34th Seoul Independent Film Festival, Dec 11 - 19

What : The 34th Seoul Independent Film Festival
When : Thursday, December 11st ~ Friday, December 19th, 2008
Where : IndieSpace, Sponge house, Joong-Ang Cinema, Myeongdong
Check out the SIFF website in English at: www.siff.or.kr/indexeg.php

MEDIA PRISM - Digital Media Design Graduation Exhibition, Dec 1 - 5, 2008, Bundang.

The graduation exhibition for Hongik University College of Design and Arts is being held at Korea Design Center at Bundang (Gyeonggi - 분당).
It's located near Yaktop station (subway, Bundang yellow line) - near Sungnam bus terminal. It's about 40 mins from Seoul downtown.



If you're interested in media art, communication design, installation etc. you can visit the website where you can see photos of all the student works. http://m-prism.com/
The website is in Korean (3 students did it as a graduation project) but, main navigation points are in English. Just click to close the pop-up poster on the first page to reveal the entry portal.



The exhibition is open everyday Monday Dec 1 to Friday Dec 5. until 10 pm except Friday. The exhibition finishes on Friday so it will be closed early around 4 pm on Friday Dec 5.







Click the map below to enlarge:
Korea Design Center, Bundang

Yaiza Nicolas - Exhibition opening Tue Dec 2, Gallery Van, Seoul

The Van Gallery is located 500m from Sinchon subway station, just around the corner from the Ssamzie Space in Hongdae. See map.

Scrapyard Challenge art project workshop, SangsangMadang, Hongdae Nov 27-29

Some New York artists are in town, Jonah Brucker-Cohen & Katherine Moriwaki and they gave a talk at Hongik University at Jochiwon campus about their upcoming public workshop.
There will be a free artist's talk at Gallery SangSangmadang in Hongdae on Thursday Nov 27 at 7pm.

The Scrapyard Challenge Workshops are intensive workshops where participants build simple electronic projects (both digital and analog inputs) out of found or discarded "junk" (old electronics, clothing, furniture, outdated computer equipment, appliances, turntables, monitors, gadgets, etc..) The MIDI Scrapyard version includes a mini workshop where participants build simple drawing robots or "DrawBots" with small, inexpensive motors, batteries, and drawing markers that can also be connected to Serial or MIDI interface. At the end of the day or evening, the workshop participants have a small performance, concert, or fashion show where they demonstrate and present their creations together as a group. No electronics skills or any experience with technology is necessary to participate in the workshops.

Scrapyard Challenge Workshop
SangSangMaDang Gallery, Seoul, Korea
November 27-29, 2008, 10am to 7pm
Today (27th Nov 7PM) there is an artist talk from Janah and Katherine. Please come to listen, if you have time.

From Nov 28, you can join the workshop as a participant or as an observer.
(There is fee to participate this workshop, from Nov 28 it will cost 100,000 Won for two days.
or you can just come by and see what is going on for a while as a observer.)

Contact:
Park Sohyeon (Soni)
Gallery Sangsangmadang
+ 82 (0)11 9922 7308 (Cell)
+ 82 (0)2 330 6224 (Office)
soni@ssmadang.co.kr

Go to www.scrapyardchallenge.com
or see http://blog2.sangsangmadang.com/gallery/category/English

Opening Live Lecture by John Bock 21 November 2008 6 p.m., Arko Art Center, Seoul

John Bock : 2 handbags in a pickle
22 November 2008 - 8 February 2009

Exhibition
"PARA – SCHIZO, ensnarled" Arko Art Center
Exhibition
"Films & Videos", Insa Art Space


Arko Art Center, Arts Council Korea
100 Daehakro Jongno-gu Seoul 110-766 Korea
http://www.arkoartcenter.or.kr

Insa Art Space, Arts Council Korea
90 Wonseo-dong Jongno-gu Seoul 110-280 Korea
http://www.insaartspace.or.kr





Press Opening November 21 2008 5 pm., Arko Art Center

Opening Live Lecture by John Bock 21 November 2008 6 p.m., Arko Art Center

Friday Film Screening 5 p.m. on every Friday from 5 December 2008 until 6 February 2009 Insa Art Space

Wide Floor Talk "Your Existoform" 12 December 2008 2 – 4 p.m., Arko Art Center


Arts Council Korea(ARKO)'s Arko Art Center(AAC) and Insa Art Space(IAS) introduce the solo exhibition and new production of John Bock first in Asia (b. 1965, based in Berlin).

