The 2015 Site-Specific Art Project Interplay features the work of four artists whose individual and cooperative creative endeavors are grounded in traditional art areas like painting and sculpture and gradually expand to unlikely fields like architecture and design. Their reactions to their location and circumstances are the compelling drives that inform the artists as they transform the physical space of the exhibition hall into an organic work of art. Visitors, as they move between four rooms, which in themselves represent different works of art that vary veer widely in terms of character and theme, will encounter new definitions of art and space. It is such cross-interaction that can lead to a significant change in perspective regarding the dynamics of art and location.
Because of a viewer’s range of awareness and process of experiencing an object, installation art has been able to expand the realm of creative expression by rising above the boundaries of traditional art genres. Thus, an artist can blur the lines of application and expectation, react to a wider variety of cultural practices and artistic approaches, and, in so doing, reach a larger audience. The artist often takes their audience on a journey of discovery, simultaneously challenging and defying their attempts to define/classify a work. Homi Bhabha, an early advocate of multiculturalism, long argued for the concept of “hybrid vigor.” It was his assertion that a “state of in-between” would give rise to the most creative forms of cultural identity. It is thus through the concept of cultural hybridity that Interplay examines how the revolutionary practices of artists, in an ever diversifying world, have been expanding the boundaries of art as we know it.
After the death of art, and the liberation of artists from the puritanism that dominated the twentieth century, are deeply interested in space as something that is shared by many rather than as individual property. Thus, the four participating artists allow the realm of their activities to penetrate the walls of their studio so as to respond to the world beyond in the form uniquely individual reinterpretations of objects, sculptures, immateriality, technology and environment. Though such an attitude has always been at the core installation art, private cultural sub-element motifs (scribbles/graffiti, advertisements, comedy, etc.) become expressions of public feeling, thus turning the question about the fundamental meaning of art on its head, without sarcasm or malice.
Indeed, Interplay is a presentation of a new lexicon for artistic creation of new word, new tools, new concepts and how these reflect the attitudes of the artists themselves as they seek to reestablish different art forms amidst a changing society.
avaf(Assume Vivid Astro Focus ) / Elizer Sudbrack Simoes(b.1968, Brazil), Christophe Hamaide-Pierson(b.1973, France)
avaf Installation
Dimensions variable
10 Wall papers
Video: Antes Vulgar Agora Fino, 15' looping
Neon: Square Ribbons
2015
avaf, project begun by Elizer Sudbrack Simoes in 2002 welcomed the addition of Christophe Hamaide-Pierson in 2005. Branding themselves members of the “homo virus sapiens” species, it is the artists’ contention that they were result of a human and virus union, and thus, would quite naturally have fundamentally “contagious” personalities. avaf not only incorporates a variety of genres, in the form of drawing, painting, neon sculpture, video art and performance, but also encourages collaborations with musicians and designers like Lady Gaga and Comme des Garcons. Images from mass media are appropriated to make new patterns and significations when transplanted to various media formats, one could say that avaf is, in a sense, a pleasant experiment on the relationship between popular culture and our everyday lives. Popular culture becomes more than a mere escape from reality to become active social statements about the “real world” issues of the reality that spawned it.
Ross Manning(b.1978, Australia)
Spectra(double)
400x400m 2pieces Installation
Coloured fluorescent lamp, Motorised fan, Power board, Extension cable, Wood, Rope
2015
Ross Manning is an Australian technology artist who works in Brisbane. With his deft use of light, movement and sound, Manning went about creating his own world and, in so doing so, has made a name for himself. His installations present a paradox: a scientific exploration of light and sound that allows the viewer to experience a primitive space. Manning’s Spectra is a kinetic RGB (red, green, blue) electric light and propeller installation that is operated by a winged motor. Colored fluorescent lights are bound together in layers and hung from the ceiling, where they are rotated slowly by a fan. According to the principles of additive color mixing, a mixture of red, green and blue creates white light. The multi-colored fluorescent lights slowly rotate and create a unique combination of different colors that populate the space.
Jinnie Seo(b.1963, USA)
Wandering Still
Dimensions variable: Straw cloud: 25 x 5 m, 200 sheets of Korean traditional rice paper:
Korean traditional rice paper, Plastic straws, Silicon strings
2014 ~ 2015
Jinnie Seo is noted for her attempts to expand two-dimensional line and color paintings into the third dimension of space. For Seo, space is not merely an object for structural exploration but rather an area where public and private experiences combine to produce a new meaning. Of particular interest to this artist is the process by which a space is converted into an organic polyhedron. Wandering Still is a reinterpretation of two different yet interrelated elements: the ideological Korean landscape inspired by Kang Hui-an’s 15th century depiction of mountain and rocks enveloped in clouds and a poem by the 16th century female poet and artist Heo Nanseolheon. Using the structural language of sculpture, Seo set about expressing Heo Nanseolheon’s world of literature imbued with dreams and fantasies strongly influenced by Taoist ideals.
Indeed, Wandering Still creates the dream-like scene of mountains and rock by weaving straw together and rolling up sheets of hanji (traditional Korean paper made from mulberry bark) to achieve the feeling of subtle flows in nature. The scent of hanji permeating the space creates yet another sensory dimension adding to the culminating experience of the installation. The visitor becomes a small figure wandering about the landscape of a mountains-and-water painting unfolding towards an unknown world.
Shinji Ohmaki(b.1971, JAPAN)
Liminal Air -Descend-
Dimensions variable
Nylon string, Fluorescent lights, Glass, Timber
2006 ~ 15
Shinji Ohmaki exists in an area of convergence between the basic elements of sculpture and the philosophical concepts of Zen Buddhism, and it is here, in this liminal zone, that Shinji collaborates with scientists, architects and designers so that he can take everyday materials like string, fabric and bubbles and transform spaces into extreme dream-like worlds populated with their very own phenomena. Visitors are transported beyond their sensory experiences and into an extrasensory realm - another dimension of experience. Liminal Air -Descend- visualizes the energy flow that occurs when air descends and clouds are about to dissipate. The white string tied in a traditional Japanese knot and hung on the base of the gently sloping curve evokes the sense of a mass of air. Inspired by traditional Japanese architecture, which serves as a space for meditation and mediation, the artist proposes a space in which the visitor is walking through the sky. In this space, the visitor can choose to be a part or an observer of the artwork and, in so doing, entering a world of eternity and sublimity.
Exhibition Related Events
MMCA Exhibition Talk- 〈Interplay〉 Curator Talk
ㅇ Period : April 25th, 14:00~15:00
ㅇ Venue : Gallery 6
ㅇ Program : The talk concert with exhibition curator
MMCA Exhibition Talk- 〈Interplay〉 Artists' Talk
ㅇ Period : April 15th, 18:30~20:30
ㅇ Venue : Multiproject Hall & Gallery 6
ㅇ Program : The talk concert with 2 artists: avaf, Ohmaki Shinji & The live performance of Ross Manning
Education for Children and Families
ㅇ Program : avaf for Interplay workshop
- Making own avaf Mask
- Add your Color strips on avaf walls
ㅇ Period : 2 workshops between July~August
ㅇ Venue : Education Center Lecture Room & Gallery 6
※ For details date and time TBD
Guided Tours
ㅇ Period : Tue~Sun 13:00
ㅇ Venue : Gallery 6
ㅇ Program : Exhibition highlights and Interpretation
※ Schedule may change depending on the situation.
※ As you down the stairs through the Gallery 6, you will be able to appreciate all of the work.
※ Wheelchair or stroller is limited exhibit space viewing of the B3.
