Eyes of a Curator, Tips for Viewing the VR Exhibition (15) Curator Lee Ji Min from the Youngeun Museum of Contemporary Art
2017-03-22 l Hit 1453
Eyes of a Curator, Tips for Viewing the VR Exhibition
(15) Curator Lee Ji Min from the Youngeun Museum of Contemporary Art
 |
One Thousand Waterscape, a new insight
Artist Chang-Ae Song shows the existential problems of human beings and insight into life through 'water' as a medium. In this month’s Eyes of a Curator, I will introduce《One Thousand Waterscape》by the artist Chang-Ae Song.
Lee Ji Min, curator of the Youngeun Museum of Contemporary Art who organized the exhibition, and artist Chang-Ae Song were acquainted before this VR exhibition. Curator Lee Ji Min explained, “Artist Chang-Ae Song was one of the artists selected to participate in the 8th Youngeum Artist in Residency in 2013 and formed a relationship with the Youngeun Museum of Contemporary Art. The artist is currently registered as a member of the residency program. I had no trouble designing the exhibition because I had a good understanding of the artist. The artist’s work had mainly dealt with her inner world, but her work expanded into a sociological perspective after April 16, 2014; the day of the Sewol ferry disaster. This exhibition is mainly composed of the artist’s work after 2014, but some of her work from the past is also included so that viewers can understand the flow between her past work and the work she made after 2014.”
 |
The highlight of the exhibition is the video installation《Thousand Tears & Thousand Days》displayed at the end of the exhibition hall. This work is a three-year-long project from 2015 up to this year and collects a single digital photo taken on April 16th from 1,000 citizens that show their ‘daily lives.’
The artist created a video by combining the images of 1,000 citizens’ daily lives and images of a thousand drops of water from work made by the artist. In the introduction of the video, the artist says, "If a thousand tears are inner windows to me, a thousand daily lives are the windows of communication to the outside world." This is the final year of the project, and the artist will collect daily photos taken on the day of April 16th.
What is the reason for the artist to pay attention to the 'daily lives' of 1,000 people? Noam Kim, the representative of Art Space Hue, commented as follows, “Artist Chang-Ae Song focuses on ‘daily life’, a combined structure of undistinguished, habitual, and meaningless time, behaviors, and relationships, since that leads to huge events. Judgments and actions that nobody pays attention to act as opportunities to change the history of mankind.”
《Thousand Tears I》, exhibited just before the aforementioned work, is displayed in a unique way. In the elliptical exhibition space, the large work; 300cm in height and 1500cm in width surrounds the space like a folding screen. If viewers scroll down to see the floor, there they can find small inscriptions.
Curator Lee Ji Min said, "For this exhibition, I tried to create a display space distinct from the usual exhibition hall." In particular, the artist wanted to make full use of the fact that the exhibition will be held in a virtual space, and made drawings and miniatures of the space to simulate an exhibition that leaves an impression on viewers. As a result, the exhibition halls were designed in various shapes; trapezoidal, elliptical, and other formations, not just rectangular or square shapes; and then various materials and colors were used to help the viewers focus on the work.
 In the last exhibition hall of ‘One Thousand Waterscape’, a video plays on its own without having to press a play button, which gives viewers the feeling that they are in an actual exhibition. |
Curator Lee Ji-min, who participated in the Korean Artist Project’s virtual exhibition in 2011, emphasized the importance of the VR exhibition by saying, "I sense how technology is evolving as I see the result of the concepts I had while planning the exhibition. Recently, there is an increasing number of artists who want to record their exhibitions or to make VR exhibitions. It is still important to leave a work book after an exhibition, but many artists now want to leave an exhibition space itself.”
 《Waterscape 1303》, work by artist Chang-Ae Song submitted to the exhibition ‘The New Acquisitions of Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art’, 2013, graphite and acrylic on paper, 244 x 180cm |
In the meantime, Chang-Ae Song is participating in the exhibition ‘The New Acquisitions of Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art ', held at the Youngeun Museum of Contemporary Art until May 28th, continuing her relationship with the museum. This exhibition introduces the 2013-2015 collections of the Yeongun Museum of Contemporary Art, and《Waterscape 1303》(2013) by Chang-Ae Song will be exhibited in the first exhibition hall of the Yeongun Museum of Contemporary Art
 A view of the exhibition ‘The New Acquisitions of Gyeonggi Museum of Modern Art ' ⓒ Lee Ji Min |
2017.4.12 ⓒKorean Artist Project
Text and images may not be reproduced, reprinted, or redistributed without express consent.
