K.NOTe (2013) by Yeong Min Kim

K.NOTe Okin Collective Minja GU Nayoungim & Gregory Maass CHOI Jeong Hwa Kyungwoo CHUN Changwon LEE

K.NOTe no.1 - 6 Okin Collective 2 Minja GU 14 Nayoungim & Gregory Maass 22 CHOI Jeong Hwa 34 Kyungwoo CHUN 50 Changwon LEE 60

K.NOTe no.1-6 Publisher. Total Museum of Contemporary Art Editor-in-chief. Nathalie Boseul SHIN Editors. Juri CHO, Yeongmin KIM, Hyejin KIM, Junghyun Anna PARK, Jeongsun YANG Designer. Taejung KIM, Daeil KIM (Space O’NewWall) Special thanks to The Binders, the flat, Article, A Journal of Contemporary Art Date of publication. January 10, 2014 © Okin Collective, Minja GU, Nayoungim & Gregory Maass, CHOI Jeong Hwa, Kyungwoo CHUN, Changwon LEE Reproduction of the contents of this magazine in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited.

K.NOTe no.1

Photo: Suntag NOH

Okin Collective

* Okin Collective is an artists’ group, which consists of Hwayong KIM, Shiu JIN, Joungmin YI, named after the Okin Apartment complex in Jongno-gu, Seoul. In July 2009, a group of artists visited one of their colleagues who lived in the complex, which was set to be torn down soon. It was during this eviction process that they began exploring the tragedy surrounding the other tenants’ situation in the name of a redevelopment project, with traces of those who had already moved out from the complex still lingering. It was also a way of looking into how the historicity, speed, and avaricious urban planning taking place in Seoul were damaging people’s lives. Thus, it was during this time when Okin Collective was formed. In the midst of the city’s redevelopment project, no space is exempt from receiving “death sentences” out of the blue in the form of forced evictions and harassing situations. What Okin Collective considers most important is not raising pros and cons on the redevelopment project, or even the specific interests of the community members, but rather in broadening people’s views and attitude about such incidents. Though the collective was started in one particular place, the activities of Okin Collective center on remembering multiple “Okin”s which continue to take place all around Seoul even after the Okin Apartments was torn down. This can be accomplished by exploring your city, being kind to others, carrying out your own research, taking part in entertainment activities, and tenderly bringing together art and everyday life. As a result, Okin Collective is still pursuing these activities which they are very concerned about.

The group has had two solo exhibitions since its inception, including “Okin OPEN SITE” at the Okin Apartments, Seoul (2010) and “Concrete Island” at Takeout Drawing (2010). For group exhibitions, it has participated in “Random Access” at the NJP Art Center, Yongin (2010), “Public Discourse Sphere: Aftereffects of Neo-liberalism” at Alternative Space Loop, Seoul (2011), “The R-19 Performance Relay” at Alternative Space Loop, Seoul (2011), “Life, No Peace, Only Adventure” at Busan National Museum of Art, Busan (2011-2012), “The Forces Behind” at Doosan Gallery (2012) and more. The collective has run the Okin Collective Internet radio station [STUDIO+82] (http://okin.cc) since September 2010. okinapt@gmail.com

** Kwangsuk LEE is an assistant professor in the Graduate School of Public Policy and Information Technology at Seoul National University of Science and Technology, Seoul. LEE earned his Ph.D. in Radio-TV-Film at the University of Texas at Austin. He worked as an Australian Research Council (ARC) Postdoctoral Research Fellow and now is an Honorary Visiting Fellow at the University of Wollongong, Australia. He is the author of five books, Copyleft Culture: Cultivating the Common (Seoul, forthcoming), IT development in Korea: A Broadband Nirvana? (London: Routledge, 2012), The Art & Cultural Politics of Cyber Avantgardes (Seoul, 2010), Digital Paradoxes: The Political Economy of Cyberspace (Seoul, 2000) and Cultural Politics in Cyberspace (Seoul, 1998). As a columnist, LEE has contributed numerous columns and essays related to digital culture to Korean newspapers, magazines, and other publications. leeks2k@gmail.com

Okin Collective, ‘In Between the Poetic and the Political’ Kwangsuk LEE Professor at the Seoul National University of Science & Technology

Due to the fatigue that comes with the uptight living conditions of our grey city, more perseverance is required to read a single book, from beginning to end, in one sitting. Much to my chagrin, I am preoccupied with my day-to-day responsibilities more so than my academic research - despite the fact that I pursue academic studies for a living - and I find myself absentmindedly turning out writings. Recently, I came across a book entitled Okin Collective, published by ‘Workroom’, which is a company that assists artists’ independent publishing on a small scale. This book is written by the artist group ‘Okin Collective’ to archive its activities and data from the last 3 years. It’s been a long time since I felt refreshed and inspired: while reading over it, my accumulated fatigue was washed away, as if I had exfoliated my dead skin. It was also a unique experience to become familiar with the artists’ activity through the medium of a book instead of an actual gallery exhibition. This book is somewhat of an archive that records their trajectory from the summer of 2009 to recent days. Indeed, reading it gives us a great deal of pleasure, as it includes various reading resources and references, such as self records, articles by art critics and journalists, interviews, declarations, photo images - all of which create a more entertaining reading experience. Moreover, this book can be regarded as an experimental publishing venture because it targets a more alternative and popularized readership, whereas most independent publications have a very specified, narrow audience/reader group. Once finishing reading this book, I strongly felt that I would like to meet the Okin Colletive in person.

Inwang Mountain of Gyeomjae, and the demolition of the Okin Apartments Okin Collective is an artists’ group that was formed in the process of demolishing the Okin Apartments - an apartment complex that was constructed as a part of modernization project led by the dictatorial government of former president PARK Jeong Hee. As many are aware, the Okin Apartments were built in 1969 on the site of a former shantytown. The shantytown had been demolished by the government to build a civil apartment complex that showed off the fast-paced

urbanization of Korea. Also, one could take in the entire view of the Okin apartments from the Blue

wash painting. And it was also a meaningful site that stored multi-layered historic moments, such

House, the Korean presidential residence. This is why the landscape of this region is so unique. This

as the history of concrete in the era of modern development, the memories and sorrows of helpless

mass of concrete - symbolic of PARK’s legacy of achievement - stands where numerous people had

neighbors whose lives had been camouflaged by the urban redevelopment process.

been setting up home in for a long time. It was, no doubt, unsettling to witness its quaint beauty, the remnants of fast development, and the memories it contained disappear all at once, in the name of urban development. The blurred memories of life that were embedded in the nooks and crannies of

Being an observer and an explorer at the same time

the Okin Apartments were doomed to vanish alongside its structural demise, due to the very clear

If we were to misunderstand the Okin Collective yet again, we could raise the following question

purpose of urban beautification (i.e. the construction of a new park, providing citizens of Seoul with

easily: “Are you all anarchists?.” Admittedly, this is an assumption that is backed by valid reasons.

an unobstructed view of nature). According to the ‘Han River Renaissance plan’ led by former mayor

Nonetheless, while shedding light on urban problems, the group does not employ overly political

of Seoul, Sehoon OH, the Okin apartment complex was designated as a green area and thus subject

expressions. They do not aim to cater to specific art forms. In reality, they are fed up with raising

to demolition. If expressed in an Okin Collective-esque manner, spaces that were much like ‘hollowed

up the political flag. They do not welcome any kind of labeling or anyone who dared to define their

out furrows’, which we usually encounter in cities and their deep wounds were about to be quietly

work and their group. It is their goal to dedicate themselves to their collaborative work and free their

filled in and disappear without any notice.

individual creative pathways. They simply aim to keep a balanced viewpoint about urban issues by maintaining an observer’s distance from the phenomena. The group is actually more interested in

Three artists - Hwayong KIM, Shiu JIN, and Joungmin YI - gathered to find out the ways of healing

the public gaze and the evaluation of their work from the outside. Even when asked where they are

the ‘hollowed out furrows’ of the Okin Apartments and share the old memories before the demolition

going, they tend to situate themselves in accordance with any given situation. They state, with great

of the Okin apartment. During that summer, the Okin Collective planned a public program entitled

confidence, that they would think of a specific region or a place as simply being a new resource for

‘Okin-dong Vacance’ that ran for one night and two days with local residents on the rooftop of the

creation. While suspected as being anarchistic, the group strives to focus on sensitivity and sympathy

near-desolate Okin Apartment complex 2. As their project garnered more and more attention through

by distancing themselves from the urban environment and site specificity, working slowly, being

word of mouth, the media, and the internet, the Okin Collective continued to hold improvised

laid-back, hearing carefully, and observing patiently. All of this is, to some extent, correct. But there

rap performances, a local exploration program called ‘Walkie-Talkie’, and projects such as ‘Okin

are another fundamental aspects about their activities. As a matter of fact, the only point that all

Fireworks’. In 2010, as the day of demolition approached, the Okin Collective organized an exhibition

members of the Okin Collective unanimously defend is to raise questions about and be involved in

in a space that was practically in ruins, with the intention to remember the ‘hollowed out furrow’

efforts to secure minimum human and social rights of our neighbors - especially artists - in the city.

that contained within it, the shackles of urbanization and modernization. Furthermore, it was meant

This is why the group is seen as politically radical. They have the eyes of an observer that explores the

to record the moments of the artists’ solidarity and collaboration, and to share those memories with

city, but also the eyes of an explorer that studies the city with great depth. They are also well prepared

audiences who visited the site.

for the logic of real intervention and social engagement to connect each boundary and try a dialogue between the separated areas.

While the Okin Collective’s various activities were based in the Okin Apartments for over a year, some media outlets mistook them for a radical artist group who occupied the space without permission. It is

In essence, the power of the Okin Collective is mainly detected “in between the poetic and the

inappropriate, however, to label their actions as ‘squatting’, the unlawful occupation of an uninhabited

political”, if I may borrow their language. In other words, the border line between anarchism and real

building. As a member of the Okin Collective, Hwayong KIM had already been a legal resident of the

politics. They show the never-ending oscillation between the area of politics and the realm of aesthetic

apartment before it was torn down. Two other artists had simply joined and collaborated with KIM

sensitivity. ‘Operation - for Something White and Cold’, the installation work and performance at

prior to the building’s imminent demolition. To them, the Okin Apartment was just a very attractive

Alternative Space Loop is a work that clearly reflects their artistic attitude standing between those two

place in which to work. It was where the beautiful scenery of Inwang Mountain seeped into the

worlds. They retained the network of emergency from the audiences and then manipulated audiences’

canvas of Gyeomjae, JEONG Seon1, the legendary Korean painter to create a mysterious ink-and-

acts by specific text messages, which led to unexpectedly situational performances. Although supplied with an object in the shape of a picket for the operation, the participants were waiting for the operation to commence without knowing exactly, the ultimate use of the picket. As it turns out, the D-Day was the day it started snowing, and surprisingly enough, the participants used their pickets

1 JEONG Seon (1676–1759) was a well-known Korean landscape painter, also known as by his pen name Gyeomjae (謙齋: meaning humble study). He was one of the few known Korean painters to depart from traditional Chinese styles. It is reported that he frequently left his studio and painted the world around him, as he could see it. Soon, JEONG Seon inspired other Korean artists to follow suit, leaving a lasting impact on Korean art of the Joseon era. In contrast to most painters at the time, JEONG Seon was not born in a wealthy family. He was discovered by an aristocratic neighbour who recommended him to the court. Soon he gained an official position. JEONG is said to have painted daily, with a prolific output until his old age. His paintings are classified as Southern School, but during his life, JEONG developed his own style: unique brush wrinkles of bold strokes in parallels. http://en.wikipedia.org

to clean up the snow on the steps and street corners, and not to partake in a demonstration. This is a situation where the political assumptions and emotions that we usually associate with pickets are reversed. The picket shaped object is generally considered as a tool used for political expression, but it could also be used as a ‘poetic’ medium. With the picket, participants clean the snow on the street and enjoy hot street food afterwards.

