time, in which the communication on a global scale is made possible thanks to the development of science and technology. The existing biennales have been organized as events confined to one specified place and time, but this new Biennial takes place simultaneously in various different cities for a sustained period under the same theme of Animamix. Another special aspect of the Biennial is how the new organization of the Biennial provides lively contact with the divergent cultural phenomena of each city that hosts the Biennnale. This will be able to facilitate the formation of cultural sensibility shared among the contemporaries on a more enthusiastic and intense level. Animamix, the theme of the Biennale, is coined from ‘animation’ and ‘comics’, both which occupy iconic positions in our present time. The word Animamix implies the adoration of youth culture and keen interest in popular images that are newly emerging under the influence of new technology, and it also denotes trans-class art form, the content of which blurs the distinction between high art and low art. The Animamix Biennial stands apart from the current biennales in examples of promotional publications: all the participating cities share the same logo and the same e-catalogue format and they operate a common website-the exhibition is run in a much more open way. As a result, the exhibition budget as been reduced and at the same time it has become possible to secure an audience many times greater than the audience at the existing biennales. The public friendly theme sufficiently serves to narrow the interstice between art and everyday life. The Animamix Biennial is co-organized by Museum of Contemporary Art in Shanghai, Macao Museum of Art, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Art in Taipei, Art Gallery of Fine Art College of Tsinghua University in Beijing, Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre and the exhibition will take place at the same time in all of these different locations. We hope that this Biennial, centering on the Pan Pacific region, will gradually expand its presence and grow into a truly global art festival.

Overview of the Exhibition
The Animamix Biennale is co-organized by major art museums in six cities in Asia and this participation allows it to become a Pan Asian Project. This new project aims to create a global art festival where we can share and enjoy a borderless contemporary culture. This aim is sought through smooth and open communication, in which the organizing museums have planned and carried out diverse exchanging programs during the exhibition period. In the past, Pop Art attempted artistic appropriation of animation and comics that were categorized as mass culture; by a similar token, the significance of the Biennial is to establish Animamix as a genre of contemporary art that will take the center stage among the masses.

*image (left)
installation
© Dongi Lee

Courtesy of Daegu Art Museum