Seogyo Art Space, Hongdae, Seoul, http://eng.seoulartspace.or.kr/space_seogyo/introduce.asp
December 28, 2012, 18:30
Seogyo Art Space is located in Hongdae area of Seoul, close to Hongik university. On December 28th an art performance relay took place there, and as I was in Seoul and a friend invited me, I decided to give it a try and get a closer peek at the local art scene. As all the information about this event was in Korean, I would have no chance to find out about it unless my friend told me. It also meant that I headed for a ‘blind date’ – I did not know what to expect.
When we arrived around 8pm, the space was packed with people. We just squeezed in, and joined the crowds. A bunch of people on the stage were singing karaoke very badly in sync with the karaoke videos (video with words displayed one-by-one). The songs seemed to be some typical Korean pop songs, and the artistic innovation was in the videos – instead of shoving the original MVs the videos have been re-made by the artists. I don’t remember clearly the content of the videos, but it seemed to be a compilation of hand-held DVs that they shot around Seoul city. Nevertheless the strongest impression of this performance was the really bad singing, and the videos faded in comparison to that. This performance/group was called “VALETPARKING”.
The following performance by이영준/박카로 (which Google generously translated for me as “Lee Young Joon / night Caro”) consisted of two persons chatting on a Korean instant messenger sharing images. The content of the discussion seemed to be a biography of one (or of two?) persons. However I did not understand a single Korean letter of what they were typing, and neither did I know who these people are, so I could not make much sense of it. The accompanying images which they shared while chatting was a medley of boring and funny pictures, referring to historical events and personal experiences. Maybe the background of who these people are could provide a hint to why they are sharing their biography. “Lee Young Joon” seems to be the more famous one, as Google managed to translate his name seemingly correct. “night Caro” seems not to be known to Google, as the translation looks wrong. I almost fell asleep during this performance.
Next, I was woken up by Michelangelo Pistoletto Band. On the contrary to the previous performances, there was finally something digestible for both my ears and eyes. This was a band of two ladies in funny dresses who were lip-syncing to music (own or appropriated I was not sure), but they were lip-syncing and acting in a very precise way. They sang three songs in total. After the first song, there was a break, in which a magician came on stage, showing some tricks with metal rings. Now this was like in a circus. The third song performed by the band came as a surprise, because the voice pitch suddenly changed to a low, male voice – after a short wonder you got it – it was all lip-sync. I liked this small punch line in the beginning of the third song. Overall, given the low entertainment factor of the previous performances, this was quite refreshing.
(The following is just a really bad sound recording (using my mobile phone) of the second and third song Michelangelo Pistoletto performed.)
The next performance by정금형 (Google translated this as “Tablets mold”) did finally fit my expectation of an ‘art performance’ and thanks God it was non-verbal. Simply described, the actors were a plastic doll (a training doll for boxing – a heavy base and a human-shaped upper corpse on top, connected by a bendable connecting joint) and a female performer. The performance consisted of a simulated sexual intercourse between the plastic doll and the performer. First she came, hugged it, and they lay down together. Then they kissed, while slowly moving around in the floor. Then they made love in missionary position. Then she put her legs up around its waist and they made more love. After finishing, she made the doll stand up again and left the stage. This performance was simple, but it was focused and meaningful. It was somewhere between a physical exercise activity (the boxing-doll-prop and the dress of the performer reminded of a gym setting) and the enactment of a personal desire. One could follow the line of thought linking sport and desire, but one could also follow the line of interpersonal relationships, reading the plastic doll as a metaphor for an absent-minded human actor – a space for the projection of desires.
This performance was followed by “최춘성 19금 특강” (Uncle Google helped to translate this as “government Choi, Chun – Sung Special Topics”). What this was in reality was a lecture by a professor of architecture on the topic of ‘Architecture and the (erotic) body’ – the historical relationship between the human body and architecture (think Leonardo DaVinci’s vitruvian man etc.). This lecture might have been interesting, but given my zero knowledge of Korean, I can only comment that the PowerPoint slides looked nice and clean and the lecture was probably based on an upcoming or existing publication of the professor. I could not really make out what made this lecture a performance, as it seemed just like a lecture. I guess it was the ‘sexual’ topic, in relation to standard academic tone which the professor kept throughout the lecture.
Based on the schedule, the relay continued with three more performances, but listening to a 30 minute lecture without understanding a single word made me very very sleepy again, so we decided that it will be wiser to head for a drink and enjoy a bit of the Hongdae night atmosphere.
This performance evening did probably not calculate with any foreign ghost wandering by (even though I saw a few more pale big nosed faces), but still it was interesting to get a glimpse on what is happening in the young local art scene. I could grumble about the seeming randomness and lack of curatorial intervention, but obviously this was an experimental evening that gave a chance to everyone who wanted to try something out. I saw some good potential in the “Tablets mold” performance. Michelangelo Pistoletto also managed to be original in the juxtaposition of sound, costume and acting.
The event was crowded, and I can only speculate why: Because the people performing were locally famous and this was a rare event? Or because this was a popular drinking area on a Friday night? In Prague, there used to be about 10-20 people out of which 80% knew each other at these kinds of events… Anyway, it was good to be there and to get a glimpse of what is going on. For next time, I know I should study some Korean in advance.