Okin Collective_Okin-Dong Vacance, 2009 A nonstop two day public program at half torn-down Okin Apartments complex in Seoul

Their second work, ‘Operation - for Something Black and Hot’ also reveals the similar situation of our

before recording the radio broadcasting during the exhibition, their installation work is transformed

life that oscillates between two extreme edges: the political and the poetic. This time, it stemmed from

into a studio. To welcome the guests for broadcasting, the floor of the space, gleaming from the

the suspicion of whether ordinary and helpless people could react against catastrophic situations

floor-shining machine, receives the full-on spotlight. Although the light and glaze of the room seem to

such as the Fukushima disasters in Japan in 2011. They soon realized that there is nothing for ordinary

stop and fall asleep, it symbolizes that they are always well prepared for real broadcasting ventures.

people to do in the situation of a nuclear disaster. Ultimately, they came up with the concept of

On the day of broadcasting when guests are invited, their installation object creates an invisible but

using ‘Gi (Chi, energy)-gymnastics’ to increase self-defense skills for survival. The Okin Collective

numerous network, which reaches out infinitely beyond the exhibition space. In other words, various

encourages us to learn to depend on each other by performing a demonstration of holding hands and

comments on the problem of the arts and living conditions, and the social condition of the living,

looking into the eyes of strangers. We all know very well that the Fukushima disaster is essentially

create several opinion flows outside of the exhibition space.

a human catastrophe of contemporary capitalism and that its origin comes from ‘the political.’ However, it shows that we have to depend on ‘poetic’ methods such as ‘Gi-gymnastics’ as a solution,

For the last couple of years, the Okin Collective has built up a good cycle of creation that runs on

which is also reflective of our ontological circumstances. The Okin collective makes us think about the

occurrences in development sites, exhibition curating, and radio broadcasts, which has no distinct

ambivalent aspects that exist underneath the surface of catastrophes.

inside/outside. They are trying to find their own way to survive as an artist in Korean society or within a city. I look forward to yet another meaningful form of artistic creation that will result from their sincere and constant efforts to develop creative ideas while wandering about like nomads and never

Becoming a bridge between the splits

staying in one place too long. There is still one thing that seems missing. It seems to me that the Okin

After the demolition of the Okin Apartment complex in 2010, the Okin collective has resided for

Collective generally tries to maintain a certain distance from the audience. It might be derived from

a while in the exhibition place called ‘Takeout Drawing’ in Hanam-dong. They conceived the idea

the fear that their work of injecting ideas to the public could be misunderstood as a pseudo ‘public’

that they would collect and share the voices from their neighbors while staying in this region, a

art. However, if this sort of mentality stems from practical reasons related to the implementation of

region that was quite different from the roof of the Okin Apartment complex under the Inwang

the artwork and not from ideological reasons, it is still necessary to engage in conversations with

Mountain. They chose the form of the internet radio to talk about civil life with unknown audiences.

unnamed audiences, much like they did in their experimental project ‘Operation.’

The Okin Collective seems to be capable of using high technology resources with the help of outer collaborations, while keeping an analogue sensibility. While strengthening the accessibility of radio via the internet, they serviced podcasting for the audiences. Their radio channel was entitled, ‘STUDIO +82.’ As it referred to Korea’s national telephone code of ‘82’, this Okin radio channel could cover the whole nation and expand across the entire globe. Okin broadcasting is different from the highly political characteristics of European community radio channels or pirate radio channels that hijack the public radio frequency to work with local communities. They work with core issues such as gender problems, independent production, social right, surplus and multi-culture - all of which are driven out to the periphery of Korean society. To develop those issues, they adopted the form of inviting experts of various disciplines, artists, and members of the social minority and speculating with them about ways to recover basic human rights. ‘STUDIO +82’ by the Okin Collective hoped to play a ‘bridging’ role between separated areas such as labor, the arts, human rights and women’s rights, all of which have not been connected with each other. In essence, this radio station functioned as a study room where people tried to explore and understand the main areas that most people were unconcerned with and indifferent towards. Through this medium, one could find the shared areas of interest and hear from each other. Passing through the days of the Okin Apartments of the Inwang Mountain, the spirit of the ‘Concrete Island’ exhibition in Hannam-dong was carried over to the Okin radio station. Early this year, the Okin Collective made an installation object by transferring the radio program entitled ‘Hear the ground sing’ to the exhibition space of the “Wave” exhibition. They ultimately intended to reveal the interrelationship between art and medium as well as utilizing the radio station as a medium itself. The day

K.NOTe no.2

Minja GU

* Minja GU (Republic of Korea, 1977-) works with various media including photography, video, installation, and drawing based on personal performances which start from ordinary behavior and the questions it raises. She graduated from the department of Painting at Hongik University with a BFA, from the department of Philosophy at Yonsei University with a BA, and from the department of Fine Art in Korea National University of Arts with an MFA. She participated in various residency program including Ssamzie Space studio program, the Hangar Residency in Barcelona, and the ISCP in New York.

Truman Show Sooyoun LEE Curator, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea

In 2009, she had her first solo exhibition “Identical Times” (Space croft, Seoul) and her second solo exhibition was in 2011, entitled “Atlantic-Pacific co.” (Moore Street Market, New York). She participated in many group exhibitions: “Taipei Biennial” (Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, 2008), “Now What” (Space Hamilton, Seoul, 2009), “Anyang Public Art Project: Odong - Being Residents” (Anyang, 2010), “VIDEO: VIDEO” (ARKO Museum, Seoul, 2010), and “Trading Future” (Taipei Contemporary Art Center, 2011). Recently she was selected as one of the young artists for the exhibition “New Visions New Voices” (National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea, 2013). http://www.guminja.com/ http://www.atlantic-pacific.co/ guminja@gmail.com

21st century humans live a life that is inundated with commodities. Dwellers of metropolitan cities live while consuming accumulated goods and produced messages. Cities roll away to the cycle of production and the rhythm of goods - not by human cycle. The relationship of the people is mediated

** Sooyoun LEE is born in Seoul, Korea 1979. She studied Linguistics in Seoul National University and recieved M.A in art history on the theme of “Nam June Paik: performance to video art, expanding of perceptions.” Her research interests include contemporary media art, screen studies and performance. Since 2010 she has organized exhibitions such as “Out of the Silent Planet” (2010) first media collection show from the museum, “Public Project Chonggye” (2011), “Art of Communication: Anri Sala, Yang Ah Ham, Philippe Parreno, Jorge Pardo” (2011) and performance exhibition with Hayward Gallery in London “Move” (2012). Now She is working on the New Museum branch opening exhibition, “Collection from NMCA” (2013) which will be held in 12th. Nov. 2013.

through all kinds of possessions and electronic exchange systems.1 Minja GU’s works include ordinary objects and conventional behavior that are seen every day in the city. These objects loyally follow up Jean Baudrillard’s ‘system of objects’, which means that objects are consumed because they are produced. Plastic bags are used as plastic bags that are blown away in the wind, and Dunkin’ Donuts disposable coffee cups as recyclable paper cups; electric heater as a heater that emits heat; a mirror as a mirror that reflects light. They are all used as they are. There is no deception or twist. Without any decoration, the circumstance and purpose for which the goods were produced are appropriated. The only intermediary agent that transfers the usage of ordinary objects to the artworks is that the duration of use has been prolonged ridiculously, and the inevitable abandonment of the efficiency of objects. In this regard, Minja GU’s objects illustrate fundamentally different attributes from that of the readymade that is formerly known to have become a part of art through its appropriation for a different use.2 Robert Rauschenberg started his Combines series in the mid-1950s in which he employed ready-made objects like everyday junk from the attic or rubbish dump yard, but insisted on endlessly emptying meaning through re-placing the objects and painting over them. For instance, bicycle handles, dolls, cups and clocks lost their initial functionality and existed only as symbols for its utility.3

1 Mark Poster (ed.), Jean Baudrillard: Selected Writings (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001), 2nd edition, p.29. 2 Octavio Paz, Marcel Duchamp: Or, the Castle of Purity (London: Cape Goliard Press, 1970), p.84. 3 Anna Dezeunze, “Unpacking Cornell: Consumption and Play in the Work of Rauschenberg, Warhol and Georg Brecht,” Surrealism, Issue 2 (Summer 2004), p.4.

Atlantic-Pacific co., 2011, Dimensions variable, Mixed media Courtesy of the artist

On the other hand, Minja GU’s objects, in spite of their being ready-made in her artworks, do not lose their intrinsic functionality. Atlantic-Pacific co. (2011) shows souvenirs, sake bottles, carpets and food products that can still function as they are meant to. Objects found in historic places on Atlantic street and Pacific street have added a function by the memories that are related to their original and historical significance - that these objects were part of an exchange of goods across the oceans. After the historical background is inserted, time and memory are added as new exchanging values in the sake bottles, carpets and food products. The goods have added value that is not really necessary. The goods are not anonymous, but are part of the context involving specific time, space and people. This context neither belongs to the artist nor to the viewers appreciating the works. The context belongs to the Atlantic-Pacific Company, as ambiguously indicated, and to the original owners of the goods of the company. However at the same time, the company and the owners are also very obscure. The original owners can be from Chinese mass-manufacturing factories, Malaysia’s small-scale production places, or Latin American, Canadian, and American shops. After all, however ambiguous and obscure that may be, through the process of very universal, historical remembrance, the anonymous goods return to our own context. The World of Job (2008) captures the re-experiencing of a job searching story of one ethnic local woman 40 years ago, whom the artist happened to meet in Taiwan. In this work, the essence of job searching does not change, but is just employed as it is. The problems that are encountered in the course of job searching, like language barriers, or discrimination, is reality without exaggeration or reduction. Only the circumstance has changed: 40 years later, it is about a Korean artist job searching

in Taiwan in 2008, but it does not change in terms of the exchange of labor. It seems to have started from a concrete story, but the story of the ethnic local woman is the story of Korean miners and nurses who went over to Germany in the 1970s to make money, and also it is the reality of the artist making one’s way to New York in the 2000s in search of better opportunities; it is the story of the Germanic race who migrated southwards to the Roman Empire for their survival 800 years ago. By appropriating the narration that happened 40 years ago, the artist arouses the universal empathy of the human experience that tries to prove the value of labor in an alien society while endeavoring to become accustomed to new culture and language. The strategy of appropriating the object’s functionality and context in the territory between art and reality is the most efficient means to access the masses that is no longer moved by illusion, also often used by real-variety TV shows sprouting everywhere. Similarly, the strategy could become a direct apparatus which take in a context beyond a reality that appears in everyday life. In The Truman Show (1998), the creator who created reality by setting up a virtual reality says in a self-mocking tone, “We accept the reality of the world with which we are presented,” but in spite of that, there always exists a person who questions the reality, just like the protagonist, Truman, did. Artwork starts from there.

