Charles Avery will be exhibiting at this year's Biennale, "We, on the rising wave", in Busan (SK).
This exhibition takes Busan as a starting point in reflecting on the stories that remain or lie hidden within the history of Busan since the modern era and the changes in the city’s structure, and examining them in relation to the reality in the world.
Charles Avery has dedicated himself to a singular world-building project through the depiction of an imaginary island. Titled The Islanders, this project describes the formation of Avery's extensive fiction through drawings, writing, objects, architecture, and design.
The Island at the center of Avery's constructed world is located among an archipelago of innumerable constituents. The gateway to the Island is the town of Onomatopoeia, a highly-textured metropolis that bears the hallmarks of an evolving urban landscape. Once the stepping off point for the pioneers who first came, the town experienced rapid transormation from a colonial outpost, to boom town, bustling metropolis, depression-ravaged slum, and finally a regenerated city of culture and tourist destination. The culture and fabric of the Island continue to evolve, further illuminated with each successive work.
The spirit of Avery's imaginary Island is highly engaged with the disciplines and currency of mathematics, philosophy, economics, and anthropology, and he takes inspiration broadly from literature and comedy. Key elements from his drawings are rendered in physical form in his sculptures and installations. As Avery has said, the Island is "a gymnasium for the imagination and an earnest attempt to align the experience of the viewer with that of the artist."
"We, On the Rising Wave" is on view from September 3 - November 6, 2022.