This project was initiated from new film commission by ARKO to the German Artist, which is realized as 40 min. – long two channel video "PARA – SCHIZO, ensnarled"(2008) through an intense, organic collaboration throughout an yearlong period of time. In this project, the two institutions made their first joint venture of integrating two functions by the needs of each work phase. IAS performed itself as a production collaborator whose role was an intimate team player with the artist on the actual production site. AAC, as a communicating and distributing agent of the production, framed the artistic context of John Bock and the process of collaborative production by means of artwork presentation, artist archive composition, public talks and screening programs.

The whole project is composed of exhibitions at two venues, John Bock's live "lecture", a screening program of the artist's cinematic videos, and an accompanying workshop programs. The exhibition at AAC centers around a new film, "PARA –SCHIZO, ensnarled" that incorporates objects, performance, sculpture, costume as well as video. A live lecture is held on the opening day at the exhibition gallery. The exhibition at IAS features a selection of eight single channel videos and runs a separate screening program on every Friday for four long cinematic films by John Bock.

John Bock's New Film, "PARA – SCHIZO, ensnarled"(2008)
40 min., 2 channel video, PAL
Director_John Bock
Produced and presented by Arko Art Center and Insa Art Space of the Arts Council Korea
Courtesy_ Klosterfelde, Berlin; Anton Kern, New York

The work of John Bock is shaped in the process during which the intervention and action of the recipients become real and the energy generated in the interplay takes the form. His new production is the result of dynamic collaboration between two "handbags", the artist and institutions, artist (Germen film crew) and Korean film crew.

"Para – SCHIZO, ensnarled" is a sequence of situational frames that move along the principle of emotional and formal symmetry. It shows two figures who, leading two separate paths of quest in parallel, converge, clash, destroy and reproduce each other in a cycle of mutual interplay. Corresponding to this double narrative, the video is also formed in two channels, and the images and words in each channel are intricately composed as to be divided into a half or synchronized into a symmetrical whole. Each fragment of scene, while retaining the particular quality of John Bock's videos in its sensuous imagery, charged plot, dramatic action and poetic lines, are connected in a complex and multi-layered structure.

The exhibition title "2 Handbags in a Pickle", referring to John Bock's vocabulary, means two microcosms that are situated in another higher level of universe(system, individual, organism, structure, etc). The two immanent elements formulate an absolute, abstract symmetry, but never imply a certain relative values. John Bock sees the two elements as equivalent two's that generate energy in a series of mutual interrelationship between the two variations. What is essential for the artist in these two opposing elements is to observe dynamic mechanism of the relationship, in which each element develops an interaction, evolves and transforms respectively into a mutant. These two elements run as maintaining the parallel to each other, but also can be converged, intersected, and connected into a cycle of circuit. The structural aspect of these two elements therefore is transmittable and porous, not rigidly bipolar. Since this title is an archetypal sign that can be interpreted diffe rently in multiple kinds of contexts, it can be applied to, for example, to Korea's political situation, our general social relationship, our body - beings as a biological structure, the notion of self as psychological and philosophical existence, and even the relationships between the two art institutions.

John Bock does not make an artwork to represent a certain subject, but rather designs the project so that it can perform the subject in total. The metaphor of "two handbags" is repeated and expanded like an echo from the external level between the two institutions, through the internal level within the museum between the two gallery spaces, to another internal level inside of his own works between his object and performance, his performance and video, his video and installation. Each handbag, while also being a schizophrenic mutant running parallel, is "ensnarling at each other" within a Pickle of John Bock, that in turn cannot help but being another structured (pickled cucumber) microcosm instead of a raw cucumber.

For more information about the project and accompanying programs, please visit the website of AAC and IAS.

Platform Seoul 2008 exhibition til Nov 23, 2008

This contemporary multimedia international exhbition is held at a range of venues across Seoul - including the Art Sonje center, the old Seoul Station etc.