The World of Job, 2008, 10x14x(24)cm, Digital print Courtesy of the artist

Matching Matchbox, 2010-2011 Photo: Gregory Maass

K.NOTe no.3

Nayoungim & Gregory Maass

It All, Indefinite Article On Nayoungim & Gregory Maass Clemens Krümmel Art critic, curator and art and media history researcher

* Nayoungim & Gregory Maass Nayoungim studied sculpture in Seoul National University, and Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts of Paris (The National Art School in Paris). Gregory S. Maass, a German artist, studied philosophy in Sorbonne University, Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts of Paris, Institute of Fine-Arts in Paris and Jan Van Eyck Academy in Netherlands. Since 2005 as duo, they work mainly in Europe and Korea. Their major exhibitions include The Survival of the Shitest (3bisf Contemporary Art Center, Aix-en-Provence, 2009), The Early Worm Catches The Bird (Space Hamilton, 2010), There Is No Beer in Hawaii (Art Club 1563, 2012), and so on.

No matter where they might come from, those who explore the art production of Nayoungim & Gregory Maass,1 which seems to proceed as effortlessly as it does aimlessly, find themselves caught

For more information, please visit: nayoungim-maass.com

in an inscrutable play of ambivalences. In using the term ambivalences, what I have in mind is not the traditional question repeatedly posed of artist couples: who is responsible for what in the production

** Clemens Krümmel is an art critic, curator and art and media history researcher. In the past he co-curated shows like “tauchfahrten/diving trips” at the kunstverein hannover 2004 or more recently “thinking like a stone” at after the butcher in berlin. He is currently teaching art history at the eth zürich and the weissensee in berlin. Much too modest he likes to think of himself as a translator or merely an art critique.

process.2 In the case of N&GM,3 their working together and their appearance as a production duo might well not be a primarily conceptual decision.4 And they are even less ready to accept merely superficial ambiguities like that of the division of tasks: for these ambiguities can be found structurally in all their appearances, expressions, and publications—as a self-contradiction, incongruity in terms of style or image, inappropriateness of means, or simple ambivalence—to a degree that I have only

1 Abbreviated in the following as N&GM. 2 Those who ask in such a way usually only want to know how the roles are divided, or how the question of power is clarified or left unclarifed. Perhaps works by more than one person are always suspect, for despite deconstructionist debates the picture with singular authorship is still extremely valued, especially when it comes to auction bids, paying, and creating value. But also when due to the abdication of technical virtuosity as an argument in recent decades, the generation of artistic ideas has supposed to be authenticated by way of the individual (and his or her breaks, failure, and gaps in consciousness), at issue are not only questions of copyright, but speculations about genius as a psychical competence that remains unfocused in the framework of mutual inspiration. Double or multiple authorship can sometimes only be reinstalled by evoking the modern kitsch phrase of the “fusion” of the opposition between art and life or this or that culture, if not as a neo-liberal catchphrase of mutual in-sourcing. There’s always something difficult to grasp about production couples, on several levels, difficult to uncover in their works. Already here, in the case of Nayoungim & Gregory Maass a kind of law of the always absent second goes in force. 3 Here, I would already like to request your understanding for the corporate appearance of this abbreviation. 4 Faced with the blank stares of N&GM, which I regularly receive as the only answer to such questions of ideology, wellloved in art critic circles, I have become accustomed to think nothing more of it. I thought it was something of a local characteristic to completely ignore all questions that could be seen as tricky or difficult to answer, at best in such a way that the stupid questioner understands the silence he or she is confronted with as a kind of socially sanctioned mystical silence, that in still reverence is named profane or sacred site of the unspeakable.

Survival of the Shitest, 2009, 3bisf, lieu dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;art contemporain Aix-en-Provence, France Photo: Jean-Christoph Lett

rarely encountered previously. This begins with the excess of dis-identificatory self-reference in creative dialogue with the institution Kim Kim Gallery, along with corporate identity and advertising products and a mania borrowed from Martin Kippenberger for “great” work or exhibition titles.5 The titles continue the aforementioned logic of interarticulation, for example when pretention becomes pitiable due to orthographic mistakes (“Survival of the Shitest”, 3bisf, Lieu d’Arts Contemporains, Aix-en-Provence 2009), popular truisms are parodied by way of absurd inversion (The Early Worm Catches the Bird, Space Hamilton, Seoul 2010), or when they allow pseudo practical acronyms blown up to managerial fragments of system theory to become even more ominous (Garage, Car, Fridge, & Snowman – The Purpose of a System is What It Does (POSWID) – Platform at Kimusa, Seoul 2009). At issue here is clearly not a decidedly arbitrary arrangement of the relationship between the title and the titled, as once propagated by the surrealists, but—Kippenberger once more—the use of an advertising space beyond “the work itself” that is also intended to catch beholders and readers in an amalgam of benign double binds.6 Naturally, the ambivalent aspect in N&GM is best sketched by taking a look at what they exhibit. Most of the works I am familiar with, to the extent that they do not cover innocent surroundings with art claims, tinker in some way with the parameters of their own semantic object character so that in the individual work (at least) one contradiction appears with more or less rhetorical clarity. This takes place on manifold layers. Many works, often produced as series intended for an exhibition, contain contradictions between the visual knowledge of popular culture and high art, for example when

Hot Mill, 2011, Corner gallery, Seoul, Korea Photo: Nayoungim

Sponge Bob Square Pants encounters minimal art morphemes or Matchbox cars find themselves

affixed to mismatched situations with metal profiles that are also of industrial origin. But the auxiliary material that accompanies the works as well—titles, framing, presentation, commentary—also reveals contradictions when it comes to these concepts, for example, the question of whether the kind of pop knowledge used in the exhibition context at hand is really pop or not perhaps arcane and/or loaded with problems of cultural representation. After hundreds of discussions over high and low, there is still quite a bit invested in this play of meaning and meaninglessness, so that the art world that participates in these discussions always seems to agree on new forms of backlash that drastically

constantly being invented and added to what was just seen. One of the most important here could be

undercut critical standards (as the recognition of specifics and complexity), perhaps because within a

the antipode between the autonomous sculpture and the readymade, or between “can do” or “would

market for the purpose of maintaining systemic closure and illusions like permanent innovation and

like to do,” when industrially made found pieces are placed alongside difficult to learn traditional

spiritualized “genius” at issue is its continuous oversimplification, forgetting, and re-inauguration.

pottery techniques, so that it sometimes seems as the two artists are working with a faux-surrealist variant of the culture of quotation. As historical definitions of surrealism speak of the “accidental

Entering a room with works by Nayoungim & Gregory Maass —be it in an individual show or a group

encounter” of visual components from contradictory categories and the freedom-as-arbitrariness

exhibition—conveys not only the impression of a heated climate of production, but also the sense of

asserted in this impersonal formulation, with its exploration and authorization of a supposedly

a search for how to proceed from work to work. In the comprehending act of beholding these works,

underlying unconscious, one finds oneself asking in the case of N&GM as well to what next higher

a vague trace can be followed without all too much encouragement: it seems as if new antipodes are

level their syncretism might refer. Unlike artists who work with a sculptural syncretism like New York artist Rachel Harrison, who stands in a tradition close to the surrealism of Louise Nevelson and shapes the inner heterogeneity of the elements of her sculptures in a rather well-tempered way, they do not refer to a higher level, but rather to the “next” level, wherever that might be.

5 See Martin Kippenberger, 241 Bildtitel zum Ausleihen für andere Künstler, Cologne: Martin Kippenberger, Wie es wirklich war. Am Beispiel. Lyrik und Prosa, ed. Diedrich Diederichsen, Frankfurt/Main 2007, XX. 6 They are benign because they usually remain in the blow-up buffer of the art world, whose psychological impositions as a whole no longer need to be reflected anew. Furthermore, the titles with their often competitive metaphorics can also be read as simple signals of a lacking desire in the face of the rigid mechanisms of exclusion of the very international art business they want to enter, but then somehow would rather not.

Rightly so, representatives of so-called “contextual art” have been accused of ultimately practicing a forced referentialism, when for example they only seem to create forms for presenting surprising, antecedent historicizations or classifications of anecdotes that belie modernism, without providing

the something specifically artistic of their “own” that was demanded of them. But at the same time,

fitness course that is once more supposed to serve the purpose of education, enlightenment, or

with such techniques they could at least be credited with making active use of modern achievements

improving of our own ability to adapt, with this art the (beholder) art of surfing on ambivalences

like the artistic license to be elsewhere. For our purposes, it should be emphasized that external

can be learned. Surfing as a movement that activates all the functional contexts of the surfer,

references in the work of N&GM—such as scholastic effusing about a cultural junk figure like David

without being about a different goal than somehow staying on top of a production of contingency

Hasselhoff—are primarily structurally specific references and prove less to be proper references in

experienced as elementary.

an art historical sense. When along the length and width of the entire exhibition, the Hof (sic!, or: ambiguous allusion to the Korean institution of the beer bar) is handed back and forth following all

A N&GM-work like XXX – a dizzyingly literal over-completion of the postulate of the old-hat postulate

the tricks in the book, alternating between the sublime and the banal, between cultural valence and

of the “subversion of the signs,”10 for publicly in a Korean context the large format neon-version of

cultural denial, N&GM appropriate the well oiled, available tools of 1980s irony, at least we think we

the traditional sign for baths, where steam elements are supposed to rise from a signet representing

see ourselves implicated in a shoulder clapping scene of nerdy co-knowledge about this extraordinary

a basin in harmonious wavy lines, is tipped over, so that now both the bathwater and the sign as the

polyvalent and talent-free star.7 But then it becomes clear that the two artists (supposedly both!)

baby are tossed out—shows however that allusions to primarily popular and vernacular forms of

are interested in Hasselhoff primarily as a neuralgic point in the field of global culture; he becomes

knowledge play quite an important role. The questioning of the value of such forms of knowledge is

worthy of sculpture not due to an act of condescension from the supposed heights of cultural

a constitutive component of pop cultural processes of negotiation that still today take place between

commentators, who find the man somehow cutely odd and thus in some way relevant for a current

agents of various guilds. “Cool knowledge,” one of the least questioned, yet most central positions

culture of cute oddness, but due to a different quality, his exquisite emptiness as a popular figure with

in the context of current cultural productions, provides the true fuel of the most caustic minimalisms

at the same time an extremely exaggerated rhetoricism, his dependable quality as a walking mise-en-

and protestant conceptualisms. N&GM’s achievement is having recognized this, as well as the rapid

abyme effect. In contrast to contextual art, which produced and cultivated the currently most common

drop in value of particles of knowledge in the context of the Internet, and having transferred it to a

form of reference—apart from the fact that those referenced are always the others—in N&GM there

continuously stumbling production of post-industrial conversation pieces. They know that leaving out

is almost never a straight thematic reference to be found, a reliance on the direct expressive power

