2020. 3. 15. 9:40
Hyun Chung → Yuki Konno
Hello, Mr. Yuki Konno,
I was looking forward to seeing you after a long time, and I am sorry that it’s not going to happen due to the unexpected circumstance. I am sure you have already heard, but yesterday I told Hwang Wonhae that it would be more interesting to proceed as is rather than finding new writers for her exhibition review. The reason is as follows.
Last year, I asked Jung Dah-young and Yoon Won-hwa for a review to include in the catalog of my solo exhibition at Art Delight. They looked at the floor plans, rendering images, exhibition proposals, diagrams, and more and wrote their reviews based on them prior to the exhibition opening. It was reasonable that all writers with an architectural background including myself to believe that it is not only possible to write architectural criticism simply based on a design proposal but rather important to do so.
To an architect, a planning stage is an architectural act that is devoted to visualizing the original idea. To an artist, however, the planning stage seems to fulfill its duty if it manages to convey the idea. Even installation artists focus more on building a real-life setting on the exhibition spot than making a precise plan.
Earlier this year, Hwang Wonhae requested that I’d write an introduction and review of her exhibition<The Fourth Wall>. It clearly was an exhibition for her paintings, but when I saw the proposal, it felt somewhat unusual. The proposal considered the shape of the exhibition space and the scale of the walls in depth. Nevertheless, colors were still the most prominent elements to the audience, and the patterns and paintings on the wall wouldn’t have made much difference, which, all in all, seemed like a new frame for Hwang and a system for her future work.
Therefore, I wanted to write an introduction and a review of Hwang Wonhae’s exhibition like an architectural review that analyzes how the initial proposal was materialized at the end, by describing the structure process of the space through studying the exhibition planning. However, once I saw the exhibition in person, I realized that there were some elements that I had not expected. It was the brochure by the designer Jo Eunji who assisted the exhibition, and the writings of yours, as you ended up not able to see the exhibition in person.
I’d like to discuss these matters with you in the following emails. The entire email correspondents might be included in the catalog, too. Even if the outcome is somewhat rough, both continuous and broken patterns would intersect from time to time and create similarities, just like this exhibition.
Please let us know what your thoughts are.
I happily look forward to your email.
Thank you.
From, Hyun Chung in Seoul
2020. 3. 16. 14:53
Hyun Chung ← Yuki Konno
Dear Mr. Hyun Chung,
Hello. Thank you for your email.
I've read through your email, and below is a thread of my thoughts on what I experienced (or did not experienced) by this exhibition.
It may be my psychological confession, or a fragmentary idea of seeing or writing about an exhibition, from the point of not being able to see the exhibition in person.
First of all, I saw an Instagram feed that Hwang Wonhae’s exhibition was going to be held in March.
I later saw that the opening date was postponed due to the Corona19 virus, but I was still thinking of visiting it.
Then, due to the sudden (seemingly) political conflict between Korea and Japan, the circumstance became worse and I had to cancel my plan to visit the exhibition.
In Japan, museums also began to close and some small space exhibitions ended early.
At the same time, images of “exhibitions (or artwork) on the Social Networking Service” began to circulate online.
I suppose it was a breakthrough in some ways.
In some respects, it was a necessary movement, but it is also true that it was rather too predictable.
Because not everyone actually goes to Louvre or Düsseldorf, yet people talk about and study the works of those places.
It is also true that the matter of actual viewing experience at an exhibition, which seems to be a new problem caused by SNS, has been around through the platforms of catalogs and papers from the beginning.
The relationship between a viewer and an exhibition (or an artwork) is contrasted by visual consumption and practical experience, and in fact, the two seem to be two different issues and cannot be practically compared.
For example, the advocacy of the real viewing experience has moved to the commercial realm that emphasizes the interactive experience.
Like the exhibition of Asger Jorn where storage boxes were stacked at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, or teamLab in Japan.
On the other hand, when visual consumption takes place in a virtual space, it connects the viewers (which is the “users” in this case) to the work on the screen.
Visual consumption and authentic experience begin to get entangled at different points where each begins to demonstrate its effects.
For teamLab I mentioned above, the interactive function is the starting point, but in the end, it is supported by the visually shocking technology and viewers are influenced by it.
In case of the visual consumption, the exhibition is overwhelmed by the cameras and mobile phones and people taking photos of it once they enter the exhibition space.
I guess the following question is, “Why bother going to an exhibition at all?”