Click here to get a full program and guide maps to venues (PDF files)







Exhibition Period
25 October – 23 November 2008

Opening Time
11am–6pm (entrance until 5pm)
Closed on Monday

Admission Ticket
Artsonje Center:
6,000 won / student 3,000 won
Seoul Station Old Bldg.:
6,000 won / student 3,000 won
All Exhibition Pass:
10,000 won / student 5,000 won
Program Single:
6,000 won / Student 3,000 won
All Program Pass:
30.000 won / student 15,000 won
Free Admission Ticket:
40,000 won / student 20,000 won
* Free admission to all the exhibitions and programs except Great Journey of Princess Bari 2008 by Musical Theatre Baramgot

– Free Entrance in other galleries except Artsonje Center and Seoul Station Old bldg.
– University/college students included the discount fare

Docent Tour
Artsonje Center:
2pm / 4pm (Tue–Fri)
12, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 pm (Sat, Sun)
Seoul Station Old Bldg.:
Daily 11:30am – 5pm
Every 30 minutes

Venues and Participating Artists

Artsonje Center
T. +82.(0)2.733.8945
– Salvador Dalí
– John Cage / Kim Soun Gui
– Kang-so Lee
– Jeppe Hein
– Tino Sehgal
– Jooyeon Park
– Vito Acconci
– Trisha Brown
– Dan Graham
– Allan Kaprow
– Robert Morris
– Bruce Nauman
– Yvonne Rainer

Gallery Yemac
T. +82.(0)2.720.9912
– Kim Soun Gui

Gallery SUN contemporary
T. +82.(0)2.720.5789
– Martin Creed
– Angela Bulloch

Kukje Gallery
T. +82.(0)2.735.8449
– Xijing Men (Gimhongsok, Tsuyoshi Ozawa, Chen Shaoxiong)
– Surasi Kusolwong
– Jan Fabre

doART Seoul
T. +82.(0)2.2287.3500
– Marina Abramović
– Xu Zhen
– Markus Schinwald
– contact Gonzo
– Dan Graham
– Keitetsu Murai

PKM Gallery
T. +82.(0)2.734.9467
– Luis Jacob

Weibang Gallery
T. +82.(0)2.720.8222
– Peter Fischli / David Weiss

Songwon Art Center
– Koki Tanaka

ONE AND J. Gallery
T. +82.(0)2.745.1644
– Ujino Muneteru

GaGallery
T. +82.(0)2.744.8736
– Manon de Boer

Lock Museum
T. +82.(0)2.766.6494
– Thoma Vuille

Seoul Station Old Bldg.
– Dong Koo Yun
– Jae Eun Choi
– David Lamelas
– Navin Party (Navin Rawanchaikul & Tyler Russell)
– Akira Takayama
– Hwayeon Nam
– Janet Cardiff
– Tino Sehgal
– Yang Ah Ham
– Gilbert & George
– Kim Soun Gui
– Kang-so Lee
– Play
– Saburo Murakami
– DaDao Live Art Festival
– Action in China
– Sora Kim

Contact
Artsonje Center
www.artsonje.org
T. +82.(0)2.733.8945
SAMUSO:
info@platformseoul.org
T. +82.(0)2.739.7067 / F. +82.(0)2.739.7069

The Circle - multi-media performance by KoPAS

What: A non-verbal image performance staged by the famous Korean group KoPAS (Korean Performance Art Spirit).





When: December 5-7, 2008
Time: Friday Dec 5 at 7.30 pm, Sat Dec 6 at 4 pm and 7.30pm, Sunday Dec. 7 at 4pm (running time - 60 minutes)
Where: Nowon Art Centre. (tel. 02)3392-5721~5) (see map below)
Cost: 20,000 won (full), 10,000 won (concession)
Contact: KoPAS (02) 323-6812


Map to Nowon Arts center:

Juliette Clovis - French pop artist exhibition - Art Monde Art Center, Gallery VIEW, Seoul

What: Juliette Clovis - French pop artist exhibition
Where: Art Monde Art Center - Gallery VIEW, Changjeondong, Mapogu, Seoul, (opposite Ssamzie Space - near Hongik University). See map below.
Dates: 2008.10.27(mon)-2008.11.27(thu)
Website: www.artmonde.com


Click map for larger view:

The Next of Russian Art - exhibition Gallery Loop

Exhibition: The Next of Russian Art

A collection of works from contemporary Russian artists - sculpture, installation, painting, photography, video.

Where: Gallery Loop, Hongdae (see map below)


When: Opening Nov 7 - Nov 28


Website: www.galleryloop. com








Click on map for larger view

SSamzie space - Danish artists group AVPD- exhibition opening and talk

On Friday November 7, at 4.30 pm at Ssamzie Space there will be an artist's talk by Danish interdisciplinary art group AVPD.
The exhibition opening is at 6pm, Friday Nov 7 and will continue until Dec. 31, 2008.