“cool” background information—that can prove to be polite expert commentary, arrogant babble, as

of something that already existed (somewhere)—at least not on the level of so-called content, either

art gossip, or as groundless speculation—each reception of own works rules, above all when at issue

anecdotal or the factual.

is the ambivalent vestiges of the serious and most seriously sculptural.11

33 The individual works might still provide the impression that the internal contradictions and

The only thing today that still seems even stronger are the comments of the experts, which for its

oppositions that shape and deny form could be found out more slowly, as the more important

part has access to several hunting grounds of knowledge. It is by far more than just visual artists

moment is revealed precisely in the act of moving on to the next work.8 It is this rather difficult to

hanging on the infusion needle of cool knowledge, it’s the critics and curators as well. This, at any

describe moment in which one thinks one has recognized something, to have understand one of the

event, seems to be one of the reasons why speaking with N&GM about their works can be a difficult

jagged piles of allegory or the precariously balanced figures. The moment in which one thinks to have

undertaking.12 If a fellow critic was recently right at lunch, then there is now a more or less subliminal

mastered the minimal shift from not understanding to understanding something (and which always

edge of quarrelsomeness taking hold in the relationship between artists, critics, and curators, which

in my case proves to be an error), where one finds oneself caught thinking with the stubborn mindset

was poisoned from the very start. I say colleague, but this is only true in the loosest of senses: she is

of a crossword puzzle solver to be sure that with a bit of patience the next situation of unclarity will

now a veritable adjunct professor in cultural studies who actually only writes criticism on occasion,

clear up in a similar way. Of course, this is the moment of the greatest ignorance.9 It is the moment of

as she herself admits. And myself? I participate in both criticism and curating, occasionally writing

routine self-deception, in which most of us (myself included) make our way from unsound knowledge

for hospitable seeming projects and journals, but increasingly I find myself having difficulties in

to unsound knowledge in perhaps other, non-art situations, leaping from iceberg to iceberg in a

hiding my alienation from the existence of being a critic/curator. Why the quarrelsomeness, when

global warming of understanding. Because N&GM gives us such a broad spectrum of conglomerates

beforehand there was at best competition? And why does it remain subliminal? The answer is

of contradictions, referring to one another and become objects, there is the chance of becoming

relatively simple and seems to provide a good key towards approaching an advanced production

aware of our own culture of “not wanting to know too precisely.” More than a kind of epistemological

reality like that of N&GM.

7 Well, irony is actually no longer such a hot commodity: See Clemens Krümmel/Isabelle Graw, “So ist das nun mal. Zur Ausstellung der Grässlin Collection in den Hamburger Deichtorhallen,” Texte zur Kunst 45 (2002), 189–192. 8 More important, but not decisive. 9 Comparable with that of New York critic Jerry Saltz, who, when faced with (in this case not even so unfamiliar) works by the artist John Miller, spoke of an “I-don’t-get-it” aesthetics in the Village Voice, because he didn’t understand, but wanted to give this non-understanding a validity in the system of art criticism.

10 See Just do it! Die Subversion der Zeichen von Marcel Duchamp bis Prada Meinhof, curated by Thomas Edlinger, Raimar Stange, Florian Waldvogel, Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz 2005. 11 Vimeo-Link. 12 Happily, I find this all the easier in their absence. A great suggests understanding coolness as a symptomology, if not a pathology.

with references to everything that is precious and dear: the nomenklatura of Foucaultdeleuzeguattar ibataillearendtagambenrancièrežižeklatour, furnishing with worktables, video booths, photocopiers, internet stations as administrative aesthetic of institutional critique with unlimited claim on the time of the co-producing receivers. This could be dismissed as an almost necessary tribute to the trend towards massification in all sectors of the art field, the unavoidable consequence of the increased competitive pressure in immaterial economies. At any event, it generates a quarrelsome mood among critics, curators, and artists, because in the meantime the realization has been made that they are all farming the same field of research. Alongside the obvious (and yet so unclear) activity of criticism itself, art critics (and I still count myself as one of them) have a two-fold task as researchers: as discoverers they seek out new (or unknown) artists or artistic subjects, and as meta-discoverers they find out and present what the artists have discovered. Alongside (or besides) finding art good or bad, under the pressure Matching Matchbox, 2010-2011 Photo: Gregory Maass

of huge competition in terms of information they develop into meta-artists, while artists in contrast become informal critical truffle hogs working the same forests. But it would be hackneyed to accuse both sides of economic opportunism. N&GM’s works, interventions, and other activities are not intended to ameliorate such smoldering conflicts. Yet unlike most of their colleagues, based on the awareness of the mixing of the guilds they have already been saturating a body of work with visual and linguistic rhetorics for a long time,

The answer that is relevant for N&GM’s production has to do with the blurring of the arts et métiers

whereby nobody would ever think to call this “research.” This certainly does not mean attributing

of the two professional groups. While at the moment especially in the Western world, but by way

them once more with the merely specifically instinctual-artistic or accusing them of occupying the

of the international art and biennale business also beyond this narrow frame, educational policy

remaining open spots in the art field, as done by so many others. Instead we need to attest that the

guidelines are being used to proclaim artists as the other, at times the better researchers, in that what

“art with a capital A” that N&GM create in ever new rhetorical tricks without any great camouflage,

was once perhaps an under-reflected component of artistic work, investigation or research, is now

should not be described with a single kind of irony, that it not only practices a pretentious self-

simply hypostasized as “artistic research” and isolated monoculturally. By definition this can lead to

reflexivity, but above all exposes it, in clear awareness of all risks and traps.

knowledge, but scarcely to “cool” knowledge. There’s no bad intention required to suspect, in brief, that this is the constant repetition of fraud under false pretenses, which in the meantime has been installed by way of higher education policy and broadly generalized, financed, and established. The interesting thing about this distant banter is perhaps the interpretation of my co-alienated criticcolleague, according to which the over-emphasization of “research” by thousands of artists, intended by cultural policy and willingly accepted by thousands of artists, serves on the one hand to pacify cultural pessimist worries about a “lack of criteria” in the artistic field of production within the market, because “research” suggests concrete “results.” On the other hand, art in a certain sense becomes “reskillable,” after what Rosalind Krauss a long time ago called de-skilling in the arts, and outfitted with a before and after, “finally” granted quantifiability once more. We know the first wave of such “artistic research art,” which uses “idiomatic discourses” of the 1990s battle between contextual art and service art, and often in proximity to academies, biennials, and other interest groups serves other aesthetic trivial expectations in pairing art and research: the file cabinet with materials on the over hundred artists of the exhibition that in the course of the exhibition is supposed to be filled up (and in the case of an exhibition like Hans Ulrich Obrist and Barbara Vanderlinden’s “Laboratorium” (1999) is largely empty, but somehow impressive). The book cabinet

Installation view of the 17th Biennale of Sydney (2010) at the Royal Botanic Gardens, This project was made possible through the generous support of Look Print, Photo: Sebastian Kriete, Courtesy of the artist

The unbearable lightness of being, 2010, Plastic inflatable flower, Motor, Dimensions variable

K.NOTe no.4

CHOI Jeong Hwa

* CHOI Jeong Hwa (Republic of Korea, 1961-) studied fine art in Hongik University, Seoul. After he received a grand prize at the JoongAng Fine Art Prize in 1987, He started to participate various international art exhibitions including São Paulo biennial 26th, “Let’s Entertain” (Walker Art Center, 2000), Gwangju Biennial 2002, “Happiness” (Mori Art Museum, 2003), “Secret Beyond the door” (Venice Biennial, 2005), “Plastic Garden” (Minsheng Art Museum, 2010) and most recent solo exhibition “KABBALA” (Daegu art museum, 2013). He has been involved with public art installation as well as his own art spaces like OLLO OLLO Bar, OZONE Club, space SALand Space Ggooll.

Gangnam Style David S. Elliott Curator, writer and former director of Mori Art Museum

www.choijeonghwa.com

** David S. Elliott (UK, 1949-) is British curator and writer. He was the director of Mori Art Museum as well as Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Istanbul Modern in the past. He curated a show such as “Art and Power: Europe under the dictators 1933-1945” (Hayward Gallery, 1995), “Bye Bye Kitty!” (Japan Society, 2011), “The Best of Times, The Worst of Times. Rebirth and Apocalypse in Contemporary Art” (1st Kiev International Biennale, 2012). He gave lectures at Humboldt University in Berlin and Chinese University in Hong Kong and Toshiba Lecture series in London. His essays were published in History Today.

QUESTION Who refuses to use mobile phones, prefers to walk everywhere rather than drive, likes ‘spectacularly trivial’ things made of plastic 1, sees himself as an ‘intruder’ and ‘meddler’ with art 2 (who, none the less, through his energy and ability to bring people and ideas together has animated a whole

generation of creative people),and who, in theeccentrically fashionable way he presents himself, looks half way between a Buddhist monk and a pop star? ANSWER

CHOI Jeong Hwa, the Seoul-based artist, thinker, designer, facilitator and producer

Taking all this into account, it is not surprising that CHOI Jeong Hwa is seen as the pioneer of a completely new way of looking at art as well as how it relates to life at large. Sometimes, in doing this, he has irritated people and has even been accused of ‘not being original’ because, like Marcel Duchamp or Andy Warhol before him, he has transformed into art images or objects which have had another life in the everyday. In this, and many other respects, he has had a decisive impact on Korean culture.

1. LOSING ART 3 Long before chubby PSY (Jaesang PARK) had, in his virally popular YouTube hit, satirised the dorky fashions and high life of Gangnam, the affluent, aspirational ‘downtown’ of Seoul’s south bank where he was born, CHOI had been working on a very different, opposite style. This is based on the cheap, dazzlingly colourful, everyday materials found in the street markets of the working class

1 2 3

CHOI Jeong Hwa, email to the author 17.01.2013 CHOI Jeong Hwa, Creators’ Project interview, http://the creatorsproject.com/creators/choi-jeong-hwa I would like to thank Heejin KIM, Dongguk LEE and Samcheol PARK for their kind permission to read and quote from their unpublished articles on the work of CHOI Jeong Hwa. These were written in 2009 at the time of the Seoul Design Olympic.

neighbourhoods of Gangbuk on the north bank of the Han River that runs through the capital. In deciding to do this CHOI was not making an overtly political point, although his sympathies undoubtedly lie with popular culture and the people who create it. He was more concerned to establish a kind of truth through art that reflected his own thoughts and experience. But he was unable to do this with the methods he was taught at Art School and had to shed previous learning so that he could take a different path. CHOI was born in Busan in 1961 but had to constantly change elementary schools (eight times in six years) because his father’s work as a career soldier meant that he had constantly to be on the move. This, however, was not the normal military childhood. His father and eldest uncle were devout Buddhists and he was the eldest of five siblings. Of this time he remembers ‘… my father always offered rice and soup to beggars… and I hung out with many monks… everywhere we moved, I stayed in Buddhist temples and lived with the people there.’4 His father also occupied the honorary post of Chief Secretary for the venerable Cheongdam, a highly regarded Soen monk who had been one of the reforming spirits within Korean Buddhism.5 CHOI was taught to live strictly according to the Buddhist code of ethics that included the belief that everyone had the potential to become a Buddha. There is little doubt in my mind that such an inclusive idea of grace was, much later, strongly to influence CHOI’s conviction that everyone had the innate capability of being an artist. In CHOI’s case the origin of this kind of thinking is rooted in Buddhism rather than in the more well-worn path usually expected in the West-the utopian romanticism of Joseph Beuys.6