Now, the answer lies in the grey area where such a question that tries to find what’s superior in terms of the viewing attitude.
Recently, I even think going to the exhibition can be constraining in some ways.
For example, viewers can be disrupted by the sound coming from a video work next to them at a group exhibition. In small space exhibitions, it becomes difficult to focus if a loud audience comes in.
And when you are suddenly unable to visit an exhibition like my case now, I wondered if the physical visit (albeit preferential) should tell you everything about the show when you need to talk about some may write while they are looking at the exhibition space, but mostly, writing takes place by taking steps of receiving photos of the exhibition and talking with the artist.
The process of viewing experience and visual consumption (in my case) are ordinary especially when writing a review, and I am thinking that the review for Hwang Wonhae’s exhibition is done by in the latter way.
I can list some reasons when the actual experience is preferred to visual consumption (especially in the painting work.)
First, you need to see the painting in person to appreciate the layers, amounts, or texture of the paint colors.
Second, you need to see how the work is related to the supporting frame, whether it is a canvas or a printout.
Third, you need to see the size of the painting, and if and how it affects (or does not affect) the audience.
These three elements are pertinent to seeing a work in the exhibition space.
I write the review this time without those three, but I still believe it is feasible.
On the contrary, I think it will be a review pondering how to bridge the gap between what I missed from not seeing the exhibition in person, and whether there are beneficial elements from it as well (like the story of teamLab's work in the example above).
It’s a bit rough, but this is what I have been thinking so far.
Have a nice day today!
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Yuki Konno in Japan
2020. 3. 18. 21:11
Hyun Chung → Yuki Konno
Dear Yuki Konno,
Thank you for your email. I’d like to write my thoughts on actual experience compared to pseudo experience via images, and filling in the missing information.
Would it be correct if I understood you saying that most research and reviews on visual culture and art stem from what one was not able to see?
These days, even if one goes to an exhibition, he or she focuses on taking pictures of the work from different angles and talking with the artist rather than observing artwork. And when the viewer comes home, he or she recalls the exhibition by looking at the photos before uploading them on SNS. Photography captures momentary aspects, so when you look at photos on your monitor (or smartphone or PC), you discover things you missed at the exhibition. Some pictures twist the distorted perspectives and eventually straighten them out, so strictly speaking, it is a false image.
The elements you mentioned regarding the visual consumption experience-texture, layers, size, and the relationship with the supporting frame, etc.-are also often recalled through photographic information. Or, is it just my habit from work analyzing images in data?
Putting the matter of image aside, I remind myself of an exhibition through videos posted by others on SNS more than from my direct experience. These clips keep repeating, which gives me an opportunity to carefully examine the space in detail.
After all, the exhibition experience in the past (before the media storage system was developed) was a “real experience” that utilized one’s memory, and today, the experience is “false” as the storage device is located elsewhere like cloud storage, which makes it possible for people to take quick pictures at the exhibition and leave right away. As a result, perhaps the notion of “being there then” may have become just a “source” for obtaining contents (secondary product) for one’s storage.
In this context, the images based on which I currently use to write this review can be divided into three categories.
In fact, the 3rd category is essentially about the rest of the information that the 1st and 2nd still can’t fulfill. If there are sufficient and diverse elements mentioned in the 1st and 2nd categories, it seems reasonable to write an exhibition review as you said.
The problem lies in the exhibition brochure by the designer Jo Eun-ji. It wasn't originally planned from the beginning, but Cho created a brochure by securing the entire image of the exhibition and cropping some parts out. It created an activity that the audience place the brochure over Hwang’s work and take photos of it.
This means that the images from the 2nd category contain a lot of noise value. Normally, exhibition photos exclusively include the artist’s work, but most pictures of Hwang Wohae’s exhibition on SNS include this brochure over Hwang’s works. Even if I hadn't been asked to write a review, I would have wanted to go see the exhibition in person and check the hidden parts. The brochure (noise) added to the exhibition creates an empty space for image information, and it makes me fill in the blanks.
What do you think of these square empty spaces (made by Jo's brochures)?
Thank you.
Sincerely, Hyun Chung
2020. 3. 25. 12:41
Hyun Chung ← Yuki Konno
Dear Hyun Chung,
Hello. It’s been a while since I read your email, but here are my thoughts.
It seems to me that writing a review is pertinent to capturing the three categories you mentioned, but how to embrace and reflect them in writing will be crucial.
That is probably because a review is created from different angles compared to reports or anecdotal essays.
