JangSoonNation

Candle light parade in Korea

2008-05-17T15:45:00.000-07:00

The nights of candle light in Korea

2008-05-15T01:07:00.000-07:00

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea agreed on Friday to resume beef imports from the United States, ending a ban begun in 2003 over concerns about mad cow disease.

The decision removed a major dispute between the allies, hours before President Bush was to meet South Korea’s new president, Lee Myung-bak, in Washington to discuss free trade and North Korea.

Mr. Lee welcomed the beef deal as “removing a stumbling block for the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement,” the news agency Yonhap reported from Washington.
South Korea suspended American beef imports in 2003 after an outbreak of mad cow disease, depriving United States exporters of their third-largest market for American beef.
Agricultural officials in Seoul said Friday that South Korea would allow American beef imports from cattle younger than 30 months. Younger cows are believed to be less at risk from mad cow disease. - From New York Times

The article here says Korea will import beef that is younger than 30 months. So now Korea became one of few countries that takes this aged beef and people in Korea are strongly complaining toward Korean government and the new president Mr. Lee because of the worry of the mad cow disease. Citizens gather together and hold candle light to show their dissatisfaction about the pact from FTA(Free Trade Agreement) and the decision of Korean government. According to the totalization from Korean media, now number of people who participate for this gathering are almost 15,000 only in Seoul at every night from 7 to 11 pm.

I really want to see the happening, I am sure this scenery will be beautiful.
Whether the beef is fatal to take for Korean, I think the fact that the candle lights of the spontaneous union are meaningful and it can be very political art that people can make.

LMCC

2008-05-15T00:20:00.000-07:00

I went to the open studio of Lower Manhattan Cultural Council with my friend. One of the studio is near by Cooper Union and we only went there to see the artists and their works.

It says,
Programming at the Council stokes the cultural life of the city with art, ideas and imagination. We encourage art where it’s least expected, stimulate conversation around the ideas of the moment, and continually burnish and tarnish the links between culture and capital from our nook in New York’s Financial District.

The studio has 10 artists and they work hard. I was amazed seeing some great quality installations. And above all, I like their freedom and experimental attitude in their work.

I don't remember the artist of this fiber collage painting but I do remember he had rock band concert inside his space. It was cool.

What I were really fascinated with is Larrissa Bates' paintings.

The work of Larissa Bates focuses on cultural constructions of masculinity and gender tropes. Her painted narratives follow the ever war hungry Little Napoleons as they take over the world, one colony at a time, and face their bitter enemies, the Cry Babies. -From LMCC

I and my friend had wine with cookies. It was fun to appreciate so fresh artists' works.

Mental maps and metaphysics

2008-05-14T23:49:00.000-07:00

Only he can be an artist who has a religion of his own, an original view of the infinite. - Friedrich von Schlegel, c.1800

At the turn of the eighteenth century, the German Romantic philosopher Friedrich von Schlegel described the German artist as "righteous, ingenuous, thorough, precise and profound... thereby innocent and a little clumsy." In this perfect conjunction of character traits Schlegel saw the ideal candidate to create a new mythology for a philosophically exhausted world. This notion - that the artist's personal vision could offer new archetypes, fresh allegories, and alternative explanations of the visible world - has reappeared in the drawing projects of Franz Ackermann, Mark Manders, and Matthew Ritchie, each of whom has embarked upon a multiyear endeavor of making drawings that exemplify, describe, or map out new structures through which to perceive the world.

- From the exhibtion Drawing Now: Eight Propositions

What I am scared is.....

2008-03-23T23:13:00.000-07:00

What I am scared about is the teenagers in my country, Korea.

They are so confident about something they haven't thought about.

I don't know where this confidence comes from but they exist strongly.

If I ask them where it is from, they will answer "am I pretty today?"....

Of course I like young girls, I am male. But no thanks the group all.

That is enough.

War lover

2008-03-23T22:48:00.000-07:00

I thought, it is impossible to love war? Can't I think war as romantic event?

And I found a Vietnamese female artist, An-My Le.

She was born in Vietnam and lived during the Vietnam War in her childhood. She experienced the war as a kid. So she remembers smell, air and feeling of the past.

Exerpt from art:21, she interviewed,

"I was more interested in drawing people into my work to think about the issues that envelop war - representations of war, landscape and terrain in war."

"War can be beautiful. I think it's the idea of the sublime - moments that are horrific but, at the same time, beautiful - moments of communion with the landscape and nature."

So I think, everything what can be criticized can also be sublimed as War.