AVPD have innovative approaches in dealing with space, and their interdisciplinary work crosses boundaries between architecture, design and fine arts. They present 5 new multimedia installations expressing their view on human perception/ space/ and the real/virtual.

Ssamzie Space is located in Changjeong-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul. (Not far from Hongik University)
Tel: 02 3142-1693
Website: www.ssamziespace.com
Email: ssamziespace@ssamziespace.com
See map for directions:

Gwangju Biennale finishes November 9.

You have only 7 days to see " Annual Report: A Year in Exhibitions", the 7th Gwangju Biennale.

Travel Note: You can get to Gwangju easily from Seoul by KTX in under 3 hours. A one-day trip is very possible. There are free shuttle buses running between Biennale venues.

Under the artistic direction of Okwui Enwezor, (and co-curated by Hyunjin Kim and Ranjit Hoskote) the exhibition is “a report on the distribution system of artistic and cultural forms and a reflection on the intermediary gap between artists, producers, practitioners, and audiences.” Annual Report includes 127 artists from 36 countries, visit the Gwangju Biennale 2008 website for the complete list.

The Biennale is developed around three components: On the Road, a series of exhibitions from 2007 and 2008; Position Papers, a series of curatorial proposals and experiments by curators working in Southeast Asia, North Africa, South Korea, and the United States; and Insertions, a series of new and independent projects, either commissioned specifically for the biennale or invited as proposals into the exhibition framework. The Biennale spans five venues: Biennale Hall, Gwangju Museum of Art, Uijae Museum of Korean Art, Cinema Gwangju, and Daein Traditional Market.

You can watch a video in English about the exhibition here:
www.gwangju-biennale.org/2008gb/eng/about/Movie.html

According to the website:
“The importance of the Gwangju Biennale is, at least, twofold: on the one hand, it is one of the key international cultural institutions to emerge from Korea’s unique modern, national, and historical experience, and linked to the dynamism of Asia in the 21st century…At the same time, the Gwangju Biennale has evolved into one of the few pioneering international exhibitions to engage in the task of analyzing the impact of globalization on the field of contemporary art, and to challenge an older system of international exhibitions based on the outmoded system of national pavilions. In so doing, Gwangju Biennale has provided the space in which to explore the changing nature of international artistic networks, and to examine new modes of artistic subjectivity and conditions of contemporary cultural production that extend beyond national borders or focus on regional modes of identification.”

Gallery LOOP exhibition-opening Oct 17, 6pm

Just to let you know that there is an Art Exhibition opening this Friday Oct 17, 6pm at Gallery LOOP, Hongdae.
The artist is from India - Justin Ponmany, and he uses installation, photos and painting with holographic pigments.
The exhibition runs from Oct 17 to Oct 31, 2008.
Free entry.
See website: www.galleryloop.com

See location map below (nearest subway station Hongdae - green line) :

Seoul International Media Art Biennale - Turn and Widen

A highly recommended contemporary exhibition:-
Seoul International Media Art Biennale - 'Turn and Widen'
Venue: Seoul Museum of Art (near City Hall)
Date: 2008. 09. 12 ~ 2008. 11. 05
Cost: Free entry
This media-based exhibition has something for everyone - from fun interactive computer and video art to thought-provoking installations. Entry is free so you can visit as many times as you want to experience the different aspects.
For details see the website:
www.seoul.moa.go.kr
You can see a 6 minute video introduction to the exhibition at Art on TV website by clicking on Art On View.

'Candle night' Solstice festival Seoul, June 21

On June 21, Summer solstice, the Korean Women' s environment network will host a "Slow Life" festival in Seoul.



See the Candle night website


Date: Saturday June 21
Time: 6pm - 10 pm
Place: N Seoul Tower (Namsan) Square

Candle workshops, exhibitions, environmentally friendly lifestyle information, unplugged concert by candlelight.
Please email Miwon at: kwen7944@hanmail.net

MODAFE-International Modern Dance Festival in Seoul

The 27th International modern dance festival (MODAFE 2008) is held from May 27 - June 7, 2008.
Top overseas and Korean artists will present a range of performances and seminars.
The program includes some interesting interdisciplinary pieces from international choreographers such as David Zambrano, Jan Fabre, Benoit Lachambre and Philippe Combes.

You can see the performance schedule on the MODAFE website .