41 Before CHOI enrolled in the prestigious Art Department of Seoul’s Hongik University in 1980, he had imagined embarking on a literary career and had studied classical Chinese calligraphy. The rendering of Chinese characters has been described as ‘the written form of divine sounds,’ and it seems that CHOI has tried to express the same kind of feeling,visually and physically throughout his work.7 CHOI had not yet travelled outside Korea and his interests in art were primarily local: the rich, often shamanistic, imagery of folk art, or Jogakbo, brightly coloured traditional Korean patchwork cloths and quilts. His favourite artists at this time were the scholar, calligrapher and ink painter Jeonghee KIM (1786 – 1856), a man who contemplated the totality of relationships within the world as much as making art, rather in the same way that CHOI now does; the painter Saengkwang PARK (1904 – 1985)

4 5 6 7

See footnote 1. Soen Buddhism in Korea is related in approach to the Chinese Ch’an and Japanese Zen schools of Buddhism. At the beginning of the 1970s German artist Joseph Beuys (1921 – 1986), echoing the sentiments of the German Romantic poet Novalis (1772 – 1801), stated ‘Everyone is an artist.’ This idea was one of the founding tenets of Beuys’s theory of Social Sculpture that, in the tradition of Swiss cultural historian Jacob Burckhardt (1818-1897), regarded the whole organism of society as a large artwork. This expression was used by Dongguk LEE, Curator of the Seoul Calligraphy Art Museum, when discussing how Gather Together a large installation of plastic rubbish that CHOI brought together to cover the surface of the Jamsil Stadium at the time of the Seoul Design Olympiad in 2009, created a strange harmony between seemingly disparate elements. A series of related exhibitions added to this impression. He said that CHOI’s approach ‘was perfectly matched to calligraphy,’ unpublished essay, 2009, CHOI Jeong Hwa archive. Super flower, 1995, 470x420x195cm, Mixed media

whose exuberant late works explored the fusion of shamanism and Buddhism in traditional Korean

painlessly as possible. He turned his back on the worthiness of his art instructors and started to make

folk religion; and the Fluxus provocations, robotic combines and video installations of Nam Jun PAIK

‘illustrations’ using crayons and acrylic in a hybrid style, somewhere between the then fashionable

(1932 – 2006), a world famous artist born in Korea who spent most of his time in Europe and the

Japanese minimalism and the new wave of European figurative painting. His description of why he

USA.

decided to do this sounds calculated, even cynical: ‘The works I created in 1986 and 1987 were made

to receive prizes…’14 He had by now fully understood how the art system worked and was prepared As a student CHOI remembers that he was ‘… indifferent to all kinds of academic work and

to exploit its weakness in order to create a more open opportunity beyond it. In 1987 he was awarded

information about art … there was nothing more important [for me then] than to earn a living.’9

the prestigious JoongAng Fine Arts Prize.

He regarded himself as little more than ‘a skilful art instructor’ and started to become increasingly frustrated with the narrowness of what he was being taught. Although his lecturers talked eloquently

CHOI graduated from university immediately after this, burnt all his previous work, stopped making

about Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol or Joseph Beuys,artists who in their choice of materials

‘art’, and threw himself into interior design, working on outlets for Ssamzie, a new Korean fashion

and imagery or social ideas could be regarded as kindred spirits with CHOI’s later work, they seemed

brand, as well as on designs for books, posters, theatre and dance productions. This was all done

remote, historical figures and he showed little interest in them. Even the minimalist Mono-ha group

under the umbrella of the Ghaseum Visual Development Laboratory; the neologism ghaseum,

of Japanese artists who were then all the rage he simply ‘… did not understand.’11 He supported

which he still uses, was derived from the hangul characters for mind, heart and breath that, when

himself by teaching students cramming for art college exams; in 1982 he left the university and

taken together, connote the source of feeling or emotion. For CHOI art now became the creation of

enlisted in the army. This gave him the breathing space he so obviously needed to think things

a protective shell or framework within which people could develop their taste and begin to realise

through.

dreams and desires that they never suspected they had.

In 1985, after coming out of the army, he made a first trip to Japan and was immediately attracted

not by the art, the famous street style,nor even by the manga, then at the highpoint of its quality and

2. CREATIVE SPACES

production. The radical innovations of Tokyo fashion designers such as Issey Miyake, Yoji Yamamoto

At the beginning of the 1990s CHOI began to design his first creative spaces that immediately

and Comme des Garçons are what caught his eye. Design cannot exist without people to use it

attracted a huge following of young culturally engaged people. The OLLO OLLO bar opened in front of

and the new forms he encountered in Japan changed the way the world looked to him. ‘They truly

the Ewha Women’s University in 1990 and he staged there series of talks and exhibitions on interior

shocked me,’ he said.

and exhibition design as well as on the programming of performances. This was followed in 1991 by

the OZONE club and bar on Jongno 2-ga which also had a similar programme and ambience.15 The This trip to Japan was obviously an epiphany. CHOI now started to feel related to the present, he

much smaller café and bar SAL in the Daehak-ro district that ran between 1996 and 2007 was also an

realised that art was actually an important part of contemporary society, and began to engage with

important artists’ hang out. Its name denoted living but could also refer to flesh, sex and death.

a broad swathe of culture from all over the world. But most critical for his development was the influence of what he saw around him as he walked every day from Hongje-dong, where he lived,to his studio at the university: ‘Going to college on foot, I discovered that art was not taught in school

With their imaginative combinations of cheap plastic, recycled wood and market kitsch within rough

but outside it. I was impressed and excited by the different things I saw in back alleys, traditional

carapaces of raw concrete or brick, these spaces created a wholly new style of shabby chic which

markets and construction sites, as well as by the lives of A-Zoom-Ma, ordinary middle aged women

continues to the present in Ghaseum, his labyrinthine café, bar, gallery space and meeting rooms that

who have survived hard lives. I admired their aggressive positivity.’

ramble over a whole block on Nakwon-dong. These new kinds of space have had a decisive impact

one merging generations of young artists and creators working in design, theatre, music, dance, Returning to art school, CHOI now seems to have made the decision to graduate as quickly and as

film, performance and installation. CHOI had begun to establish himself as a producer, thinker and facilitator, as well as an artist and designer. Painter, installation and performance artist Sookyeong LEE remembers the excitement of this time when she herself was just beginning to find her way ‘… lots of young artists used to gather in Jeong

8 9 10 11 12 13

CHOI Jeong Hwa. See footnote 1. CHOI Jeong Hwa, ibid. Ibid. CHOI wrote that although he was vaguely aware of the existence of such artists, they seemed irrelevant to his own situation and for reasons of language and his lack of interest he did not understand the ideas underlying their work. CHOI Jeong Hwa, ibid. Korean artist U Fan LEE (born 1936) was one of the leading figures of Japanese mono-ha, which remains very popular in Korea. CHOI Jeong Hwa, ibid. CHOI Jeong Hwa, ibid.

14 15

CHOI Jeong Hwa, ibid. The interior design of OZONE still exists on this site

Hwa’s place. He generously shared experimental films and up-to-date art books and magazines with

use plastic ‘… because it does not decompose and is recyclable.’20 Perhaps he found in this humble

younger artists. I think I learned about contemporary art not from school but from him.’

yet long lasting material an equivalent to the Buddhist cycle of birth, death and rebirth. He regards his

work as part of an interactive process of inclusion and transmutation in which he is able to obliterate One of the first exhibitions at OZONE was a two man show of the work of Murakami Takashi and

differences between nature and artifice, the real and the fake while, at the same time, allowing others

Nakamura Masato, young Japanese artists of the same generation as CHOI who were also dissatisfied

to project feelings of insecurity, alienation and beauty into it.

with the blinkered artiness of what they had been taught and wanted to work with new materials and imagery. Over the next few years, unaware of how each other were thinking, both CHOI and

It is not so much the material of his work itself that is important to CHOI but its possibility to resound

Murakami were both to experiment with plastic inflatables and trashy, generic images of flowers, yet

clearly with simple spirit energy, untrammelled by pretension or ‘artfulness.’ In this approach CHOI

their motives for doing so were radically different. At that time, Murakami was critical of the ‘Disney

is hearkening back to the ethics of early Chinese painting - to the writings of Gu Kaizhi (c. 344-406),

fication’ of Japanese culture and in the figure of Mr. Dob presented a super-sized inflatable of a

a celebrated artist who claimed that the spirit of a painting was more important than its appearance.

hybrid somewhere between a self-portrait and a malevolent, Big Brother Mickey Mouse. In the series

These ideas were further developed two hundred years later by artist Xie He in his influential manual

of painted and plastic images of anthropomorphic flowers started in the mid-1990s, Murakami was

Six Principles of Chinese Painting.21

exploring what he described as Superflat, a conflation of the flattened spaces of traditional Japanese art with the undiscriminating commercialisation of contemporary Japanese culture.17

Although CHOI could never be described as gifted in his command of European languages, from the late 1980s he had begun to absorb influences and ideas from many different sources. Friedrich

CHOI has always maintained a more celebratory attitude towards popular culture, and kept relatively

Nietzsche’s mystical writings on taste, judgement and feeling reinforced his own developing ideas

clear of the dark taste for Japanese otaku that strongly influenced Murakami.18 His earliest inflatables

on aesthetics, while Marxist sociologist Henri Lefebvre’s revolutionary credo that everyday life was

in 1992 were based on floral advertising balloons seen on the street. He asked the manufacturer to

becoming like a work of art itself could also be adapted to his inclusive sensibility.22

produce the same product for him but with an on and off timer so that the balloons would appear to breath by inflating and deflating. This is essentially how all his inflatables have been produced to the

In his quest for a contemporary form of Korean beauty based on the synergy between seemingly

present.

disparate ideas, influences and objects, CHOI has invented a completely new aesthetic vocabulary,

exploiting the mimetic nature of Korean words to describe the particular characteristics he wants. CHOI’s works seem playful, yet they also make strong comments about rampant materialism,

In this, words such as Singsing fresh, Saengsaenghwalhwal lively and vigorous, Bbageulbbageul

unchecked urbanisation and the alienation from nature that results from this. ‘I feel strange,’ he once

bubbling and boiling, Jjambong hotchpotch/mess, Saeksaek peaceful and Wageulwageul swarming,

said, ‘when I see a real tree or flower. Nature as such is so rare in Korea these days that I’m actually

occur regularly as both as titles and descriptions.23

afraid when I encounter it. I’m afraid of the “real.” Maybe all I can deal with is an idea of nature immune to destruction, so I make an artificial one to look at and enjoy.’19 A different, but similarly

CHOI first started making his mature work using plastic and other cheap materials found in local

ironical, sense of alienation intrudes in Mother, presented at the São Paulo Biennial in 2006 where the

markets and junkyards. He also used toys or models as templates.24 His affection for tin toys of the

inflatable is a found object, a full size naked woman sold as a sex toy who lies awkwardly spread-

1950s and ‘60s is evident and provided inspiration for the humorous jerky presence of his inflatable

eagled on the floor. ‘She’ is overlooked by the serene smile of the garishly coloured figure of a

The death of the robot - about being irritated (1995) as well as for RoboRobo, a children’s playground

goddess.

with swings, slides, climbing frames and an illuminated Robot Tower designed in 2003 for the newly built Tokyo district of Roppongi Hills.

