2016 DAEGU CONTEMPORARY ART FESTIVAL IN GANGJEONG IN KOREA
Period : July. 15 - Sep. 18, 2016
Venue : At DARC in Gangjeong in Daegu in Korea
Artistic Director : Okreal Kim
Text : Okreal Kim
Organization : Dalsung Culture Foundation
1. The fifth, 5
The Daegu Contemporary Art Festival in Gangjeong was held four times under the themes ‘Riverside Rhapsody’ in 2012, ‘Goes to Gangjeong’ in 2013, ‘Water·light from Gangjeong’ in 2014 and ‘Gangjeong, from near and far’ in 2015. In 2016, this year, to mean that it is the fifth exhibit, the Art Festival was held under the title ‘5’ with the participation of 28 artists. Number ‘5’ in ‘the Fifth Daegu Contemporary Art Festival in Gangjeong’ expresses not only the respect for the Daegu Contemporary Art Festival in 1970s having been held five times from 1974 to 1979 (‘74,’75,’77,’78,’79) but also represents the realization of the will of rebirth. Furthermore,it also contains long-cherished desire for the practice of various artistic vision in a place where life and art meets, with this year’s Daegu Contemporary Art Festival in Gangjeong as the starting point.
Gangjeong is the riverside between Nakdonggang River and Keumhogang River where in the 1970s, young artists’ spirits for challenge are embedded in. After 40 years, currently with the expansion of the city, it has changed into a park on the boundary of being artificial and natural. That is why the current Gangjeong is the same place but different, different but the same. Just as both nature and cities have changed rapidly since the 70s, people have also changed from those times. Naturally the feelings and expressions upon seeing an art piece have also diversified. These changes make us ask serious questions as years go by, as to how the direction that Daegu Contemporary Art Festival in Gangjeong takes should pace in our current lives.
This question, rather than assuming a certain sense, is to focus on helping the people who create art and present the work produce the meanings themselves. So this exhibition focused on reducing the weight of the defined themes and open up the participating artists’ views on the venue.
2. Gangjeong’s hardening
Daegu Contemporary Art Festival in Gangjeong’s ‘5’ – every year since 2012, it has been hardening itself to plant work of art more passionate than the summer in Gangjeong and to plant it in the people in the area.This is art getting closer to the living space and creativity and sentiments hardening each other. Same but different five meetings, meetings of art in life and life in art hardening each other to make our bodies and minds also stronger.
Artworks spread out in Gangjeong The ARC square have become the oasis of sentiments under the scorching midday sun. In places where life and art meets, the urbanites’ ecological sensitivity also breathes alive. Just like the changes during the four seasons, Gangjeong’s summer blossomed and withered with life and art. Artwork that was displayed in Gangjeong embraced night and day and made contacts all summer. Artwork, whether unfamiliar or familiar, that one would encounter in the hot summer and cold wind, with its color and form melted into the creative passion, embraced the strong wind, the hot sun and most of all, the lives of numerous people.
Gangjeong The ARC square that is close to the city, is where Nakdonggang River and Keumhogang River meets and along the riverside, and wetlands are formed around it. Gangjeong is a city park that is closely connected the both the city and nature. The most important aspect of city parks is that it combines the natural ecology of human emotions to make a home of cultural ecology. Where people reside, there is water and culture. Water is the source of the natural ecology, and art is a source of emotion ecology. Art festivals for emotion ecology are for life ecology. Combining the Chinese characters 人, meaning a person, and 然 from nature creates relations or ties. Gangjeong is a place where 人 and 然 are combined together. This year’s Daegu Contemporary Art Festival in Gangjeong was the place where the relationship between humans and nature were perceived in various ways. Most of all, it was an exhibition that breathed life’s dreams and art’s dreams lively. I would like to introduce the artwork of this year’s participating artists that allowed for us to break out of the hard shell and navigate freely with flexible thinking.
3. The Artist and the Artwork
Gerog Klein(Germany)--------------------------------------------
Through one of the psychoacoustic phenomena, the deepening soundproofing, this sound installation, produces five of Korea's unique sound insulation, five different pulse shapes that are transparent and only existing in the virtual world, and two sides that are different but with very similar behaviors. The deepest Korean sound insulation is 38Hz, having a double sidedness, and the other sound insulation presents more peaceful sounds.
Kyongho Ko (Korea)
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‘Reflection - shelter’ is focused on creating an intuitive perception of the same place in a different time period. Between myself and the subject, this place is where the familiarity and the unfamiliarity operates at the same time, discovering minute sensorial effect. This place is the time and place where the rediscovery of perception and sensory happens for the sensory effect of the body and the spirit is or where the body is placed.
Hoon Kwak
This artwork is about a cage that carries chicken and ramen, a meal. This combination that cannot coexist gives a tension and gives the energy of a visual energy of a readymade. It is up to the appreciator to freely infer what the situational meaning of this combination is.
Gaehyun Kim
Kijo Kim
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Life’s joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure was expressed through 12 Chinese Zodiac animals. Their faces are those of animals, but their bodies are rid of the armor and instead are in our traditional clothes Hanbok, and they are playing piling up. The 12 Chinese Zodiac animals’ various facial expressions and their behaviors show the meaning of life and the inner world of people.
Jinwoo Nam
In ‘Gate-Penetrated Boundary’, the outer cover being removed and the ambiguous boundaries showing of the outside being projected onto the inside. This only works as the boundary that separates the two existing things, but also acts as the passage between the inside and the outside. Any situation and scene are expressions of the artist on that ‘boundary’.
Byungyeol No
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Just as a kettle that cannot grow grows, the irregularity is the result of long waits and laggardness. One way to help the kettle grow is to repeat the soaking and drying process. This artwork makes us think about the circulation laws of nature and how whatever is already grown will reach extinction and it will form and change into something new.