Because everything can be art :)

Hermann Nitsch

2008-03-05T08:17:00.000-08:00

ART, RITUAL AND RELIGION

Nitsch’ endeavour to initiate the ritual of rituals must be seen against the broader background of the idea that art is the successor of religion. To phrase it in his own words: ‘To me, art is a kind of priesthood, since traditional religions have lost their spell’ (p. 39). In a manifesto he says of the ‘existential-sacral’ painting: ‘We strive for a consequent sacralisation of art and for a thorough spiritualization of existence whereby man becomes the priest of Being’ (p. 46). And ‘man’, such is of course Nitsch himself: ‘I am the very expression of the whole creation’ (p. 64). Like Wagner Bayreuth, so Nitsch has destined Prinzendorf to be the sanctuary where on a regular base the six-day Orgien Mysterien cult has to be performed. In view of this mission, he even founded a private ‘Stiftung’.

The return of art to the sacral is – not otherwise than its dissolution in philosophy – nothing else than a stride outside the realm of art, and a regressive dream at that. The latter is always belied by historic reality. In his inaugural speech Nitsch describes the cult in Prinzendorf as follows: ‘I saw the growing horde of participants to the feast, rapt in trance, romping down the alley of chestnut trees, shouting and jubilant’ (p. 124). The reality was slightly different: a handful of actors performs the ‘orgiastic ecstasy’, gaped at by a handful of passive spectators, drinking, discussing, laughing and smoking… And no more different are the highlights from the six-day ritual, condensed into proportions appropriate for their performance in a gallery, that Nitsch has staged hither and thither. In the unshakable conviction that they are witnessing the (umpteenth) excess of excesses, the (umpteenth) transgression of transgressions, the conspiring spectators feel utterly united in the secret brotherhood of genuine art lovers, the spearhead of mankind. It is only a pity that the formerly obligatory raid of the police – the cherry on the cake, if not the proof of the pudding - tends nowadays to remain forthcoming …

Whatever Nitsch' intention may have been, his ‘primeval ritual’ is no more than a spectacle - sheer ‘Darstellungstheater’ – not at all a real ritual, merely a mere performance of it. What is performed here on the borderline between ‘faking’ and ‘playing’ – not otherwise than in a strip-tease or an sm-session - is in no way the ‘primeval drama’, suppose such a thing would be interesting at all. The alleged primal ritual staged in the ‘Orgien Mysterien Theater’ rather reminds of children playing priest, which, just like playing school, used to be the favourite business of children obliged to attend the church. And with playing doctor or blowing up frogs it has in common that such ‘playing ritual’ is the dreamt of alibi to indulge in the scorned sado-masochistic pleasures, mistakenly interpreted as sexual, as analysed above.

UbuWeb Films Hermann Nitsch (b. 1938)

Jonathan Meese

2008-03-04T21:17:00.001-08:00

Jonathan Meese in Tate Modern Gallery

Meese swigged a bottle of whiskey and stumbled around, apparently drunk and jetlagged from a trip to Tokyo. Wearing an impressive variety of headgear—from a safari-style helmet to crusader chainmail—he wailed and crooned a stock of phrases repetitively into the microphone around his neck: “Ree-chard Vag-ner” and “A-dolf Heet-ler” (accompanied by salutes and wanking gestures); “If you want to be huuu-man . . . you must watch 120 Days of Sodom by Pa-so-li-ni . . .” He threw around the furniture and skeletons like a spoiled child and clung to the ropes of the wrestling ring, apparently in psychotic meltdown.

Left and Right: Jonathan Meese.

It was quite an onslaught. The girl next to me left in tears; my friends bolted to the bar. I stuck it out for an hour, submitting to the hypnotic effect of Meese’s psychotherapeutic self-humiliation and recurring musical loops (ominous chords, Irish jigs, Coward’s campy English ditties) and trying to make sense of the mélange. When the video and sound track stopped, Meese soldiered on unplugged until forcibly removed from atop his bronze cactus sculpture. The event polarized the audience: Some found it fabulously energizing (“London hasn’t seen anything like this before”), but, frankly, they were in the minority; most were bored and insulted (“I feel like I’ve been used like a nappy”).

It’s true that the viewer seems to perform an absorptive role for Meese’s metaphorical feces. On the one hand, his mise-en-scène was visually compelling, belonging to a tradition of abject, chaotic performance-installations from Hermann Nitsch to Paul McCarthy to John Bock. On the other, the work does depend on a psychological performance of excruciating interiority: Meese’s adoption of an antiheroic persona is uncritically anchored in the Expressionist tradition. Against Kippenberger’s performative exploration of artistic personae (a performativity that leaves an empty center, à la Warhol), Meese’s cathartic performance keeps all notions of subjective coherence intact. While purporting to be about Germany’s repressed history, Jonathan Meese’s work seems more about Jonathan Meese. At a dinner for the artist a week previously, he had half-joked that the Tate performance “will be my grave.” I wouldn’t go this far, but I do now know that unravelling his references is no guarantee of conceptual gratification. This is not to deny the potency of Meese’s all-consuming subjective blitzkrieg, just to acknowledge it simply as that.