In other words, it is the practice of keeping distance (…) which is necessary for the experience-oriented viewing method, and it is difficult to be suspicious of what you are seeing when you are immersed in it.
Everyone has a different way to write a review, but in my case, I tend not to rely on the artist as much as possible.
It is like creating an imaginary enemy of some sort, which is writing a review by summarizing the artist’s claims, feelings, and comments.
To put it in an extreme way, it is like documenting what the artist said even though I’m the one who saw the exhibition.
When a review is written as if writing a transcript of an interview, it is often ambiguous whose article or words they are.
Instead, I prefer using my own words on what I saw or didn’t see, and I try to be cautious not to write a report style review.
So, the three categories of images always come to me as blocking walls, even if they are persuasive and convincing enough.
This is true about the brochure (I haven't seen it yet…) though, there was some effect that the brochure brought me.
While talking to Hwang Wonhae, I thought about the word “wall” once again which is part of the title of the exhibition.
The paintings and prints are all on flat surfaces, but in fact, I thought there were some fine variables.
Some supporting structures are emphasized while others are smoothly integrated into the wall, and as you said, there may be a difference between the brochure and the part covered by the brochure.
If the brochure appears as a kind of facade, the artwork, even if they are a combination of parts rather than an integration, eventually becomes a part of the brochure, at which point the center of gravity in the dynamic of parts and whole shifts.
However, because of the invisible parts of the entire work, I hold off my judgments. This does not mean that ultimately Hwang’s works are all based on a flat surface, but that I was not able to appreciate the fine differences that may occur in person, and ultimately becomes like a wall.
Just as a screen tone work has a texture unlike a print, many elements of this exhibition came to me and “touched” me like a colliding wall rather than an integrating wall in space or concept.
Therefore, the hidden parts worked more powerful than any other images (at least to me) in that it aroused more questions and curiosity.
In that sense, the experience in the exhibition space, professionally photographed images, or the exhibition plan or portfolio, and the actual work and brochure all together provided me a scope of “possibilities” that aren’t interchangeable with the in-person experience.
I think that it is the duty of a review (review of a work, exhibition, not being able to see it in person, and seeing it in person, etc) to delve into such possibilities.
If I think of something else, I will share them with you.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Yuki Konno in Japan
2020. 5. 21. 21:29
Hyun Chung → Yuki Konno
Hello, Mr. Yuki Konno and Ms. Hwang Wonhae,
I have arranged our previous e-mails and wrote an exhibition review. It is not the type that lists and talks about each work of Hwang’s. It was very difficult to get out of the current exhibition situation after the explosive increase of Corona19 virus infection.
The Venice Biennale announced this year that the architectural exhibition, which was held every even year, will be moved to the odd year, and the art exhibition from every odd year will be on every even year. I pondered for a moment on Hwang’s perspectives on city and architecture imbued in her art and the fact that I review them from an architect’s point of view.
I hope you enjoy reading the attached writing.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Hyun Chung
2020. 5. 22. 01:26
Hyun Chung ← Yuki Konno
Hello,
Thank you for sending your writing.
I will finish up my writing and send it to you by this weekend.
Thank you!
Sincerely,
Yuki Konno
2020. 5. 24. 23:40
Hyun Chung ← Yuki Konno
Hello, this is Yuki Konno.
First, I’ve revised the letters that you reviewed, which are attached here.
Thank you for making it smooth. Any areas that need revision are colored in blue or crossed out.
Please review it for the last time.
I’m sorry it took longer to share it with you.
I hope you stay safe, and I will contact you again.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Yuki Konno in Japan
2020. 5. 25. 11:00
Hyun Chung → Yuki Konno
Hi Mr. Yuki Konno,
As we have been writing as if we are talking to each other, it feels like we have been having long dialogues.
After reading my writing again, I asked Kim Sang-hoon, the director of the SUPERELLIPSE editing department, to revise it.
Thanks to you, my writing now is put together. I'm glad you liked it as well.
I am really grateful that you were able to summarize our conversation about the brochure since I was feeling bad that it was not included in my writing.
I think that it is a necessary conversation because the collaboration between artists and designers has become very important. Also, this e-mail threads and reviews will make up a big catalog, and I am looking forward to seeing how Cho will design the book with Hwang’s art.
Thank you very much again for having a dialogue with me via email during the busy time. I hope traveling to each other becomes easier in the near future.
Sincerely,
Hyun Chung in Seoul