Busan Biennale 2008 - mark this in your diary for September

Theme: Expenditure
Period: Sep. 06. - Nov. 15. 2008 (71 days)
Opening ceremony: Sep. 06. 2008
Venues: Busan Museum of Modern Art and others
Exhibitions:
Contemporary Art Exhibition
Sea Art Festival,
Busan Sculpture Project
Participating artists: 183 artists from 34 countries
Host/organizer:
Busan Metropolitan City
Busan Biennale Organizing Committee
Contact: telephone: +82-(0)51-888-6691~9
fax: 82-51-888-6693
email: bbiennale@paran.com

website: www.busanbiennale.org

The 2008 Busan Biennale shows uniqueness of contemporary art from both east and west. 183 artists from 34 countries will represent a distinctive philosophy of "expenditure" and a vivid scene of contemporary art through a variety of artworks including paintings, photographs, videos, installations, outdoor sculptures, etc. Made up of the Contemporary Art Exhibition, the Sea Art Festival and the Busan Sculpture Project, The 2008 Busan Biennale unfolds at the Busan Museum of Modern Art, Gwangalli Beach, APEC Naru Park from September 6th to November 15th.

The Contemporary Art Exhibition will be hosted in the Busan Museum of Modern Art, employing not only the interior spaces of the gallery but also the walls, parking lots, and outdoor spaces nearby to highlight the characteristics of individual art fields. Special exhibits are planned in the measurement room of the Busan Yachting Center, arranging the works of major artists or large-scale installation works. There will be 103artists’ works from 25countries exhibiting.

The exhibits seek to approach contemporary art from critical viewpoints, believing that contemporary art is mired in the trap of reproducing the false images of saturated, oversupplied, repeated symbolic values. Since the symptoms of expenditure appear not only in contemporary society and culture but also in art, especially, in the whole spectrum of contemporary art, it will become a major keyword to reading the latest art trends, which seeks to visualize features of provocation and disintegration.

The Sea Art Festival, which is expected to be a festive venue composed of a variety of works, performances, art and music, will unfold on Gwangalli Beach and nearby areas as a project crossing the boundary between art and everyday life, emphasizing the friendliness of contemporary art. A wide variety of participation art will be exhibited, including ecological works made of environmentally-friendly materials, which will naturally disappear, performance art, and artworks that allow visitors to find or look into something, etc. 58 artists from 18 countries will participate in the festival.

The theme of the Sea Art Festival, "Voyage Without Boundaries," symbolizes the navigation of desires moving toward unfathomable areas. The future seen from the perspective of quantum mechanics is uncertainty itself, emphasizing randomness and unpredictability. Since the future is not determined, it presents freedom and choice, with several factors and motives complementing to participate and engage. The Sea Art Festival brings to the world of reality the conditional "if," which cannot exist in history. The history that we believe is inevitable is rewritten through the distortion of time and space. New artists, who create new artistic - not historical - events, will serve as explorers navigating to find new routes. These new pioneers discover and revise new routes, based upon their intuition and judgement, to find the present address of contemporary art.

The Busan Sculpture Project is inviting 20 artists from 12 countries. The exhibits will be hosted in APEC Naru Park. Materials like stone, concrete, brick, metal, wood will show harmony with grass, flowers, and trees in nature. Going beyond the existing boundary of the sculpture genre, the Project will pursue to harmonize spatial geographical works, such as installation, architecture, landscape architecture, sound, etc. with a city, art, and a garden.

The exhibits will not seek to visually transform a park itself, but rather, extend the epistemological denotation of the space itself. Thus, in addition to artistic and utilitarian works, such as site-specific sculptures and street furniture, the Busan Sculpture Project will be made up of synesthetic works that will change the whole space into one creative space. By installing artworks on the boundaries of a park, the Project will naturally connect what used to be a divided landscape, revealing contemplation on a divide in communication amid advanced information technology and the cure for the problem. The Project will also deal with introspection into an unproductive consumption activity in contemporary consumption-centered society through a stroll on a garden, which is categorized as an "unproductive activity," in contemporary society, where every system is arranged according to the mechanism
of production.

183 artists from 34 countries participate in the 2008 Busan Biennale. Please find how many artists are invited from each country in the followings.