All Apologies.

2008-02-26T13:10:00.000-08:00

What else should I be
All apologies
What else could I say
Everyone is gay
What else could I write
I don't have the right
What else shoud I be
All apologies
In the sun
In the sun I feel as one
In the sun, In the sun
Married,
Buried..
I wish I was like you
Easily amused
Find my nest of salt
Everything's my fault
I'll take all the blame
Aqua sea-foam shame
Sunburn with freezer-burn
Choking on the ashes of her enemies
In the sun
In the sun I feel as one
In the sun, In the sun,
I'm married,
Buried..

Fiestardi : So -ucking honest...

Nirvana's song,
I go to the starting point,
to my nation, my world, my place and my people...

Jonathan Messe & Tal R in Bortolami gallery in 2007

2008-02-22T17:18:00.000-08:00

Jonathan Messe who is painter, sculptor, and installation and performance artist collaborated with TAL R for the exhibition in Bortolami gallery in NY last year.

The show was about "Mother".

I am looking forward to seeing his solo exhibition and performance soon in NY again.

When he was Korea and doing performance in front of Korean spectators, he bottomed a bottle of white wine up. I didn't know the reason but it was impressive to me.

and I still want to know what ritual he had drinking white wine.

Cai Guo-Qiang will be in Guggenheim

2008-02-18T14:02:00.000-08:00

Cai Guo-Qiang is Chinese artist who will have solo exhibition in Guggenheim museum from 22th of this month. I am looking forward to see this exhibition because of its scale. But I am still wandering if he has his own theme that viewers can figure out.

The title—which alludes to a text from the third century (known as Sanguozhi)—refers to an episode in which the general Zhuge Liang, facing an imminent attack from the enemy, manages to replenish a depleted store of arrows. According to legend, Zhuge Liang tricked the enemy by sailing across the Yangtze river through the thick mist of early dawn with a surrogate army made of straw, while his soldiers remained behind yelling and beating on drums. Mistaking the pandemonium for a surprise attack, the enemy showered the decoys with volleys of arrows. Thus the general returned triumphantly with a freshly captured store of weapons.
Surreptitiously gathering strength from one's opponent is also a strategic principle in martial arts. Turning to a militaristic episode and a cultural practice, Cai not only suggests a defensive strategy in the face of foreign intervention, but also creates a poetic metaphor in the image of a wounded body transcending pain and floating in a cloud of feathered arrows.

I know he referred chinese ancient story and which is also I like it. But I should ask him why you want to create a poetic metaphor in the image of a wounded body. I know he is interested in representing "hurt", but I don't know why. When he mentions about the reason of this, he always says chinese philosophy. He even say this philosophy is deep and you may not understand. I think he gives up to describe essential part of his work. What do you think?

Sand Painting

2008-02-12T18:59:00.000-08:00

The opening performance of SICAF , Seoul International Cartoon & Animation Festival.
I didn't see this show in the festival, but it was great issue in Korea at that time.

The artist's name is Ferenc Cako, I am not sure if he is already popular in U.S.

The pictures he made is also great.

Kofun period in Japan

2008-02-10T21:26:00.000-08:00

I went to Metropolitan Museum today and found something really interesting.

I was not interested in Japanese history and artifice because it is so popular.

However, when I confront this kind of Japanese artifices, I was frozen.

Bust of a warrior, Kofun period (ca. 3rd c–538), 5th–6th centuryKanto region, JapanEarthenware with painted, incised, and applied decoration; H. 13 1/8 in. (33.3 cm), W. 10 7/8 in. (27.6 cm)

Haniwa were the clay objects placed around Kofun in protohistoric Japan. They varied in size (but generally between 60-90cm in height for human statues)and subject (warriors, horses, priests, etc).

Haniwa refers to the unglazed earthenware objects stacked on the tops of tumulus. In the Kofun (tumulus) period, Osaka was a political and economic center. This type of ship may have been used for technical and cultural exchanges with continental countries. Circa 5th century.

That was fun, but not shoking yet,

The amazing thing that I found today is.....

All my work I did in 2005 had same face with Kofun's face.

I think my idea is naturally derived from my ancestor's aesthetics and their work.

Here is artifices from Shilla, the ancient country of Korea.

