Won-il Rhee (; 2 November 1960 – 11 January 2011) was a South Korean digital art curator. He was born and died in Seoul.
Rhee was the artistic director in 2002 and 2006 of the Media City Seoul Biennale. He was the leading curator of the Total Museum of Art and co-ordinator of the Korean Pavilion for the 1995 Venice Biennale. Also, he served as executive head of the exhibition team for the Third Gwangju Biennale and was one of the curators of the Fourth Prague Biennale in 2009. ZKM Rhee biography
From 1996 to 2002, he was head curator at the Sung-Kok Museum of Art and in 2002 he was appointed artistic director of the Media City Seoul Biennale. In 2003, he became chief curator at the Seoul Museum of Art. He also served as the Asian Editor for art publications such as Contemporary Magazine in London and Flash Art in Milan.
Curatorial projects Media City Seoul Biennale, Seoul, Korea, 2002 & 2006 ElectroScape, Zendai Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai, China, 2005 Co-Curator for Shanghai COOL Duolun Museum of Art, Shanghai, 2005 Advisory Programmer to DMC, Seoul, 2004 Curator for Portrait-Landscape, Gwangju, 2005 Curator for City Net Asia, Seoul, 2003 Curator for the Asia-Oceania-Korea Section of the Gwangju Biennale, 2004 Curator of the Asian Section at the Lodz Biennale, Lodz, Poland, 2004 Curator for Digital Sublime, Taiwan, 2004 Curator of Grounding Reality-25 Young Chinese Artists, Seoul Arts Center, Seoul, 2005 Curator of Silent Power-German Expressionists, Zendai Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai, 2006 Curator of Thermocline of Art: Asian Waves, ZKM, Karlsruhe, 2007 Curator of Julian Schnabel, World Art Museum, Beijing, China, 2007 Co-Curator of Asia-Europe Mediations, Poznan Museum, Poland Co-Curator of BIACS 3: 3rd International Biennial of Seville, YOUniverse, 2008 Artistic Director of DIGIFESTA 2010, Gwangju Biennial, Korea Curator of Nanjing Documenta 2010, China Co-Curator of Prague Biennial, 2009–2013, Czech Republic Co-Commissioner of Vancouver Olympic Sculpture Biennial 2009-2011, Canada
On January 11, 2011, Rhee died suddenly of a heart attack. Wonil Rhee (1960-2011) In memory of Wonil Rhee Obituary by Peter Weibel
External links On June 24, 2006, Wonil Rhee speaking at the podium of the conference The Global Challenge of Art Museums. Remarks on the question What is Contemporary Art?
Footnotes
References Christiane Paul, Digital Art, Thames & Hudson Ltd. Frank Popper, Ecrire sur l'art : De l'art optique a l'art virtuel, L'Harmattan 2007. Robert C. Morgan, Digital Hybrids, Art Press volume #255. ZKM Karlsruhe , Thermocline of Art: Asian Waves, exhibition website, 2007.