Juhwan Noh
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Putting behind the complexities of daily lives, come out to the Gangjeong dike to feel the wind and overlook the running river. Then face the words that suddenly pass by. Words that have become the scenery wake up our daily lives and allow us to pick up the experience to scan our beautiful lives.
Rie Kawakami(Japan)
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This artwork is a contemplation of light. The abstract form shows the path of the light coming in through the transparent building’s top window. The rectangular frame on the top is connected by light to the big rectangular frame on the floor. The frame on the top shows the impression of the situation outside the window. However, the rectangular frame on the floor represents the light that has come into the inside of the frame, which means something special.
Saenghwa Kim
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Inspired from sounds that insects make, this artwork dreams of a fairytale with nature within the city, displays part of the orchestra that personified insects. Image of the insect sound and the sound of instruments are combined turned into insects playing instruments. The fairytale-like imagination of ‘The insect orchestra’ echos nature’s sound.
Sookbin Kim
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This is a bench made while thinking about a salamander that was stepped on by hiking shoes and poked on by hiking sticks. While the bench is stepped on and is poked on, it still provides a shelter for rest. Perhaps we live being oblivious to the fact that even by our unintentional actions, the nature feels threatened. This piece dreams of a life where salamanders and humans can coexist.
Hak-J Kim
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This represents the examination of humans living in the digital times where changes are happening at a surprisingly fast rate. In the center of the artwork is a robot, which represents cutting-edge technology, holding a baby that represents human race in the loop of the globe, and the mirror projects the sky that represents the universe.
Joo Moon
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A low wooden bench was made for regular people to rest and have conversations when they visit the Gangjeong Goryeong reservoir. Low wooden benches symbolize the cultural community in times when people sat around together in the summer evenings to chat. This symbol faces questions by being on the border between serving as a visual and perceptual, or artistic and social value or physical function.
Hyungjin Park
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This artwork, through a mixed ambiguous image, raises its guard against fixed judgments. Whether it looks a flower or an image of something blowing up, etc., the ‘Orange tree’ does not imputes itself to a specific form and through the psychological blank space, lets people make their own interpretations.
Bernhard Draz(Germany)
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‘Forgotten Words Project’ is the installation in The ARC square, displaying words with the same meaning in Korean and German, made of stainless steel pieces. Each word is connected or segmented irregularly to other words with either same or different meanings. Among the gap between the German and Korean language, words are placed with other words, constructing their own networks of meanings.
Shoufan Piao(China)
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Couples are lovers among numerous people, who look at the world together and feel it. Mencius’ theory is that human nature is fundamentally good. This artwork, through looking at a tree and finding harmony of the benevolent beauty and benevolent life, found a couple that is one that became two or two that became one in the texture of the wood.
Sunghawn Shin
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In many places of the ARC square near Nakdonggang River, there are a total of seven types of plants that await enthusiastic participation of the audience. The only way these plants can survive during the exhibition period is the audience’s participation in the [QR code survey] and the given questions must be answered for the plants to be provided water that is the source of their life.
Yaning Zhang(China)
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People want to find their selves, and want to identify their positive selves and negative selves. Individuals are like lonely planets. Life is an interaction of the ideal and the reality, solitude and desire pulling each other. This artwork is about the truth and the lie, truth and falsity, the indeterminate boundary, the self, and human nature.
Taewon Oh
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In water drops, there are so many of life’s tears. Water is very flexible and without a frame it cannot maintain its shape. ‘Drops of Gangjeong’ could be water drops that wandered around the whole universe and finally landed on the tip of the leaf at dawn, before dropping onto the ground, and it is the water drop of dream that embraced the history of Gangjeong.
Yuhei Higashikata(Japan)
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This artwork is focused on two people. They are Korea’s goblin (dokkebi) and Japan’s goblin (Tengu), and similarities between the two can be seen. The roots of the two have not been identified, but they must have derived from hylozoism or folk religion. This exhibition work connects various objects used in daily lives and this represents the bridge between the two countries.
Myungmi Lee
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Putting myself in the natural scenery, in the bright and warm colored light of love, friendship and so many hearts, I send you myself in the in a package. In a package that holds a heart that shares love with lovers and family in the sizzling summer where the river meets river and a person meets a person, I send you myself.
Sangheon Lee
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A rocking horse is a memory from childhood. The memory of my father riding the rocking horse with me for I was fearful is still vivid. As I became a middle-aged man, my deceased father sometimes appears in the rocking horse and comes to me. ‘The memories of my childhood’ is a memory of my father I do not want to let go of.
Soungung Lee
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The blue whale is the biggest living thing in the world. Although it is big and strong, this animal only swims in the ocean and feeds on plankton. This artwork makes us think about human lives through what can be seen and cannot be seen from the strong image and in that line the blue whale following the laws of nature.
Wonkyung Lee
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On pillows, which could be seen as a generic term for dreams, various people sleep with eyes closed. The pillows that were weighed down by the sleep are in various shapes. Absence where there is a premise for reality, in other words there is no reality but the combined image of the raised work of the pillow and the sunk relief of the face. This combination is the way of existing where the dream and the reality is combined; in other words, there is the emptiness and the fullness, the absence and the existence crosses to show the beauty of yin and yang.
Taekkeun Lee
A phenomenon, perception, questions about the notion, doubt are all core aspects that are essential for critical thinking. In other words, through the interaction between the artist’s trick or lie of creating a fake object and the audience’s illusion, it questions the notion of everyday life.
