German artist Hendrik Beikirch has painted a 70-metre-high mural of a fisherman a few blocks away from Daniel Libeskind’s Haeundae I’Park skyscrapers in Busan, South Korea.
Beikirch’s elderly fisherman represents the majority of South Koreans that still work in traditional industries who have not felt the benefits of the country’s rapid economic development, signified by the glass and steel skyscrapers in the background. Beikirch painted the mural on the side of Busan’s fishing union building located between Haeundae and Gwangalli beaches. Underneath the mural there is a message stating: “Where there is no struggle, there is no strength.”
The project was led by Public Delivery, a Seoul-based organisation that promotes contemporary art across Asia and Europe, who believe that Beikirch ”deliberately distances himself from the polished and artificial aesthetic of advertising” usually found in public spaces.
