2011 Hermès Foundation
Missulsang exhibition
August 9–October 4, 2011
Opening:
Monday, August 8, 2011 at 6 p.m.
3rd Floor, Maison Hermès Dosan Park
630-26 Shinsa-dong, Gangnam-gu
Seoul, Korea
www.fondationdentreprisehermes.org
With the support of Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, Atelier Hermès (3rd Floor, Maison Hermès Dosan Park) presents the annual Hermès Foundation Missulsang exhibition, from August 9th to October 4th, 2011.The three chosen by five members of Korean and international judging committee have carry out their new project and artworks which will be exhibited at the upcoming exhibition. This year’s finalists are Sangdon KIM, Onejoon CHE, and Part-time Suite.
Sangdon KIM: Solveig’s Song
“Utilizing photography, sculpture, installation, performance, video, and collaborative, interventionist, and dialogical aesthetics, Kim’s work investigates the incongruent cultural and geographical realities found in different localities in South Korea. Kim’s work is informed by his astute understanding of the macro sociopolitical contexts that arise from the conflicts and dissonance of the Cold War politics and neoliberal economy. Simultaneously he presents intimate examination of minuscule details of life through his micro actions.” (MOON Young Min, Artist & Assistant Professor, University of Massachusetts Amherst) In the 2011 Hermès Foundation Missulsang exhibition, Kim presents Solveig’s Song, a work consisting of video, photography, and sculpture.
The video features the ubiquitous hikers in the mountain trails of the metropolitan Seoul area, the Norwegian composer’s music “Solveig’s Song” played on a saw, and the vibrating body of the player. Through these images and sounds, the video paints the human zone “in which the lofty and vulgar human desires are so mixed that they are indistinguishable.” (Artist statement.)
Onejoon CHE: Spinning Wheel
“CHE Onejoon’s foundation of the socio-politics of space is constructed with more than the visible. The politics is discovered at the very moment when the revealed and the concealed, the visible and the invisible intersect as in a revolving door; in this sense, the politics that Che deals with in his works is perhaps better called an ‘intersection’ or a ‘flash’ than a ‘discourse.’ It is another name for that which is rooted in the social sphere but cannot be reduced to it.” (CHO Seon-ryeong, Art critic & Independent curator.) In 2005, Che created a big stir when he photographed an underground military bunker, which workers found by accident as they were surveying an area in search of a new bus transfer center on Yeouido. Since then Che has been investigating core non-places around us, a series of places that exist but really not exist This time, he presents Spinning Wheel, a work that features a film, photography, and archival materials.
Spinning Wheel, a “mocumentary,” casts professional actors as well as neighborhood workers and artists as it reconstructs, through the “optical illusion” of the protagonist, the history of the neighborhood that once served as a munitions manufacturing zone.
Part-time Suite: Post-untitled
Part-time Suite (PARK Jaeyoung, LEE Miyeon, LEE Byungjae) is a project-based artist group formed based on critical discussions about the socio-economic conditions the members found common among themselves. As a group they have been transforming the harsh conditions of reality and the limitations they face into artistic productions that aggressively reflect and amplify their condition; paradoxically they have discovered possibilities that expand reality in the process. Furthermore, they have consistently raised questions about the internal dynamics of their own collective, learning first-hand the power of autonomy and self-rule in the context of the larger social contradictions and inadequacies; they continue to seek ways of adaptation and betrayal in order to casually overcome the condition of limitations in reality.
For the 2011 Hermès Foundation Missulsang exhibition, the group has been compelled to exhibit works at a “regular” gallery space for the first time The word ‘untitled’ is preceded by ‘post’ simply to indicate that the ‘untitled’ here is not the same as the ‘untitled’ in many other works of art, and to indicate the artists’ wish that it be different.
Post-untitled is a single work that includes Wave, The 42m² Club, and March Dance.
Begun in 2000 as the first foreign corporate patronage of local artists, the annual Hermès Foundation Missulsang is now celebrating its 12th anniversary.