Dohoon Lim
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Looking at the stars in the night sky, we feel that we are small beings. At those moments life becomes empty and helpless but watching those countless stars we also dream. ‘A flower that blossomed in the field of fire’ connects unrest and self-esteem, which occurs between birth and extinction of life, by light as if collecting the stars.
T-yong Chung
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My interest is in getting rid of the empty spaces between time periods and between spaces. That is for getting rid of the wall between the East and the West, getting rid of the apparition of surrealism and to make this moment everlasting. This artwork is a construction of a box fossil that has transcended time and space.
Chansook Choi
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Particles, the smallest form of physics, moves between east and west and then due to gravity, collides and spreads at the same energy level. The movements of particles become waves and in line with the basics of nature, yin and yang, they present the fundamental movements related to reproduction and circulation. I wanted to share the time on the border of the reality and the imagined world.
4. ‘5’ and the vision afterwards
Now Gangjeong is becoming a place where one experience yields many experiences with artworks that evade the delicate boundary between the changes in yesterday and today, day and night. Daegu Ctemporary Art Festival in Gangjeong serves as a place where the emotion ecology that allows for finding the ‘other self’ in the unconscious or subconscious, buried by the daily lives, expands. Emotion ecology is the nature of our bodies and minds. Water and art that is the source of human life and nature are the source of culture. The emotion we have toward nature is like deep and wide like the river flowing to the ocean, just like “Deep water fountains, do not cease to flow in drought, but reach the sea” (epic poem titled Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven “Yongbieocheonga”, chapter 2).
Just as life in 2016 changed with the way we perceived the relationship between nature and humans differently, and the emotion ecology for communication changed, the ecology of art also went through many changes. The 21st century is also known as the 4.0 industrial period. We live in the new times also called the ‘Maker Movement’. The Maker Movement is for makers (who make things they need by themselves) to share, execute and improve. This means that these are times when anyone can be their own manufacturers. The infinitely open era, the era of open source is dreaming of a new way of communication and evolution.
This year is the year of red monkey. Just like the meaning of the red monkey, Daegu Contemporary Art Festival in Gangjeong’s ‘5’ was the time of sharing dreams and hopes with passion and wisdom. I wish that next year’s Daegu Contemporary Art Festival in Gangjeong, the sixth step, the seventh, eighth, and each step forward, Daegu Contemporary Art Festival in Gangjeong with its culture ecology, evoke sense into the art ecology as the representative art festival of not only Daegu but of Korea’s modern arts.
2015--------------------
2015 Daegu Contemporary Art Festival in Gangjeong in Korea
FROM NEAR AND FAR
Period : Aug.21 - Sep.20
Venue : At DARC in Gangjeong in Daegu
Artistic Director : Okreal Kim
Text : Okreal Kim
Organization : Dalsung Culture Foundation
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| John Clement(U.S.A) |
1. Gangjeong opens a new prospect in the field of public art. One of the dominant characteristics of art and culture in the 21th century is that there is no boundary between the city and places where creative activities are done nowadays. They are connected to each other, making our lives a work of art. Promptly meeting the needs of the times and considering the distinct characteristics of the area, Dalseong Gun has opened a new prospect in the field of public art beyond an artistic achievement, which proves that Gangjeong has become a new foothold for public art in the community, and Daegu Contemporary Art Festival in Gangjeong has created a new value as an artistic, cultural project.
The site-specificity of Gangjeong is what makes people who take a walk in the waterside park encounter artworks unexpectedly and raises the value of artworks while exciting their curiosity and provoking an active reaction. It literally opens a new prospect in the field of public art, creating a value of a place where various artists’ creativity and the viewers’ appreciation can be shared.
Also, the waterside park in Gangjeong has become an important place for experiments showing the process of how an era changes, which makes us respect spiritual worth more than material value. Unlike impressions that we get from typical sculptures and installation pieces that are fixed in a place semi-permanently, there is flexibility that enables us appreciate artworks that are exhibited only for a short while in the waterside park in Gangjeong.
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| Huibong Park(Korea) |
The flexibility, which cannot be obtained by appreciating a completed work of art exhibited in a certain place, serves as an advantage of having an outdoor exhibition that makes us share art in more various ways. As we try to make the waterside park in Gangejeong a cultural asset, we can establish a new prospect in the field of public art, creating artistic, cultural contents of our community.
The subject of the exhibition held in this year for an month, ‘From near and far’ is about pondering the tradition of DaeguContemporary Art Festival done in the 1970s, reviving it in the present beyond the passage of time, and the site-specificity that makes the city belong to nature and many unspecified persons encounter artworks around the Arc where the four-river project was held. Daegu Contemporary Art Festival has been an annual event and now Gangjeong is thought to be an alternative place where a new discourse on public art is held in various ways. The exhibition of Daegu Contemporary Art Festival is to explore a new vision of contemporary art and find out how works of public art communicate with the viewers.
How do the visitors of the waterside park sympathize with artists’ thoughts and interpret the site-specificity of an outdoor exhibition? What kind of artworks do we need for an exhibition held in a place like Gangjeong? In addition to developing an eye for art, what should an exhibition held in Gangjeong, a place where unspecified individuals take a walk or rest be like? All of those should be questioned.
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| Local Post(Korea) |
An answer to those questions perhaps is that art is not just about ‘seeing’. Artworks should also stimulate other senses, such as hearing, touch, smell, and taste. When the viewers sympathize with the artist’s thought by appreciating works of art, they can see the world with a new vision. For the probability of public art and the better communication in art and culture, we need to solve administrative problems and have a better attitude to appreciate artworks. To make an experimental public art festival and be culturally advanced, we need to reestablish the administrative system and make people in our community have ownership of the festival.