3. KOREAN BEAUTY Regarding himself as ‘an intruder’ who ‘messes round with art,’ CHOI remembers that he chose to

16 Sookeong LEE, email to the author, 14 July 2012. 17 Murakami Takashi, Superflat, Maddora Shuppan, Tokyo, 2000. 18 Otaku describes the geeky, largely male, often violent and pornographic fantasy subculture propagated amongst Japanese teenagers since the end of the 1970s in manga [comic books], animé[animated films], computer games and role play. 19 CHOI Jeong Hwa, interview with James B. LEE, ‘Flim-flam and fabrication: an interview with CHOI Jeong Hwa, Art Asia Pacific, Vol 3, no 4, 1996, p. 66.

20 CHOI Jeong Hwa, see footnote 2. 21 GuKaizhi’s important theoretical books are On Painting (畫論), An Introduction of Famous Paintings of Wei and Jin Dynasties (魏晉勝流畫贊) and Painting Yuntai Mountain (畫雲台山記). The most fundamental of Xie’s Six Principles (绘画六法) is Spirit Resonance or vitality. See Heejin KIM, ‘CHOI Conveys the Spirit of Life,’ unpublished essay, 2009, CHOI Jeong Hwa archive. 22 Samcheol PARK, “I play ‘well’ therefore I am,” unpublished essay, 2009, CHOI Jeong Hwa archive. In this essay PARK discusses Nietzsche’s ideas on pleasure and taste in ‘Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883-85) and how this related to CHOI’s own concept of taste. PARK also mentions Henri Lefebvre’sideas about how everyday life was becoming art as set out in his book ‘Art and the Everyday World’ (1968). 23 Samcheol PARK, ibid. 24 CHOI has a large collection of such toys and objects as well as a large photographic library of possible source materials. Part of this is available on his web site.

Space Ggooll, Hannam-dong 683-31, Yongsan-Gu, Seoul.

Funny Game (1997), a dramatic example of CHOI’s playful appropriation of found material,25 is an ever changing installation of recycled, just-over-life-size mannequins of traffic cops. CHOI exhumed these literally from the pits in which they had been buried after the police had decided no longer to use them. This work still continues to appear as part of much larger installations. The synthetic, at times syncretic, environments he now produces veer between the sinister, the threatening, the hilarious and the sublime. Truth, an exhibition installed in the Red Cat Gallery, Los Angeles in 2007, puts these cops together with different decorative elements of flowers, trees, furniture, chandeliers, masks, fashion mannequins, figures, vegetables and gods to create new forms of life just as if CHOI were running some kind of crazy Frankenstein laboratory. In CHOI’s persistent, bitter-sweet search for ‘how the natural and artificial can be combined in harmony’, flowers made out of different kinds of plastic material have become established as a dominant motif.26 They were the topic of Super Flower (1995), his first giant balloon tulip as well as his first book for Ssamsie (1998). They appear in his work as both inflatables and as large cast plastic objects. A long, slowly deflating, then expanding, multi-coloured wreath of flowers led the way up the entrance spiral of the newly built Mori Art Museum in Tokyo in 2003; large replicas of Roses of Sharon adorned Seoul’s Gwanghwamun Gate in 2008 in commemoration of the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the Republic of Korea; in 2012 a twelve metre wide blossom of a Golden Lotus inflated and deflated in front of the National Monument’s phallic column on Kiev’s central square,

Time after time, 2012, Hayward gallery, London

later it was to move to the entrance of the Mystetskyi Arsenal where, to mark the opening of the First Kiev International Biennale of Contemporary Art, it throbbed and bounced under the silhouettes of

a venerable monastery’s glittering golden domes. Indeed, these works make such an impact on the viewer that they appropriate as part of their orbit everything around them, natural or man made. The context is perceived and remembered as much as the object itself. Humorous, reckless and sometimes provocative, CHOI’s work started to make waves. Nothing quite

often refers to this necessary transfer of energy between people which is an outcome of this by

like it had been seen in Korea before and its critical ‘anti-art’ position was not so dissimilar from that

saying ‘Your heart is my art! What you see, what you feel - that’s my art. I help you feel and you find

of the young British artists who, at the same time, were starting to make an impact in the UK (YBAs).

the art yourself… [You see] the same kimchi tastes different in different mouths…’28

Increasingly, CHOI has moved away from showing his work in dedicated art spaces and prefers to

Contemporary writers, such as Jared Diamond, who have been rethinking the causes and effects of

work outside.27 Along with this, the participation of many people by helping put the work together

transcultural development, have also fitted into CHOI’s desire for synthesis. Diamond’s 1997 Pulitzer

has also become an important element within the whole operation. This process is often referred to

prize winning book Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, which CHOI strongly

in their titles. Gather Together, made out of about 1.7 million pieces of plastic garbage, transformed

recommended that I read, provided the title for a chaotic labyrinth of cheap, brightly coloured plastic

the outside of Seoul’s old Olympic Stadium. In Time After Time, made in London to coincide with the

sieves and buckets that he constructed on the roof of KIMUSA, the former Head Quarters of the

2012 Olympics, five thousand plastic sieves covered the discoloured concrete columns of the Brutalist

Defence Security Command (the Korean ‘CIA’), a historic building with many associations with Korea’s

South Bank and two thousand balloons added a carnival atmosphere to the surrounding trees. CHOI

painfully divided present and past.29

25 The title of this work is taken from Austrian film director Michael Haneke’s Pinteresque psychological thriller Funny Games (1997). 26 CHOI Jeong Hwa, ibid. 27 CHOI Jeong Hwa: ‘I like doing things outside art museums. I dislike the whole pay system of museums and prefer working and interacting with people outside.’ See footnote 2.

28 29

CHOI Jeong Hwa, ibid. CHOI Jeong Hwa, conversation with the author, October 2009. The Kimusa building is now slated to become a part of the National Museum of Contemporary Art.

I remember, about ten years back, sitting, listening to music in CHOI’s house in Seoul and hearing for the first time the cabaret opera of The Tiger Lilies, an English, Brechtian, post-punk group by whom I was so impressed that I searched them out and have since started to work with them. I think that the same intuitive ability to create synergy has been repeated by CHOI with different people in various places since he first seriously started to work as an artist and has become an integral part of his work. He is obviously a genius in bringingideas, things and people together.30 And over the past three years he seems to have been constantly on the move, presenting exhibitions and large, site specific projects in such diverse places as Sydney, Shanghai, Berlin, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Kota Kinabalu, St. Moritz, Brisbane, Los Angeles, London, Kiev, Krasnoyarsk and Prague as well as in different cities in Korea. In its own way CHOI’s particular Gangnam Style has gone virally global. Brightly coloured, hospitable, yet complex and always with a humorous and thoughtful edge, the work of CHOI Jeong Hwa radiates a critical liveliness that challenges conventional ideas about the boundaries of art. If it is to be wholly appreciated in all of its many different manifestations, this work demands new ways of thinking about art as well as new words to describe it. Berlin - Hong Kong, January 2013

The music in question was Shock Headed Peter (1998) for The Tiger Lilies’ inimitable performance of the nineteenth century German children’s cautionary tale Struwwelpeter. They wrote and performed for me Cockatoo Prison - a Grand Opera of Crime and Punishment - for the 17th Biennale of Sydney in 2010 of which I was Artistic Director. CHOI also participated in this with a floating red Lotus Blossom in the Royal Botanic Gardens and a large, site-specific structure of green plastic sieves situated between the two ‘sails’ of the Sydney Opera House.

Photo courtesy of the artist and Gaain gallery, Seoul

Believing is Seeing #1, 2007, 135x103cm, C-print

K.NOTe no.5

Kyungwoo CHUN

* Kyungwoo CHUN (Republic of Korea,1969-) was born in Seoul. After his first study of Photography at Chung Ang University in Korea (1992) he moved to Germany, where he studied and started to work on his art projects in Europe and Korea. He has for many years now been initiating performances in which the audience is actively involved. Kyungwoo CHUN attained international recognition through his portraits, many of which have a characteristic blurriness in their movements- the consequence of extended exposure times. As diverse as the artistic approaches seem at a first glance, CHUN considers both the performances and the photographs to be in equal measure “visible manifestations of that which is not visible.”

Silent Dialogues Thoughts about the Performative Works of Kyungwoo CHUN

Ingo Clauß Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst

He is the recipient of the Hanmi Photography Award from the Museum of Photography Seoul (2007) and the winner of the Public Art Competition in Bremen (2008). The artist’s work is represented in major museum collections including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Gemeentemuseum, the Hague; Museet for Fotokunst Odense (DK); the Museum of Photography in Seoul; and the National Museum of Contemporary Art of Korea, among others. Furthermore, he has realized numerous performances with the participation of the public in many cities including Seoul, Barcelona, Berlin, Liverpool, Lisbon, Bremen, Copenhagen and New York. Kyungwoo CHUN lives and works in Bremen and Seoul. www.kyungwoochun.de

Two people shake hands—this form of greeting is customary in many countries, principally in the West. It is an expression of openness and mutual respect. Upon a first encounter, the physical contact creates a certain closeness, yet preserves the necessary respect. The handshake thereby numbers

** Ingo Clauß is a curator at the Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst, Europe’s first “collector’s museum.” He is particularly interested in the influence of pop culture on contemporary art production. Exhibitions such as “Kaboom! Comics in Art” or “Urban Art” have shown new developments in this field. In addition, Claußs has curated several solo exhibitions, most recently for mail art pioneer Ray Johnson.

among a multiplicity of rituals which help to organize our daily life, mostly in an unconscious manner. Conventions have an enduring effect on our association with our fellow men; they regulate the manner in which we communicate and live together. The Korean artist Kyungwoo CHUN is interested in these relationships and makes them the theme of his works. From time to time, everyday activities and gestures are the point of departure for performances which he has been initiating for more than ten years now. These are temporally limited processes which may be carried out by individuals or groups. As a rule, the public is actively involved. During the summer of 2009, the performance Greetings was carried out for the first time in the forecourt of the Bremer Kunsthalle. A total of twenty persons were asked to select from among the participants a partner who was unknown to them. Thereupon they were supposed to share a handshake for a period of twenty minutes. In addition, their hands were wrapped in plastic foil and firmly connected with each other. There were no further instructions. With the simplest of means, the greeting was transformed into a moment of unusual closeness and intensity. What was crucial for Kyungwoo CHUN was not the subjects of the conversations which took place. Instead he was concerned with a conscious perception of the mutually shared time. The participants were supposed to experience with their own bodies the manner in which they approach a stranger—how they behave when they talk together for the first time; how it feels when one’s gaze is returned, when one feels the warmth of another hand. Already two years earlier, Kyungwoo CHUN had carried out a performance which adhered to a comparable concept but was more intensive in its impact. Versus could be seen in various countries and cities from 2007 to 2012, among other places in New York, Barcelona, and Zürich, and has now come to a conclusion in Seoul. The procedure was identical each time. The participants were requested to sit down upon two benches placed opposite each other. They were supposed to place

inner tension. These diverse reactions and sensations are also one of the reasons why Kyungwoo CHUN repeatedly realizes his performances in various countries and cultural contexts. The work Versus is inspired by the Chinese character “Ren” (人) and is translated as “human being.” The form of the character resembles a walking figure but can also be viewed as two persons leaning against each other and thereby maintaining their equilibrium. This concept is the basis for the performance. It presupposes that everyone needs a counterpart in life, someone in whom one recognizes oneself as a human being with all one’s strengths and weaknesses, individual emotions and desires. An encounter with the Other is always a confrontation with oneself. The art of Kyungwoo CHUN is exemplary in this regard. The very presence and cooperation of the participants already gives rise to a space of thoughtfulness which endures for a short while and then disappears forever. Photographs, videos, and stories document these moments only to an insufficient degree. But the experiences leave behind multifaceted traces in the memory and hence can continue to have an impact. At the latest since the avant-gardist movements of the nineteen-sixties and -seventies, performances as a form of artistic action have been an integral part of the international production of art. One needs only to call to mind the Happenings of Allan Kaprow, the numerous festivals and concerts of Fluxus, and not least of all, the projects of Joseph Beuys along with his famous, often misunderstood dictum Versus, 2011, Times Square, New York, USA Photo courtesy of the artist and Gaain gallery, seoul