Contemporary Art Exhibition
Georgia 1, The Netherlands 2, Denmark 1, Germany 2, Romania 2, Morocco 1, USA 17, Mexico 1, Venezuela 1, Sweden 1, Switzerland 1, England 4, Israel 1, Italy 2, India 2, Japan 9, China 8, Cyprus 1, Canada 3, Trinidad and Tobago 1, Thailand 5, Portugal 1, France 6, Australia 1 and Korea 29

Sea Art Festival
New Zealand 1, Germany 2, Taiwan 1, Sweden 1, Switzerland 1, Singapore 1, Ireland 1, England 2, Indonesia 1, Japan 7, China 3, Trinidad and Tobago 1, Thailand 1, Poland 2, France 2, Philippines 2, Australia 1 and Korea 30

Busan Sculpture Project
New Zealand 1, The Netherlands 1, USA 2, Vietnam 1, Scotland 1, Ireland 1, England 1, Indonesia 1, Japan 2, China 2, Canada 1 and Korea 6

Busan Biennale 2008
Sep. 6 - Nov. 15, 2008,
Press Opening
Sep. 5. 2008, Auditorium at the Busan Museum of Modern Art
Opening Ceremony
Sep. 6. 2008

Free monthly Art and Culture tour in Hongdae, Seoul

I found this notice in the May edition of Art Map -
Seoul art & culture project with Sangsangmadang:
"Recovering Hongdae".
Date: April - October 2008, the 4th Sunday of each month. 1.30 - 5 pm.
This program is a cultural tour through items of interest in Hongdae. "Recovering Hongdae" with Sansangmadang and SFAC occurs once a month with 20 members for free who applied through the Sangsang madang website. www.sangsangmadang.com

The 4th Sunday of this month is May 25, and in June it would be on June 22. The Sangsangmadang is a swish new arts centre with cinema, gallery, theatre etc located in the Hongdae area, in Seoul. The website is all in Korean so you might need a Korean friend to help get you on the tour list. I'm not quite sure what Hongdae is supposed to be "recovering" from (maybe that's a mistranslation and it should be "re-discovering Hongdae"?) , but sounds like a good way of sticking your nose into the Korean art scene.
email:na@ssmadang.co.kr
Web page info: Culture Planet sangsangmadang

**STOP PRESS: Email from the organisers received May 21. 2008:
"Rediscovering Hongdae" is currently being operated only in Korean as participants are mainly natives at the moment.

However, from September or October, we are planning to prepare exclusive programs for foreign participants proceeded in English.
For this month May) , we have closed the application process, and as present programs in Korean might be inconvenient for you, I would recommend you to take part in the exclusive program that, as I mentioned above runs in English expected to start in September.
However, if you want to try to join this month’s program, please feel free to contact me again. (E-mail : na@ssmadang.co.kr)

I will happily set it up for your convenience.
최하나 매니저 / 상상마당, 마케팅팀
Choi, Ha-na / PR&Marketing / Manager
Tel. 82 2 330 6206 / Fax. 82 2 330 6220 / Mobile. 82 10 9864 0915
Tel: 02-330-6206

Here's a map of the Hongdae area - click on it to see more detail:

______________________________________________________
The author of this blog, Penelope Thompson, is an Australian contemporary artist living in Korea who works in performance, installation and community art events. You can see her personal exhibition blog at penelopethompson.blogspot.com.

Calling all Creative Aliens...

I know you're out there - trained artists, dancers, musicians, actors, writers, film makers… all probably working off a student debt or saving for your next project by teaching English somewhere in Korea. If you're like I was when I first arrived, maybe you don't know how to get involved in creative arts projects here, or that a vibrant art festival scene even exists.

It was quite a shock for me to discover that performance art is actually quite big in Korea - with numerous festivals happening all over the country especially in the summer months. Now what I'm talking about here is not the "performing arts" - which is a general term for entertainment in the form of theatre, dance, music, but rather art-based performance, sometimes called "live art". If you think of the art "happenings" in the '60s and '70s when artists did strange things in galleries and public spaces you're on the right track.

Nowadays with new technology, the forms of performance art are ever expanding, and the boundaries between "performing arts" and "performance art" are blurring. I guess the best way of describing performance art is as an event that involves the live presence of the artist(s) and expresses a concept through any kind of media. While that definition may sound kind of dry and boring, it actually means that anything goes and so it's one of the most exciting and energetic art fields today.




In Korea, many provincial cities hold annual performance art festivals, often with a community focus, and organisers would like to invite foreign artists to participate, but the language barrier and lack of any centralised network of communication for in-country creative foreigners usually prohibits contact. Sure there are foreigners who get together, usually in Seoul, and make music or have the odd solo exhibition, but that's usually targeted only at the foreign/English-speaking community. There is an exciting opportunity to also share creative ideas and have cultural exchange with the Korean community - if we can make contact.