Also, to make the art festival that features with works of public art a great city brand, it will be better for us to have a project that creates various narratives than to have fixed sculptures and installation pieces permanently in Gangjeong. In other words, we should consider more about the process of making a great art festival, developing publicity and a good education system, not concerning much about the result of the festival. Once we put those principles into action, we will be able to make a great art project that has a future-oriented property.
From near and far, Contemporary Art Festival in Gangjeong has opened a new prospect of sharing art in life. The exhibition of Daegu Contemporary Art Festival in Gangjeong in this year was held for a month with two groups of artists and twenty-three independent artists from all over the world, including China, India, the United States, and Korea, featuring with various artworks.
Out of the typical exhibition sites, such as a gallery or a museum, with various features caused from the site-specificity of Gangjeong where the city and nature coexist, how an outdoor exhibition should be considered for ordinary people who take a walk in the waterside park? How the meaning and the value of it should be reestablished in ecological and anthropological aspects in the 21th century is an important issue, which is why we invited experts of various fields of art and had a seminar in this year.
2. Gangjeong, from near and far
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| Hayoon Jay Lee(U.S.A) |
2015 Daegu Contemporary Art Festival in Gangjeong was held under the title, ‘From near and far’, named after the title of a memoir of a French anthropologist, C. Levi-Strauss (1908-2009) written by a French philosopher, Didier Eribon who had meaningful conversations with C. Levi-Strauss who had almost eighty years of an academic journey. It was about a creative force that made the old anthropologist encompass an age that he lived. Beyond the cultural and age differences or genres, it makes us contemplate about our lives.
Above all, ‘From near and far’ means that an intellectual is the one who has both a myopic way of thinking and a far-sighted way of thinking. In other words, the exhibition of Daegu Contemporary Art Festival in Gangjeong was organized with the concept of time and space encompassing the past and the present.
Like the fate of the anthropologist who had both a myopic vision and a far-sighted vision when dealing with a subject, Daegu Contemporary Art Festival is an art project held in a place encompassing the past and the present, the city and nature, art and our lives. In that sense, the concept of ‘From near and far’ explains the site-specificity of Gangjeong that features with an outdoor exhibition. It implies that a culture and an art form, or one’s taste should be about passion for life and interpreted in various ways.
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| Myeongbeom Kim(Korea) |
In addition to the subject, ‘From near and far’, ‘The vision of Daegu Contemporary Art Festival’, another subject of a seminar that we had was about a discourse on progressive ways of developing an art festival and how Daegu Contemporary Art Festival can be a good example. A lot of artists and art critics participated in the seminar, and discussed a differentiated probability of art in our community and how Daegu Contemporary Art Festival can contribute to it. As an art director in charge of the exhibition of 2015 Daegu Contemporary Art Festival, I’d like to quote what we discussed in the seminar.
“It is important for us to revive the spirit of the exhibition, Daegu Contemporary Art Festival done in the 1970s while reflecting the tradition and the history of Daegu in the current circumstances. The spirit refers to contemporary art in a broad sense, and the core of it is about the participating artists’ experimental nature.” (Chandong Kim, Director of the art museum of Gyeong-gi Art Foundation)
“That we inherited a tradition from the exhibition of Daegu Contemporary Art Festival done in the 1970s has its own pros and cons. One thing that we have to do to organize a great art festival is that we should progress by learning through trial and error of the past and make the exhibition of Daegu Contemporary Art Festival a differentiated academic tradition, reflecting social issues and historic values.” (Youngdong Kim, Art critic)
“Daegu Contemporary Art Festival should be a selfinitiated project to a certain degree. Self-sustainable growth is a great feature that is needed for both independent artists and groups of artists in our community to have a creative discourse. Also, art museums and government agencies can make an effort to give artists a driving force with selfinitiated policies, so that they can do their own creative art activities spontaneously."(Sung-gyu Choi, Artist)
“We need to notice that 2015 Daegu Contemporary Art Festival is what we inherited from the exhibition of Daegu Contemporary Art Festival held in the 1970s. This means that making an archive of the exhibition of Daegu Contemporary Art Festival is as important as having the exhibition annually to keep it as a tradition and cherish the spirit of the exhibition held in the 1970s. In the medium to longer term, what we make as an archive of the exhibition could be a basis for another art festival. In this way, a virtuous circle would be created.” (Choonghwan Ko, Art critic)
“We have a great expectation of the participating artists of Daegu Contemporary Art Festival, both Daegu-based artists and those who are from other regions, especially in this time when the tradition of Daegu Contemporary Art Festival held in the 1970s has revived. We should turn
our potential energy into the energy of motion, changing abstruse modern art into something that has full vitality.” (In Hwang, Art critic)
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| Jongku Kim(Korea) |
It was a holiday when we had the seminar, but a lot of artists and people working in various fields of art participated in it. There was a tense atmosphere in the seminar room because it was where we could find out how much expectation we had of the exhibition of Daegu Contemporary Art Festival. One important thing that was mentioned in the seminar was how the spiritual heritage and the force of the self-sustainable growth of Daegu Contemporary Art Festival held in the 1970s can be maintained. Most artists, art critics, and those who are engaged in art businesses that participated in the seminar agreed that, to develop it in future-oriented ways, we should specialize differentiated features of the site-specificity that Gangjeong had and make it a self-initiated art festival. Suggesting how to put those ideas into practice, the director of the art museum of Gyeong-gi Art Foundation, Chandong Kim said, “We should provide artists great opportunities continuously, so that they can get creative energy spontaneously.” An art critic, Youngdong
Kim said, “The art director of Daegu Contemporary Art Festival should be given greater autonomy to make it a project that has its own identity drawing attention internationally.” Another art critic, Choonghwan Ko said, “We need to build a place where we could have an archive connecting the past, the present and the future, so that we could maintain what we collected well and exhibit them proudly.”
