Ung-Mang

Ung-Mang

Now In Il-min museum where place in Gwang-Hwa station, the exhibition named Ung-Mang by Sasa [44] held since September. Before entrance, all audiences were given bracelet for ticket. It gave an impression like we’re in festival. Basically exhibition composed of data and objects which based on artist’s life and collection. Sasa [44] build his own vast data about his consume since 2003. The main attraction of this exhibition is archive which artist piled for 15 years.

 

Audiences provide less information about works. Only name and place where they are. A three story spaces are summarized by only one paper. I think the artist wants to give nothing but work itself. It belongs to audiences how to use given information. At first, I thought weird. I saw this kind of passive exhibition first time. It makes me lots and lots of think.

 

On first floor, there are book of graphs and text about how many times he ate beef stew, how many books he purchased. we could see increase and decrease in each year. On other side, there was shoes which he collected and some sculptures. Sculptures were quite difficult to understand. And next floor, many bottles welcomed me. This floor is my best! Sasa [44] displayed 4024 packages of beverages. There are glass bottle, paper package and also plastic too. He collected this for 10 years too. Walking around this place made me feel the lapse of time. In addition, there was very loud background music. It was a remix of popular song’s intro during 2004 to 2013. This music gained energy to this gathering of bottles. Collections are in third floor too. Sasa [44] traveled all around the world. For example, Boston, Tokyo, Sydney and also Seoul. He collected everywhere again. Minor things such as snack box, bus ticket could be his collection.

 

The major idea I thought is questioning about limit of human being. If my mother saw this exhibition, she definitely said “I think he is sick”. It’s a superhuman efforts to record and collect all of things which most people forget or discard everyday. By his interview, the reason why he collect every sort of things is just his human nature. I expected special reasons but after I knew it, I think it is most natural reasons. If he do collecting with willingness or pressure, it might be not go so long. As I said upon, there was little information to audiences. And there was not any docent program. I have no way to satisfy my curiosity. I think that was a only flaw of this exhibition

Korean artist prize 2018

Korean artist prize 2018

This exhibition has process of audition that annually chooses four artist and pick one final artist by discussion of judge. But regardless of result, four parts of works are all said variety subject and opinion. The most interesting point of this exhibition was there was no specific type of expression. They used painting, photography, video, performance and etc. And the end of exhibition, there was a place where can see each artist’s former works and interviews so audience can see development process of now-days works and how it birth. For audience, this exhibition is really kind one.

 

Above all, two of them caught my eyes.

 

First one is Jung eun young’s work. She told us female national musical.(I’m not sure it is a right translation) Actually I don’t even know about this genre existed. It was a musical which had popularity in 1950s but was forgotten and did not run on to present. But artist Jung raised up this traditional art to us. I think this is a main role of this work. This work will imprint to public about forgotten Korean traditional art. Female national musical shows a new aspect. In Korea history, 1950s was a very complicated era. Korea had independence from japan and soon the war broke. And I though female role was passive. But the reality was not. They made their own culture and artistic trend. It was a shock to me. Artist Jung also remake this female national musical in 2016.

 

Second work I remembered strongly was artist Ku in ja’s work. The main topic of this work is time. The artist made a performance for korean’s average time spend, and went one of the place in Fiji island, crossed the date line. By this act, one would live one day for twice and the other one skip one day(24th to 26th). She broke up the ordinary concept of time. We always know is important element in our lives but most of us can’t feel it well. Until now, I don’t recognize I live a day by standard which somebody fixed. So this work gave me question of life routine. I could not change this now but somehow living not just given is good attitude. Artist Ku also said she made works to make audiences re-think about fixed idea. I thought I’ll visit the next work of this artist.

 

The most significant meaning of this exhibition is that it gives various artists the opportunity to display their works, and that the public usually does not know them very well.

 

By the way, Jung eun young won the prize in this competition