If you would like to connect with the Korean creative community I will post links on this Art'n'about blog, and I'd also love to hear from you about any upcoming art projects or existing groups. So watch the side bar and upcoming posts...

______________________________________________________
The author of this blog is an Australian contemporary artist living in Korea who works in performance, installation and community art events. You can see her blog at penelopethompson.blogspot.com.

A trip to Seoul National Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA, Seoul)

Sunday at the MoCA

In a recent burst of springtime enthusiasm, I headed for the first time to Seoul Grand Park for a Sunday outing to the National Museum of Contemporary Art. To do this I actually had to overcome my general aversion to large-scale, government-run cultural institutions and my prior impressions of the MoCA as an uninviting fortress-like building in a seemingly remote location. But having done it I can now honestly say the trip was well worth the effort.

It was a very pleasant surprise to step off subway Line 4 after only 30 minutes and enter a lovely, uncrowded park, and stroll with my friends past a scenic lake and through a grassy sculpture garden leading up to the entrance of the museum. The current main attraction until June 15 is a world-class exhibition of contemporary installation art by French artist Annette Messager, for an inexpensive 3000 won entry fee.

So after relaxing with a good coffee on the museum's outdoor deck, my friends and I entered the gallery.

It was immediately obvious that Annette Messager's work has truly taken over the space in Gallery 1 and 7 of the MoCA. This retrospective show is a surprising mix of very large-scale kinetic works, intense black and white photographs, and installations consisting of everything from stuffed birds, netting and children's toys to collections of books, clothing and drawings. At times, you can feel like you are watching a colorful circus or visual theatre show rather than what you would normally expect to see in an art museum. As many of the works are also displayed in specially constructed spaces that deliberately restrict the audience's view, this exhibition is doubly stimulating to the mind and senses.

'The black spots' is an installation housed in a very large darkened space, which can be viewed only through slit-like windows in the wall. The viewer sees multitudes of constantly moving tiny black balls of feathers apparently floating in space for almost as far as the eye can see. These "black spots" hang almost invisibly from the ceiling by fishing line while hidden electric fans disturb the air, creating a strange and mesmerizing effect.

This movement of air is used in many pieces, notably in the very dynamic installation 'Casino' where a huge wave of red silk rolls towards us through a door-like opening.

This red wave seems to threaten to engulf us only to subside while mysterious objects light up as if under a red sea, followed finally by a mass of black skull-like symbols rising up on wires to the heavens. Likewise, the almost magical 'Inflate/Deflate' (2006) presents a jungle of inflatable silk bodily organs, that "breathe" in a synchronized, cyclical group movement, like a grotesque parody of our own visceral existence.

There is certainly a lot to see in this exhibition and it is often colorful, strange, intriguing, disturbing, humorous, bizarre, and at times, beautiful. It's the kind of show one can enjoy on a purely experiential level, or take the time to mull over the artist's concepts of life, death, gender roles and emotional realities. A particularly thought-provoking work is the installation piece called 'The Boarders' (1971-1972).

















This is a collection of hundreds of dead small birds (like sparrows), clothed in tiny hand-knitted woolen jackets symbolizing healing and representing the nurturing role of women. I also found myself spending a lot of time looking closely at Messager's very striking large black and white close-up photographs of body parts such as an ear, foot, hand, mouth etc in her series 'My trophies' (1986 - 1988), on which she has painted strange and symbolic images that seem to tell dream-like stories.


In another room a 70-minute video of the artist discussing her work is shown, but unfortunately the language is French (with the audio levels set so low it's difficult to hear anyway) and the subtitles are only in Korean.


So if you want to know more about the artist you'll have to wait until you get home to search the Internet. You can read an in-depth interview with the artist here.

Surprisingly there were no exhibition catalogues or postcards available at the museum shop on the day I visited - a full month after the exhibition opening - although the staff did assure me they were "coming soon".

My friends and I left the MoCA feeling inspired and refreshed and we chose to stroll again through the leafy, green park back to the subway station. Even some days later, many of the images from the Annette Messager exhibition were still fresh in my mind, and the whole MoCA experience counts as one of the highlights of my time in Seoul so far. I strongly recommend that you too make the effort to get down to Seoul Grand Park and catch this unusual exhibition before June 15.