Also, about a point of view that the revival of Daegu Contemporary Art Festival can give people spontaneity when appreciating artworks, an art critic, In Hwang said, “When we are open-minded to accept new orders and communicate with others, we could understand the universal truth and share our feelings with one another.”
He pointed out the importance of reviving vitality in contemporary art and that of turning our potential energy into the energy of motion. An artist, Sunggyu Choi, who participated in Daegu Contemporary Art Festival in Gangjeong last year as a member of a group of artists, ‘Sunday paper’, had a presentation in the seminar, saying that we should make an self-initiated art festival, from which artists can establish their identity as an artist. He suggested that young artists in our community make a great discourse by organizing an art camp where groups of artists can gather and literally ‘make’ an exhibition, not just a typical exhibition that we ‘see’.
As what those art experts wished, Daegu Contemporary Art Festival can be a great outdoor art exhibition that opens a new prospect in the field of public art and brings a breath of fresh air into the art scene of our community and Korean art. Above all, art administrators and curators have to change their attitude and their view of the world to keep up with the times, so that they can appreciate new creativity of artists’ works with their new vision.
Inevitably, art is like a stranger that you encounter for the first time. What should art and culture today be like to represent local people’s sentiment reflected in our history that has been made continuously? How do they have the universal truth or represent a certain emotion that everyone in the world can share? Maybe we could find the kind of art in artists who develop their own originality while meeting the demands of the times or those who make artworks that represent the local character of where they belong and, also, have common features that can be understood internationally.
I remember a lot of good comments made by artists who participated in Daegu Contemporary Art Festival held in the 1970s about an attitude to perceive the world while having an interview with one of them to organize Daegu Contemporary Art Festival in the 2000s. Below is one of those comments still echoing in my mind.
“In my opinion the 1970s was like a textbook in the history of Korean art. It’s a standard sample. A sample should be thrown away after its role ended. People should be aware of the importance of the exhibition and realize that it contributed to the growth of Korean art. Then, it should be set aside because a textbook is just a reference for us to go one step further. It should not be a destination for the next generation. It should be thrown away, so that new artists can find a new direction. The problem is when we should throw it away. I think we could throw it away when we get a more important card. To throw it away we should know what Korean art really means and how art in the world circulates. If you could throw it away, you will be really creative. I think artists should study art and have more discussions with each other and pay attention to reality and the future. I hope this exhibition could be like a textbook for artists in the present and the future.” (Interview with Seokwon Chang)
3. Artists and artworks
The participating artists’ works for Daegu Contemporary Art Festival in this year are classified into four kinds. One of them is about those works that have visual echoes, installed beautifully on the large hill in Gangjeong and showing how much artists cared and studied about their materials. The second kind shows us how they interpret the site-specificity of Gangjeong and take their own vision from it. The third one is about interaction between the artworks and the viewers of Daegu Contemporary Art Festival in Gangjeong. The last one is about installation works giving us a metaphor of man and nature. |
| Woonhak Chung(Korea) |
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| Hanchul Shin(Korea) |
1) Visual echoes An artist, John Clement’s artwork, ‘Houdini’, created from 6” red steel pipe makes a great effect as if we see a drawing, in which one red circle is drawn on the green grass. It gives us positive vibes, as if telling us that we got the right answer in our lives. Also, an artist, Hanchul Shin shows us through his work, ‘Proliferation’, a great scene, in which a lot of colorful spheres connected to each other generate interesting forms and lights swayed in the breeze. Through a work called ‘Fruit of light’, an artist, Woonhak Chung shows us a big tree made of lots of LED light bulbs. It provides us a rest, dissipating our fatigue during the night in the waterside park in Gangjeong. An artist, Changmin Lim’s work, ‘Time frame series_Blossom” is about an essence of creation and extinction presented as an image of flowers. Projected onto an air screen, it shows us marvelous scenes of twenty kinds of flowers that bloom and vanish as time goes by. An artist, Seoungho Baik’s artwork, ‘Empty, being, landscape’ reminds the viewers of an image of a house and nature through the structure of the roof of the traditional house of Korea, Hanok, that the artist borrowed for his work. An artist, Junseub Sim makes the viewers have a synesthetic experience through a visual image that creates an auditory effect, so that they experience the echoes resounding through various senses. An artist, Kijo Kim built a pagoda with hundreds and thousands of grains of earth and named it ‘Historical remains’, symbolizing the passage of time. Through a work of art, ‘A circle in the water that doesn’t stop flowing’, an artist, Moha, Jongyuen Ahn visualized her thoughts of the essence of a human being, which has a long path of fate leading to the universe. ‘Wind space’, a work of art done by an artist, Yeon Lee, is about a space of one’s memory where the wind of Gangjeong stays and architectural lines that represent life in the city are drawn. An artist, Myeongbeom Kim’s work of art, ‘Watchtower’ shows us his own observation of time and space, which is the main concept of Daegu Contemporary Art Festival, evoking a longing for the past in the future, and a space that is near and far.
