July 9 – 19, 2015, 108-1 Haneulgongwon-ro, Mapo-gu, Seoul, http://semananji.seoul.go.kr, curator Raejung Sim 심래정
As the name suggests, SeMA Nanji is a subsidiary of the Seoul Museum of Art, more specifically, it is its artist residency branch. It’s located in the Western part of Mapo district in between two large green hills which turned out to be revitalized garbage dumps. A gently humming incinerator and its tall chimney still account for the site’s origin, while for-hire-golf cart shuttles buzz around the access roads of the vast park.
The exhibition featured 5 Korean artists, probably artists staying in at the residency studios. It stretched across two very interesting spaces, which looked like some converted storage tanks: around 20 meters wide, perfectly round shape. One of the spaces has a black reflective floor and ceiling.
The works were video- and photo-based. According to the leaflet, the theme of the exhibition was death. The art communicated mainly through a chain of associations and metaphors. The works could actually be presented under a different topic and it would still make sense to me. It made me realize how much of artworks could actually be considered to be talking about death. Death is not something that can be photographed or depicted, and it usually approached with the help of metaphors. It also means different things to different people according to their beliefs. Here the works stayed abstract enough to allow for personal beliefs while providing direction to thoughts.
The first work that greets you upon entering the gallery is Woosung Lee’s 이우성 photo-print on cloth hung in the connecting space between the two round shaped galleries hung like a kind of wall curtain: Pieces of wood with eyes on them.
I first turned to the left exhibition space. There was another work by Woosung Lee a video of sparkling fire-crackers shaped in to the form of something that probably should resemble Korean characters. It was like making a wish to the heavens, which formed a dark background to the sparkle. “Don’t be sick” was the title.
Next to it was another video work, by Jung Hee Biann Seo 서겅희: A black and white particle movement that remained a mystery to me. It could be dust particles illuminated in the air, some king of fluid simulation or a scientific data visualization. In any case, it was beautiful, like a night starry sky. I just wished the projector resolution would be higher to capture all the details of the video.
The third artist in this room was Taewon Jang 장태원 with three black and white photo prints: One on the wall, one on the table and one on a wooden construction. Once again, the actual source of the images remained a mystery to me, but maybe it did not matter too much.
Over to the other exhibition space, there were three more video installations. One large projection of an animation by Raejung Sim 심래정, a crudely hand-drawn work with some photos inserted. It connected to Woosung Lee’s work through the motive of the eyes. It was roughly depicting concrete things yet connecting them into an abstract narrative. One could sense a symbolism unfolding there which was however hard to grasp. It was also very short, but quite speedy, so after watching it, one wanted to see it again to discover the missed parts.
Chungki Park 박정기 showed a video of two guys talking on a rooftop, and I unfortunately could not understand what they were talking about. It seemed to be a kind of performance, like a short theater sketch.
Taewon Jang had a video work in this room: A three-channel video showing short loops of three single shots of sea waves, ants running along a sidewalk and a jerky footage of a moon during daytime.