“Everyone is an artist.” The dislimitation of art, individual participation and social sharetaking, and the interrelationship of art and life are only a few important keywords in this context. Various aspects of Kyungwoo CHUN’s performances are related to these historical positions. And yet his oeuvre resists

a classification within this sort of developmental line. Instead his performances have their origin in a special form of photography with which he has meanwhile gained international recognition. Since the mid-nineteen-nineties, Kyungwoo CHUN has been working with photographic series as well as individual images, mostly portraits, all of which are characterized by a relative blurriness. This their head on the shoulder of their respective partner and to remain in this position for fifteen

effect arises through an unusually long exposure time of sometimes several minutes all the way to

minutes—wordlessly, their eyes closed, and with as little movement as possible.

hours and even days. That which, at the beginnings of photography during the nineteenth century, was still necessary for technical reasons is now the outcome of a fundamental artistic consideration.

Viewed from the outside, the group seemed to be an island of calm and contemplation. At Times

Kyungwoo CHUN does not seek the “decisive moment” in his pictures. Nor is he concerned with

Square in New York, the performance stood in remarkable contrast to the vast city with its loud

a supposedly documentary image. What matters to him is the experience of time and duration.

traffic and numerous pedestrians. But what appeared at a first glance to be harmonious and could

Photography is a suitable device in this regard.

be misunderstood as a communal reconciliation in fact represented a genuine challenge for the participants. The physical contact required by the artist generally occurs only among friends and close

Sometimes the people whom he invites into his studio are requested to talk about something

aquaintances. In the case of strangers, one is always inclined to be discreet and automatically to

personal during the taking of the picture—about their daily routines (Six Days, 2003), or about their

maintain a certain distance.

mothers (In/finite, 2006); it may be that a person who has been blind from birth is asked to imagine how he or she might look (Believing is Seeing, 2007). In most cases, no words are exchanged. Thus

Whoever was ready to become involved in this sort of a violation of borders had the opportunity of

there arises between the photographer and the portrayed individual an extraordinary interconnection

experiencing the person sitting opposite in a special manner. But that was not all. As time passed,

characterized by mutual perception, concentration, and reflection. These are silent dialogues which

one perceived not only one’s partner, but also oneself with increased intensity. There was a growing

inscribe themselves into the photographs in densified form, and which may be sensed subsequently

sensitivity to one’s own body odor, to the slow rhythm of inhalation and exhalation, to the heartbeat

by an attentive viewer. CHUN himself speaks of “performances for photography.” Against this

felt in the ear, and to the tiring burden imposed by the limbs of the body. Many people had a positive

background, it seems a logical step to expand his personal experiences and encounters within the

response to the intimacy of the encounter, while for others the situation was linked to an extreme

studio into public actions. Indeed, it is no longer possible to distinguish clearly among the media

which he utilizes. Performance, video, photography, and installation are interrelated in many different ways; they mutually determine each other and sometimes give rise to hybrid forms. For example, a new video work is based on a performance. Perfect Relay; Citius, Altius, Fortius (2012) was created on the occasion of the Olympic Games in London. Differently than the title and context would suggest, the theme is not extreme atheletic performance. On the contrary, this is first of all a matter of a quite commonplace action which is disturbed by a simple but significant alteration and is thereby experienced in a completely new way. Kyungwoo CHUN invited children from various countries to write in their native languages the familiar motto of the games, “further, higher, stronger,” on a piece of paper. The pen was passed around like the baton of a relay race until it was finally returned to the first child. A special difficulty, however, was that the children were supposed to write with the “wrong” hand. That which normally would have been possible in an intuitive manner and with little difficulty now required enormous concentration. Mistakes crept in, and the writing could not always be easily read. Kyungwoo CHUN thereby thwarted in a subtle manner the ambitious striving for perfection and the ceaseless will toward accomplishment. Shortcomings and errors sometimes serve as productive impulses, not only in the realm of artistic work. They can be the start of innovative realizations and creative processes. Perfect Relay thereby generates a powerful image of tolerance which indicates an alternative to the principles of our society glorifying relentless achievement. Competition is replaced by exchange and affiliation within a community. The most recent work, Gute Nachrichten (“Good News,” 2012) was able in this sense—past various

national borders, cultures, and time zones—to bring together people from Seoul and the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen. These are the two cities in which Kyungwoo CHUN has lived and worked for many years. Twenty citizens of Bremen were requested to name a piece of good news which they would gladly receive. From these wishes, translated into their native language, twenty Koreans in Seoul selected the one with which they could identify the most. On the day of the performance, the participants encountered each other for the first time via a live video link without, however, speaking with each other. One after another, the Koreans called the personal mobile phone numbers of the German partner whose wish they had selected, and who thereupon let fly a paper airplane and thus symbolically sent the good news on its way. At this precise moment, the partners saw each other, and only they knew what was the wish which connected them—independently of age, gender, and social situation. Here as well, self-recognition is not a one-sided process. The oeuvre of Kyungwoo CHUN explores the preconditions which allow human contact. His works are deeply rooted in humanism and combine concepts of Western and Eastern philosophy. Kyungwoo CHUN is not concerned with a simple-minded world view filled with harmony and uniformity. His Perfect Relay, 2012, Video stills Photo courtesy of the artist and Gaain gallery, seoul

works transform a silent gesture into art and acknowledge there in the value of randomness. They show people with all their differences, contrasts, and weaknesses—qualities which are not necessarily supposed to be overcome, but whose contradictions should be considered to be a precious abundance. The task of art, as Kyungwoo CHUN understands it, accordingly consists of sharpening our perception, of altering our awareness, of sensitizing ourselves to the thoughts and actions of others, and thereby of considering a transformation of ourselves to be possible. This endeavor sometimes begins with a handshake.

Gute Nachrichten, 2012, Seoul-Bremen Photo courtesy of the artist and Gaain gallery, seoul

A Day in Namsan, 2009 Detail, Photo: Changwon LEE

K.NOTe no.6

Changwon LEE

* Changwon LEE (Republic of Korea, 1972-) earned an MFA in sculpture from Seoul National University and studied Fine Arts at the Kunstakademie Münster, Germany. He currently works and lives in Korea.Using unsculptural materials of optical principles - light, shadow, reflection or reflected light, he is interested in metaphorically or indirectly revealing what lies behind a subject or social phenomenon. Recent solo exhibitions include “MAM Project 017: Lee Changwon” (Mori Museum, Japan, 2012) and “Other Selves” (Alternative Space Loop, Seoul, 2012).

** Sumi KANG (1969-) is a Korean art critic and aesthetician; She is a Professor of Art Theory at Dongduk Women’s University in Seoul. A specialist in Walter Benjamin, contemporary art and the philosophical history of art. She has published The Art of Criticism (2013), Aisthesis: Thinking with Walter Benjamin’s Aesthetics (2011), The Wonderful Reality of Korean Contemporary Art (2009), Rediscovering of Seoul Life (2003). Her representative essays are Image-Space. Walter Benjamin and Contemporary Art (2013), The Configuration of the Visual Arts Images for Sustainable Community I/II (2012/2010).

The Art of Changwon LEE Builds a “Parallel World” Re/Birth of Light and the Shadow Image

Sumi KANG Aesthetics, Art Critic, Professor of Dongduk Women’s University

What do a movie theater, house of mirrors, shadow play stage, show window, astronomical observatory, and various monuments and festivals all have in common? They are spaces that are removed from our tedious and trite “daily life.” They are special and fun, overcoming “living,” “usefulness” and “commonness,” marvelous and fascinating. Moreover, they are meeting places for events, objects and situations that stimulate us in brilliant and spectacular ways by altering the given

environment through various scales of technology, in small and large ways. But the most significant common characteristic is that these spaces are inhabited by images that are always temporary. In such places dwell only the specific moments, not the immortal beings. The images there can only exist as long as the duration of the screening or performance, or appear when a surface is lighted, only to disperse shortly after. When the lights go out, the images also disappear. They keep changing every instant, transforming and flickering at the speed of light by the hour or by the second. It is easy to have such thoughts when looking at the works of Changwon LEE. Of course, these thoughts do not belong to the dimension of understanding the critical concepts in the works, or of developing a cultural-critical discourse concerning such spaces by using a critique of his artworks. Rather, they fall within the more concrete dimension of materials, subjects, forms of expression, techniques, the environments of the works created by the artist and their effects, and the perceptions to be experienced by spectators. That is, LEE’s art is a world of ephemeral illusions made with light and materials of reality as in a shadow play or a magic lantern show, a moment of an event taking place in space, and an aesthetic experience for the spectator, who is captured by the artist’s use of special forms and aesthetic techniques.

Images of Other Relations Changwon LEE graduated from the Department of Sculpture at Seoul National University in 1998, and went to the Academy of Fine Art Münster in Germany to study in 2000. He has recently returned to Korea after studying and working in Germany for 11 years. We need to note this personal history because his work is characterized by a convergence of the two-dimension and three-dimension,

and has been developed in a form where the surface and 3-dimensional structure are parallel

but the temporary beauty which repeatedly emerges and fades in every moment. Such “temporary

and interlocking. While it is meaningless to discuss the concept of genre in contemporary art, the

play of beauty,” is no longer something strange in contemporary art, and is not devaluated with low

question of which area the artist was initially trained in continues to serve as an important standard

appreciation compared to contemplation of or submersion in “eternal beauty.” Rather, it has become

in understanding his work. In that sense, LEE’s background in sculpture, considering his present

a priority quality comparable to the intimacy between art and popular culture. LEE’s works are no

work, seems to have helped him choose the appropriate material, transform it, and use space multi-

different in that sense. In his case, however, I must emphasize that he leaves the work’s method

dimensionally. Meanwhile, the time he spent studying the diverse aspects of contemporary art as

of existence open in an instantaneous and in-itself way, in the same way the aesthetic experience

an integrated entity beyond the borders of genre, has served as a crucial condition for his approach

of viewers is instantaneous and exists in itself. That is to say, his works are not frozen as aesthetic

to art in a plural method, transcending the existing grammar of plastic arts. If so, what is the core of

objects, but continue to be built and deconstructed in actual time and space. In the process, LEE’s

LEE’s works so far, as they have been formed under such conditions?

blind painting-sculpture-installation works talk of the creation and extinction of images in the meta layer.