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| Seoungho Baik(Korea) |
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| Changmin Lim(Korea) |
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| Junseub Sim(Korea) |
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| Kijo Kim(Korea) |
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| Moha, Jongyuen Ahn(Korea) |
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| Yeon Lee(Korea) |
2) Vision In Gangjeong where you can see random people and a new city has been forming by young married couples, artists’ attitude toward life has been an important subject for some of those participating
artists of Daegu Contemporary Art Festival. An artist, Yunseob Kim is one of them. His installation piece called ‘A painting of an ascetic avoiding to live an idle life’. It is reinterpreted modernly from the art form of the traditional painting of an ascetic. It includes the meaning of ‘脫懈’, which is to avoid laziness and that of ‘神仙’, an ascetic who doesn’t live in reality, reminding us of an empty life of our contemporaries and a sense of alienation that young people these days often get. An artist, Sungil Yu’s work of art, ‘Spade’ is the result from attracting insects, using an the effect of light. An image of a spade symbolizes a means of labor in the boundary between the city and nature. Using the form of an animal and that of a human being as a metaphor to symbolize nature and the city, an artist, Jaehyun Kwon shows us the consumption structure of modern society presented in our food culture through his work of art, ‘Predator’ made of patches of plywood. An artist, Booyun Choi shows us through his work of art, ‘Consent’, that mass media can be controlled by the large society, functioning as a system that manipulated the truth. With his own vision, he perceives what surrounds him. Finding a path for the truth is life plunging himself into the world. ‘The heavy tears’, an artwork done by an artist, Jongku Kim features with a cottons sack of steel powder hanging in the air by the force of gravity that shows us the process of its oxidization by the wind, air, and rain. An artist, Keunbyung Yook’s work of art, ‘Eye for field’ is a video work projected onto the wall of the Arc, which is a memorable architecture of Gangjeong. It has a lot of scenes of a girl’s eye that is constantly blinking, meaning that the pure eye can be a window standing between life and death, creation and extinction.
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| Yunseop Kim(Korea) |
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| Sungil Yu(Korea) |
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| Jaehyun Kwon(Korea) |
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| Booyun Choi(Korea) |
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| Keunbyung Yook(Korea) |
3) Interaction
There were artworks that were made for interaction with the viewers. An artist, Tallur, L.N. made an installation piece called ‘Wish tree’, which makes the viewer purify themselves while wishing what they want and hammering a coin on the surface of the tree. He makes us think of the true meaning of asking for God’s blessing while living in a new technology age that makes it possible to travel through space. An artist, Huibong Park, through his artwork, emptation’,proves that, with the aid of digital effect, what we are seeing now can be manipulated variously. It is an installation piece of an apple made of steel bars and has a shape of a face. The portrait of our contemporaries is reflected on the rectangular mirror plates where the apple is eaten. Through a sculpture, ‘You and me’, an artist, Shoufan Piao shows us a big log that has a form of a pregnant woman, making us realize that we once were a fetus in a mother’s womb while looking at ourselves reflected in the mirror attached to woman’s belly. The moment ‘I’ who once was a fetus meet you is when the meaning of the interaction between life forms can be explained. An artist, Leenam Lee’s artwork, ‘Why was the rhinoceros driven out of the jungle?’ is about our artificial nature after the process of civilization. He made a colorful artificial amusement park for children by making rhinoceros wearing a helmet, to which headlights are attached, and carrying children on their back. Through an interactive artwork called ‘Do it theater – Gangjeong’, a group of artists, Local post makes the viewer participate in their work. The artists of the group made a video work featuring with scenes and ecological environment of Gangjeong that is played fast or slowly depending on the speed of a bike that the participant pedals. |
| Tallur L.N.(India) |
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| Shoufan Piao(China) |
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| Leenam Lee(Korea) |
4) Boundary
Some of the participating artists symbolized the existence of humans in the boundary between nature and the city. An artist, Hayoon Jay Lee’s artwork, ‘Being’ is an installation piece composed of more than one thousand individually cast grains of rice melded together to form a cube to celebrate the sanctity of life using rice grains. She expresses the source of life with her own body by working in a lot of mediums, such as performances, paintings, and video works. Her video work, ‘Near and far’, made especially for the exhibition of Daegu Contemporary Art Festival is about our history hidden in the grain of rice, and the cycle of material affluence and depletion of materials.(5min_Video projector_2015, Filmed by Hayoon Jay Lee, Andrew Coffman, Sangjin Kang) An artist, Wilfredo Balladares tells us the symbolic meaning of multiculturalism, through his work of art, ‘Unmasked’ rooted in Mayan mythology resembling Mayan stelae, to which various faces are attached, glowing at night in Gangjeong. Project ALFA is a group of artists who majored in art, architecture, and sculpture. An artwork done by this group, ‘Twelve chairs’ is about various aspects of twelve chairs. In the aspect of structure, a chair functions as a means of giving us a rest. However, their twelve chairs function as a means of conveying twelve kinds of thoughts, a place where one meets the other as one proving the existence while being absent. An artist, Youngsup Kim’s work of art, ‘Red tree’ is a sound installation piece made of a rubber cone, which is a red conic shape sign that is used for closing or parting a road temporarily for the purpose of safety. He installed rubber cones as a form of a red tree. When the viewers get close to the work, it generated sound that is similar to a certain bug. The viewers are deluded as if listening to a real bug, however, what they listen is made by sampling digital sound. It makes them think of how close our senses are to the truth of omething.
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| Wilfredo Balladares(U.S.A) |
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| Youngsup Kim(Korea) |
2015 Daegu Contemporary Art Festival, ‘From near and far’, in which twenty-three artists and two groups of artists participated, lasted for a month, however, left a long-lasting impression, giving us an important mission. Hopefully, it will be a great art festival in the future, producing visual echoes and enriching our spirit with great works of art.
2014--------------------
2014 Daegu Contemporary Art Festival in Gangjeong in Korea
Water·light from Gangjeong
Period : Aug.23 - Sep.21
Venue : At DARC in Gangjeong in Daegu
Artistic Director : Okreal Kim
Text : Okreal Kim
Organization : Dalsung Culture Foundation
Why is Gangjeong the venue where Daegu Contemporary Art Festival should be held?
