Seoul, June 23 – August 14, 2016, http://www.altpool.org/
Artists: Yongju Kwon권용주, Woohyun Kim 김웅현, An Gyungsu안경수, Yongseok Oh오용석, Okin Collective옥인 콜렉티브, Yuri Kim임유리, Jang Pa장파, Sojung Jun전소정, Jeong Deokhyeon 정덕현, Curator: Sohyun Ahn 안소현
Creating an exhibition themed around the Degenerate Art Exhibition, which has been organized by the Nazis in 1937 in Berlin in order to attack modernism and discredit a number of Jewish artist by placing an equation between modernist “perversion” and Jewishness, is in itself a heavy topic. It brings forth many questions. The exhibition remained ambiguously vague. Was the aim to attempt a reconstruction of a fictional future imagining how a degenerate art exhibition may have looked to day if it had been staged by contemporary Nazis? Is it a direct political commentary on the right-leaning nationalistic tendencies in Korean society that also signify the generational split between the older generation (connecting the past dictatorship with economic progress) and the young generation who sees things differently todayt? Or is it simply a survey of contemporary art that would have been judged as degenerate if the Nazis were still around today and a celebration of the freedom artists enjoy today? Just another contemporary art exhibition? According to what criteria has the “degenerate” art in this exhibition been selected? Has it been by the curator applying Nazi aesthetic standards? Or Korean journalist standards for what is “decent” and what not, focusing on the latter? Or based on the curator’s grandmother’s opinion on what is degenerate? Or a selection based on the worst exhibition reviews of the past year? Or maybe the curator just invited her best friends and the degenerate aspect lies in the functioning of the art world itself, where the selection depends more on incestuous art world relationships and social skills of the artist than what the actual artwork is? What if we kept the exhibition as it was and just changed the title to something completely different? Would it make a difference at all?
In fact, it is the many questions opened up by the exhibition that carry its very meaning. True to my past experience at Art Space Pool, the exhibit is not easy to take in, and it needs actual brain power to start piecing the pieces of the puzzle together. Of course being able to speak Korean would probably help to answer half of my questions that might have been written on the wall, just invisible to me. But even from my ignorant perspective, there was something to learn and read within and in between the artworks on display. Some of them seemed simply as bad artworks, while others appeared beautiful, but the theme of the exhibition made me always think twice. What am I actually saying when I judge something as a bad or good artwork? Based on what? Do I involve a moral judgement? Is it based on a distance or proximity to a certain preferred mode or medium of expression? Is it based on my specific expertise of consuming and creating images?
Rarely does an exhibition open that much questions. As time progressed the questions grew and multiplied. What at first appeared as a simple and straightforward labelling – “a contemporary art exhibition” – has slowly disintegrated over time. Judging is simple, but letting second thoughts surface or even let them overturn first impressions is a process of learning.