It appears that the leitmotif leading the artist’s boundaries of work and his work as a whole is the “image.” But in this case, the image does not mean the visual result or the general form of the art work seen by the spectator. Rather, it is an “image as a meta-subject,” characterized by deconstruction

Mirror: A Critical Projection of Light

and articulation of the formativeness formed throughout the long history of experimentation and

Since 2010, LEE has been searching for a different direction in his work with new forms and contents,

conventionalization in visual art. Suppose his art contains a silhouette of a man giving water to a

under the title Parallel World. Operationally, this work is very similar to the overhead projector, which

plant. Here, the image does not concern the issue of whether or not we can see the silhouette, but

was widely used for educational purposes before projectors with optical lenses were available. An

the issue of how it is made by the artist and how it functions for the spectators. On one hand it

overhead projector is a visual device that can project images on a dark wall. This is achieved by

indicates the “methodology of expression,” and on the other hand it indicates the “reception of what

placing transparent film with pictures or text copied onto them on a glass surface with a light source

is expressed” in the works.

under it, and adjusting the angle of a mirror in order to project the image. In a similar method, LEE projects photographic images on the wall so that spectators can enjoy bright visual illusions in a dark

Though the details are all different, the type of work executed most by LEE since 2002 is “something

room. More specifically, the artist finds photographs belonging to the category of “disaster” or “war”

in the form of blinds.” Here we have no choice but to use the obscure term “something,” because

in newspapers or the internet, prints them, and delicately cuts out certain parts of them. For example,

this group of works is not painting, sculpture or installation, but rather a convergence of the

he cuts out the shape of an airplane charging towards the World Trade Center during the 9.11 terror

characteristics of the above genres. This becomes clearer with an example of the actual works. A Day

incident. By attaching the photographic image, which is transformed into a something like a stencil

in Namsan is a large-scale work measuring 500×400cm, which is hung on the wall. At first glance

print, on a mirror and shining a light on it, only the part without the image (the mirror surface) reflects

it looks like a two-dimensional tableau painting, but in fact it consists of white rods of consistent

the light onto the wall, creating a bright image of the cut-out original. LEE creates an installation

thickness and width arranged with equal spacing like a blind, dividing the plane three-dimensionally,

using the entire space of the dark room, which he calls Parallel World. As the title already implies,

with ground coffee powder on the top surface of each rod. But the coffee is not sprinkled at random.

the greatest intention of the artist is to show the “parallel world.” That world could be our reality,

According to accurate calculations, the artist built the structure so that the traces of coffee stacked on

where violence and pain have become part of daily life, and the field of images where that reality

top of the rods and the effects of the brown mass reflecting off the adjacent surfaces would resemble

is redefined and re-shaped through the mediation of various media. It is a world of images where

the statue of KIM Ku (who was a leader of Korea’s independence movement during its colonization by

public-actual images are processed through the media, or a world of images where the artist LEE

the Japanese) and the surrounding landscapes one would encounter at Namsan in Seoul, Korea when

intervenes in such images to artistically modify their structures and details. Not only the traditional

looking from a distance. Ultimately we see a single two-dimensional landscape—with birds flying and

theories of perception since Plato, but also the dichotomous structure or the dualistic worldview

a statue standing—expressed with a dark silhouette. But this is realized not on a flat canvas but in a

of actual vs. virtual, reality vs. illusion, which has become time-worn even within our structure of

relief/semi-three-dimensional structure. The bright and dark forms in the picture are not attached to

awareness, is repeated in Parellel World. That is the dichotomy that was criticized throughout the

the picture-plane through brushwork, but are developed temporarily through the interaction among

post-modern era, and was attacked for being discriminatory and irrational in both logic and reality; or

the light of the present time and space where the work is installed, the coffee particles, and the white

it is the dichotomy that suffered a bad reputation as new positive values such as “fusion,” “difference”

sticks.

and “between” replaced “division,” “discrimination” and “border.” But interestingly enough LEE does not deceptively suture this dichotomous structure, but creates two worlds by juxtaposing the

This is a third result gained by intersecting or re-arranging the conventional conditions of expression

actual and virtual, the reality and illusion even more clearly, thereby revealing an uncrossable gap of

of painting and sculpture at the layers of each element, and is an installation focusing on the

existence between the two.

process of formation and reception of the image, rather than the image itself as the result. The eyes of spectators will experience illusions, and will enjoy not the fixed beauty internalized in the work,

On entering the dark exhibition room, we see tables bearing LED lights, placed on all sides of the

Parallel World, 2012, Mirrors, Yupo-prints, LED Lightings, Pedestals Photo: Kioku Keizo, Photo courtesy: Mori Art Museum, Tokyo Installation view: MAM Project 017: Lee Changwon 2012/6/16 -2012/10/28

Parallel World, 2012, Mirrors, Yupo-prints, LED Lightings, Pedestals Photo: Changwon LEE

room, with the earlier-mentioned photo image-mirrors placed on top of them. And all sorts of images are spread out across the wide spaces on the four walls as if they were flying in zero-gravity space, or like a panoramic view of the night sky. More precisely, they are being projected. The images, resembling delicate charcoal drawings, are of course formed by the reflections of the photo-mirrors on the tables. But we experience the projected image and the photographic image in completely different ways. This is because the two are in a cause and effect relationship physically (if there is no photographic image-mirror and the LED is not shining on it, the images on the wall cannot exist); however, they are completely separate in terms of image production and actual function in time-space. The photographs on the tables are scenes of disaster and violence cut, framed and manufactured by various mass media as they focus on certain situations. And the images projected on the walls are gigantic Phantasmagoria re/born by extracting such images from reality and using mirrors and the reflection of light with them. If they are the results of rebirth in the sense that they are illusions based on images of reality, then at the same time they also represent a new birth in the sense that they are actual phenomena taking place now by excluding (cutting out) parts of the images derived from reality. So what does LEE enable spectators to experience or obtain by presenting the two worlds as relations of tension, or relations which are mutually inclusive and coexisting at the same time? The first answer can be found in the fact that the artist has chosen images with social and political narratives, in terms of content. In other words, he could have expected an awakening of spectators through the imagery on contemporary life, where terror and war have become part of daily life. Next, the artist would have

tried to present spectators with an opportunity to critically reconsider the true face of the media, which reports reality as if it were objective or neutral. This is not only carried out in the context of criticizing images of mass media appropriated from reality, but rather leads each spectator to think about the reality and action of the two parallel image worlds by embodying the mirror-reflection image with increased fantasy and spectacle in his work.

Possibilities of Illumination The crucial element in LEE’s works is light. In the sense that all visual art works can only be perceived under the visibility of light, this is natural. But in the case of LEE, light serves as a fundamental condition in a more structural dimension. As we have discussed earlier, this is because his works are built through the combination of the reflective effects of light and the presence of matter, and because they are made by maximizing the physical attributes of the mirror reflecting light. Some of LEE’s works involve painting a negative portrait of Buddha on a mirror with oil-based glass paint, and reflecting sunlight off of it so that a positive image is created in the shade on the other side. In a similar method, he also painted the faces of people implicated in the “East Berlin Incident,” which was a politically manufactured scandal in the 1960s, on glass plates. Here too, light played a core role in realizing the negative-positive images. Thus, we must say that the works are a world of images that is impossible without light—whether it is natural light or LED units. But what is light? In philosophy, light is the truth of existence and the revealing of truth. When Hans Blumenberg said, “Light is a ray that indicates direction in dark, a torch guiding the way, or the

left

Right

Hurrah!, 2009, Ground coffee, Wooden panels, 200x500cm

A Day in Namsan, 2009, Ground coffee, Wooden panels, 500x400cm

Photo: Changwon LEE

exiting of the approaching darkness1 ,” the metaphor of light always refers to the guide to truth and the defeat of ignorance, called darkness. Without the necessity to resort to philosophy, in our usual ways of thinking, light and darkness still confront one another—the former playing a role of pushing away the negativity, deception and falsehood of the latter. That is why the English word “illumination” means “lighting” and “enlightenment” at the same time and has frequently been used as an epistemological term. Based on such understanding, let us examine LEE’s works once more. Then his works, in which light is selected as the crucial element, could mean lighting to overcome darkness, or enlightenment as a reaction to non-truth. For example, as we interpreted earlier, his Parallel World is an image of artcritical “illumination (enlightenment)” of the reality where the virtual effects of the mass media are so overwhelming. Of course we cannot overlook the other side. That is, as darkness is the other side of light, and non-truth is the other side of truth, the art-critical image of enlightenment is back-to-back with the illusion/Phantasmagoria like two sides of a coin. LEE’s blind-shaped works are not firm and concrete forms, but images that depict actual objects or landscapes like shadows, using materials of variability (light in the exhibition space, coffee / parsley / particles from tea leaves, etc.) Parallel World also consists of images publicly distributed through the media—whether they are true or not—re-processed by the artist and transformed into images in a spectacular space. In this sense, the images in LEE’s works are incomplete, variable and artificial. I am not referring to levels of formative completeness or visual satisfaction, but how the images act upon the spectators’ consciousness. For instance, as we wonder at the brilliant light decorations installed around Cheonggyecheon for

the end-of-the-year Luminarie festival and get absorbed in enjoying them, we may also admire and enjoy the light image works of LEE, unaware of the gap existing between the images mediated by the reality and the media. That is to say, even if the artist expects spectators to perceive the tension of the coexisting worlds, and the transformations inevitably caused in the process of production and reproduction of the images in his works, the appreciation by viewers could flow in the direction mentioned above. But let us not worry too much in advance. We continue to worry about the issues of the conscious dimension, but there will be special perceptions and awareness which are activated in each moment at the various layers of senses. “Modern was an organized distrust that went against all senses. Teaching us to believe in those senses again today would be a surface without depth.2“ If this claim by a media aesthetician is valid, we can still keep our expectations for the art of LEE, who brings the two sides of the image into coexistence through ephemeral light—particularly the expectations for the innumerable individual possibilities of his works that act upon the perception

The artist is reflecting sunlight into shadow., 2009

and consciousness of each viewer in the actual time-space.

1 2

Hans Blumenberg, Light as a Metaphor for Truth: At the Preliminary Stage of Philosophical Concept Formation, trans. Seongchul JUNG & Munim PAIK, Modernity and the Hegemony of Vision, Seoul: Vision & Language, 2004, pp. 54-55. Norbert Bolz, Das Kontrollierte Chaos: Vom Humanismus zur Medienwirklichkeit, trans. Jongseok YOON, Controlled Chaos: From Humanism to a World of New Media, Seoul: Munye Publishing Co., 2000, p. 114.

K.NOTe K. NOTe is a monthly digital publication that aims to introduce Korean artists and curators to overseas audiences. Much like an exquisitely interwoven Korean ‘Knot’, K.NOTe hopes to become a medium that creates strong ties and solid knots within the contemporary arts scene by publishing e-notebooks of Korean artists and events that are worthy of ‘Note.’

K.NOTe