Gangjeong is the site where artists from all over the region in Korea had a big art event together in the white sandy plain of Nakdong river. What was the reason a group of artists living in turbulent social conditions in the 1970s had such a big art movement in nature, outside of a gallery or museum? Did they want to feel free from the social climate, in which exhibiting works of art was controlled? Or was it their way of defiance in expressing their creativity? No matter what it is, they must have felt incapable of having a liberal mind and expressing themselves while being watched by the government all the time.What were the features of Korean art in the 1970s when the government of Korea put all of its energy into the development of economy as part of the Saemaul Movement, also known as New Community Movement? In the symposium of an art magazine, ‘space’, the 1970s was defined as a time that most Korean artists followed certain standardized forms in idealism and considered parting and meeting with certain artists important. One of the major features of art in the 1970s is that, in the early 1970s, artists were interested in materialism of art while they were into idealism of art in the late 1970s.[1] The circumstances and the prospects of Korean Contemporary Art, A symposium held by an art magazine [Space], (1981. 6), P.26-29 Artists who tried to identify the meaning of Korean art through their work of art received more attention in the 1970s. Some other artists were against the artistic trend of monochrome works in materialism brought in Korea as a result of the wrong interpretation of the mainstream of Western art at that time and turned their direction toward non-material art.
Korean modernism art in the 1970s is hard to be defined as something that has its own style based only on Oriental art. This is because Western art was introduced to Korea through Japanese art that, from the very beginning, repeated a pattern of bringing art of other countries in Korea. As a result, the identity of Korean art had to be something influenced by Japanese art philosophy that interpreted Western art philosophy in its own terms. It was not built on the basis that had a unique Oriental philosophy as an alternative to Western philosophy, free from the traces of artistic trends of other countries.[2]The spirit and the space in monochrome paintings, [Korean Contemporary Art], published by Hakyeon munhwasa, p.48
Until the middle of the 1970s and the late 1970s, the major features of Korean art were about art activities of certain groups of artists and monochrome paintings that were in trend among the artists of that time. Artists who participated in Daegu Contemporary Art Festival held in 1974 and 1975 presented their works of art indoor, but those artists who participated in it in 1977 exhibited their works outside of art galleries and museums where the white grains of sand looked very shiny in the warm sunshine, suitable for the weather on May 1. At the end of the summer of 1978 artists had performances and presented installation pieces on a stony place near the stream of Dalseong. Artists from Japan were invited in Daegu Contemporary Art Festival in the summer of 1979 and had a great art event with Korean artists along the white sandy plain of Nakdong river.
The return of Daegu Contemporary Art Festival will be further justified by what those artists who participated in Daegu Contemporary Art Festival held during the 1970s witness about it, especially why they started such a big art event in Gangjeong and how it can be related to art events that are being held nowadays. “Around the mid 1970s artists who just graduated from their school flocked to Daegu to break away from the fixed ideas in art and make new artistic trends.”(by Byungso Choi), “One of the experimental features of art in the 1970s was young artists’ attitude to rebel against exhibitions sponsored by the nation. It was a rebellion against certain painting circles and, also, a crash in a time of change.”(by Myungmi Lee), “After Daegu Contemporary Art Festival, a lot of other art events were held all over the regions of Korea. These local art events helped people understand more about art and took an important role to develop Korean art education. Compared to each one of the countries in East Asia, Japan would be the first country that got influenced by Western art, Korean art developed fast from pre-modern times to modern times.”(by Kangso Lee), “Daegu Contemporary Art Festival was held in Gangjeong where art of Daegu extended its realm further in the openness of nature. Performances happening outdoor connects the audience to nature and makes certain forms as the artist planned, so that the audience can get the feeling that they got involved in the art.”(by Kunyong Lee), “The 1970s was like a textbook in the history of Korean art. A textbook is a reference for us to go one step further. If you want to find a new path in your creativity, you should be able to throw away your textbook because it should not be a destination. To throw it away, you have to know more about yourself and the world around you. You will be able to be very creative once you can do that.”(by Seokwon Chang) [3] Excerpted from interviews done in artists’ studio, 2013. 10.~11.
Forty years after Daegu Contemporary Art Festival in the 1970s, mountains and rivers in Gangjeong have changed and modernized as part of the city planning, however, for the third time, Daegu Contemporary Art Festival has opened to inherit th creativity of those artists who participated in the festivals held in the 1970s. The title of the first Daegu Contemporary Art Festival in 2012 is ‘Rhapsody in Gangjeong’, and the second one held in 2013 is called ‘I go to Gangjeong’. For the third time, 2014 Daegu Contemporary Art Festival has been held from August 23th to September 21 with a title, ‘Water and light from Gangjeong’. As the title of the art festival can tell us, it is about a site, Gangjeong, the venue of exhibition. Then, what does a site really mean? Its encyclopedic meaning is ‘where something can happen and be intended to be located. In the philosopher, Martin Heidegger’s point of view, ‘space’ is a source where something begins and it springs into being.
Therefore, site is where something happens in a point of intersection that time and space correspond to each other. Generally speaking, artworks are shown in art galleries or museums and people can share their opinion about them in those venues. More specifically, galleries and museums are where paintings and sculptures that are movable can be exhibited. Artworks such as paintings and sculptures that are exhibited indoor are free from being interpreted within the context of spatiality. In the modern times, a painting, or a sculpture, is a work of art itself that cannot be included in the realm of architecture. In other words, no matter where it stands, it is a pure form of a work of art that doesn’t have to be interpreted within the surroundings.