For more information visit www.moca.go.kr or call 02-2022-0600. The National Museum of Contemporary Art is located near Seoul Grand Park (Subway Line 4). For those who don't want to walk to the Art Museum there is a shuttle bus every 20 mins from Exit 4 of the Seoul Grand Park subway.

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The author of this blog, Penelope Thompson, is an Australian contemporary artist living in Korea who works in performance, installation and community art events. You can see her personal exhibition blog at penelopethompson.blogspot.com.

12X36 Lomography exhibition - Seoul, L.A. and Philadelphia

Just when you thought it was safe to give away that old film camera and go completely digital, Lomography pops up as a 'point & shoot' film camera phenomenon with a world-wide, almost cult -like, following. Before attending the opening of the '12x36- a local lens' photographic exhibition at Art Space Hue in early April, I had never even heard of the Russian-made Lomo camera nor the style of "shoot from the hip" photography termed Lomography, but I found myself being pleasantly surprised at the raw character, vibrant color and variety of the photographs on display.



In line with the philosophy of Lomography of "take your camera everywhere you go", and "use it anytime - day and night" a diverse group of 12 artists in Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Seoul, were each provided with a Lomo camera, loaded with only one 36-shot roll of 35 mm film. Their mission was to explore the theme of local space versus local culture in their particular cities. The artists then returned their exposed but unprocessed film which was then printed onto an enlarged 30"x36" contact proof sheet for exhibition, plus three photos were chosen by each of the artists as 11" by 14" prints. The unusual thing about this exhibition was that identical prints of all the photos were shown simultaneously in three galleries during April; Art Space Hue here in Seoul, the 222 Gallery in Philadelphia, and Gallery Revisited in Los Angeles. The exhibition curator, Benjamin Kaplan, wanted to compare the direct, tangible experience of three different urban spaces through the gallery shows in each city as well as via online exhibition. (Visit the exhibition website at 12X36.com).




The participating artists included: WK, Yangachi, Haelan Kim, and Yeji Yun from Seoul, Melissa Farley, Dan Murphy, Ted Passon, and Randall Sellers - all from Philadelphia, plus the Los Angeles artists; Andy Bruntel, Michael Hsiung, Estevan Oriol and Jessica Robbins. The artists were selected from a variety of backgrounds and were mostly not photographers, ensuring that this exhibition was in accord with the low-tech, high spontaneity ideals of Lomography.



Because of the small-size of the photographs it was more like looking at a spread of artist's "home" snapshots rather than the usual large format gallery display - but this meant that viewers were drawn into close quarters with the works, and the sense of sequencing and relative place and time of each of the images was preserved by the proof sheet format. Subjects varied from what looked like home birthday parties and informal shots of friends and family, to candid images of street life, posed portraits of L.A identities such as Snoop Dog, bleak realities of city housing projects or just the simplicity of a backyard lemon tree against a blue sky.


Examples of the Lomo cameras, (which were first invented in 1982 in Russia as a Soviet answer to the compact Japanese cameras of the day), were on display and/or for sale at the participating galleries. The exhibition was sponsored in part by the Lomographic Society International - which is described as a "far-reaching, international socio-cultural movement, using photography as a creative approach to communicate, absorb and capture the world". The society boasts over 500,000 international members, and offers a variety of accessible photographic competitions, real and virtual exhibitions, and publications. For more information about the background of Lomography, purchasing and using a Lomo camera, and to read the full story of the popular rise of this amazing little film camera see www.lomography.com.



While walking around the exhibition and admiring the "edginess" of most of the works, I still found myself thinking about all the hundreds of packets of snapshot photos I have had printed over the years (most of which are still languishing in cardboard boxes somewhere) and I have to admit I decided against buying a Lomo camera … for now, anyway.

The innovative photographic exhibition '12x36- a local lens' - April 4 - April 26 at Art Space Hue - Mijin bldg, 464-41, Seogyo Mapo Seoul 121-841. Check it out on line at www.12x36.com .
In Korea contact: Benjamin Kaplan 010-4757-7801 (English and Korean) Check out his Seoul contemporary art & culture site at www.thenativegaze.com
**NOTE**
If you're in Seoul and you want to buy a Lomo camera or just have a look at them and see the photos on display, there's now a dedicated Lomography shop near Hongik University at 362-14 Seogyo-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul. They do speak English so give them a call on 02-326-0255 or visit website Lomography Seoul shop

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This blog author, Penelope Thompson, is an Australian contemporary artist living in Korea who works in performance, installation and community art events. You can see her blog at penelopethompson.blogspot.com.