Since the 1960s, installation art that features in site specificity has been in trend and lots of installation pieces have been shown outside of art galleries and interpreted as a form of art to which our lives can be connected. Moreover, with the appearance of earth art, artists tried to extend the concept of an artwork, a pure form that had been free from the surroundings to the extent that their work should be interpreted within the context of the site where it is located. So a lot of artworks have been shown in nature, such as mountains and beaches, meaning that, under the term of site specificity, artists start including the elements of nature, such as rocks, wood, and grains of sand, in their works of art after perceiving various features of the site where their works are shown. Art has become something that should not be separated from nature.
In a time of change, Korean artists in the 1970s started making artists’ group as they perceived nature differently and put their idea into action. In nature Daegu Contemporary Art Festival was held with artists’ intention to consider their process of making artworks more importantly. In that sense, the return of Daegu Contemporary Art Festival in Gangjeong will be meaningful if it is organized as something that features a time that the past and the future should not be separated, so that it can be about the history of communication in art and the site of sharing art.
Water and light in Gangjeong
The title of Daegu Contemporary Art Festival in Gangjeong is ‘Water and light from Gangjeong’, which is also the subject of the festival. The meaning of the subject is that we should be in harmony with art and nature by feeling the essential elements of nature, water and light in Gangjeong. While artists whose subject matter was about earth art tried to find material for their work of art in a desert, beach or a barren land and take natural objects, such as a stone, rocks, wood and grains of sand as their material, Daegu Contemporary Art Festival in Gangjeong makes artists find the subject of their work, not the material itself, in the basic elements of nature, water and light because they are the most fundamental source of power to sustain one’s life, generating on its own and changing continuously. Therefore, the exhibition, ‘Water and light from Gangjeong’ has a direction that makes artists communicate with nature and connects their art to life. The contents of the exhibition are divided into four sections of historicity, site specificity, publicity, and communities in art. To make a work of art for the exhibition, invited artists are supposed to contemplate freely about it in a point that those four features are related to one another.Before organizing the exhibition, ‘Water and light from Gangjeong’ in details, I thought a lot about how I could proceed this project, but I thought I should be able to find the meaning of the site, Gangjeong, especially, what it really meant to me. I started asking myself lots of questions about the meaning of the site, Gangjeong. After a while, I made a conclusion that the process of finding what the site, Gangjeong really means to each artist or anyone should be the point, in which this exhibition should start and make good results after all. The reason why I reached to such a conclusion is because of the natural features that art events done outdoor have, like the inseparable relationship between life and art. However, I thought that I should consider more about how the historical meaning of Gangjeong can be shared with the residents living in Gangjeong more effectively because it was also an important issue for me.
Therefore, I started this project with presenting participating artists how I would organize the exhibition, ‘Water and light from Gangjeong’. Letting them know that they could extend their idea about those features of historicity, site specificity, publicity, and communities in art, to the point that they could make a good work of art, I wanted them to perceive the importance of asking themselves these questions:
Question no. 1: While exhibiting a work of art in Gangjeong, the same place as those artists who participated in Daegu Contemporary Art Festival in the 1970s exhibited their works in, how can I make people feel connected to the spirit of the time that those artists in 1970s had?
Question no. 2: The exhibition, ‘Water and light from Gangjeong’ is going to be held in where Nakdong river and Kuemho river meet. Having a museum of water, the Arc as the center of where people could feel that life and art are inseparable, how should they communicate with art in nature?
Question no. 3: Where should an artist’s creative point of view in his or her work of art be shared with the public when considering about one of the features of exhibiting artworks outdoor like in a public park? Where should creating a work of art by an artist and appreciating it by the public occur? In your opinion is it possible to reduce the distance between unspecific masses that visit a public park without any purpose of seeing artworks and public art shown in that place? If so, does reducing the distance between the masses and art have to be done?
Question no. 4: Do you have any suggestion to make people feel involved in their community? How should you extend the role of art to make them feel as if they literally live with art?
Those questions above were the ones that I asked myself, but at the same time, they are important questions that artists who participate in Daegu Contemporary Art Festival in Gangjeong should ask themselves. However, there is no right answer to these questions, and the artists are supposed to repeat the process of questioning and answering to those questions until they find the meaning of those questions and feel no need to ask themselves.
Artworks about water and light[4]Critical remarks edited from interviews with the invited artists and documents about their works, Okreal Kim
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| Daeyoung Kang(Korea) |
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| Kwangwoo Kim(Korea) |
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| Kisoo Kim(Korea) |
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| Bongsoo Kim(Korea) |
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| Sungsoo Kim(Korea) |
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Sooja Kim(Korea, U.S.A., France)
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| Seunghyun Kim(Korea) |
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| Hyun Na(Korea) |
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| Dam Dang Lai(Vietnam, Japan) |
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| Hyunmin Ryu(Korea) |
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| Kangho Shin(Korea) |
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| Yonggu Shi(Korea) |
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| Dohyeon Lee(Korea) |
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| Daewon Cho(Korea) |
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| Sook Jin Jo(Korea, U.S.A) |
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| Hyeonuk Cha(Korea) |
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| Dusu Cho(Korea) |
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| Sungjoon Hwang(Korea) |
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| Ouchul Hwang(Korea) |
Ouchul Hwang’s installation piece, a form of a creature that has the waist of a horse, and legs looking like branches of a tree, stands up straight into the sky. It seems like half animal and half plant. His work of art is inspired by Salvador Dali’s painting, ‘the temptation of St. Anthony’, which Salvador Dali featured in a monastic life that had to be protected from lots of temptations. Ouchul Hwang symbolizes desires of a human being who stands right on the borderline between good and the evil, trying to express the dualism in nature and man. He wants to visualize the two sides of a dream and reality, telling us about a double-edged sword in mundane desires and philosophical desires.
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| Wonseok Hong(Korea) |
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| Sunday pape(Korea) |
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| Oneness(Korea) |
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