Some of Silla's people migrated to Japan and they made some work which has simillarity with Silla's clay figurines. And it is amazing even I do this work nowadays.

It was really good opportunity to think about my cultural origin.

Ancient Korean painting

2008-02-05T21:28:00.001-08:00

I am interested in looking and drawing war painting. Unfortunately, Korea doesn't have enough record about war.

This painting is done in Goguryeo period.

Goguryeo or Koguryo was an ancient kingdom located in southern Manchuria, southern Russian Maritime province, and the northern and central parts of the Korean peninsula.

I like the way painter simplified hunters' figures. I cannot feel how active they were but what painter's attitude towards ancient life is.

Japanese invasions of Korea in 1592

2008-02-05T20:56:00.000-08:00

Two Japanese invasions of Korea and subsequent battles on the Korean penninsula took place during the years 1592–1598.

I like this painting because this is not the real image of the terrible war. Even though this war happened just 500 years ago, I like painter's attitude towards the war and his painting style. It differentiate from the contemporary inhumane war that we can contact through the media today.

This drawing is a draft of Korean battleship, Panok. The descriptions on the sketch are about the function of each part.

Northeast Asian war romanticism

2008-02-04T08:28:00.000-08:00

I like ancient Northeast Asian war because of its romanticism and simplicity.
First of all, the ancient war was practically simple. Ancient asian people were really devoted themselves to enlarge their territory for their kingdom. When they won, they were glorious but when they lost, they even suicided because it was so shame. I think the value of individual's life was so devaluated at this time. However, they didn't complain about this. I think this attitude made the war so simple.
Secondly, there was limitation of media to present the actual past situation. TV news and video make people to think about humanity because of their reality. On the contrary, the record of ancient war is limited to convey the reality because they just had writing and painting to describe the situation. Especially, army in Northeast Asian war painting is simplified as interesting figures who are definitely different with actual people's figure because of their limitation of paining technique.
Finally, the gap between ancient and modern time decrease war's seriousness.
I think Northeast ancient war approaches to contemporary viewers not as a terrible historical fact but as an interesting story. I want the viewers to think about innocent war that they imagined in their childhood.

현대에 살고 있는 우리가, 박물관이나 자료를 통해 보는 고대 전쟁은 현대의 전쟁보다는 훨씬 단순하고 명료하다. 군인 모두가 단결하여 상대편을 이기면 영토를 확장하는, 현대와 비교했을 때 비교적 단순한 목적의 전쟁이었다. 전쟁에서 쓰이는 무기들은 대량 살상이 가능한 현대의 무기만큼 강력하지는 않은 원시적 무기였다.
둘째로, 고대의 기록은 현대의 미디어처럼 사실적으로 기록을 하지 못한다. 현대의 전쟁에 관한 뉴스와 영상등은 그 실제감으로 인하여 시청자로 하여금 많은 것을 생각하게 한다. 자신과 같은 사람이 상처를 입는 것을 실제로 목격한다면, 관객들은 비인간적인 장면에 많은 충격을 받을 것이다. 그에 반해 고대의 전쟁 기록은 그 미디어의 한계성으로 인해 사실을 전달하는 것에 한계가 있다. 그들은 글과 그림으로 당시 상황을 기록함으로써 좀 더 우회적으로 당시를 설명했다. 특히 동북아시아의 전쟁 그림은 사람들을 간략하게 그림으로써 전쟁의 참혹함을 보여주기 보다는 오히려 재밌는 풍경이 연출된다.

마지막으로 현대와 고대의 시간차이는 그 심각성을 decrease한다.

나는 내가 보는 고대인들의 낭만적인 전쟁의 모습을 상상력을 통해 재현시킴으로써 현대인으로써의 관객이 어렸을 때 한번쯤 순수하게 생각했던 단순한 전쟁놀이를 추억하게 하고 싶다.

고대 전쟁의 기록에서는 현대사회에서 제기되는 인간 개인이 겪는 것에 관한 문제는 다루어지지 않는다. 현대인들의 제기되는 인간성의 문제등의 모든 것은 고대 전쟁의 기록에서 미화되었다. 그 이유는 아마 첫째로, 영상이나 사진같은 현대인이 체감할 수 있는 세밀하고 사실적인 기록을 할 수 있는 기술이 없었기 때문에 그 전쟁의 모습을 자료로 옮기는 도중에 변형되었을 것이고, 둘째로는 당시 권력층이 자신의 국가와 권력을 유지하기 위해 실제전쟁의 모습을 미화시켰을 것이다.

현대인들이 고대 전쟁의 모습을 예상할 수 있는 방법은 이제 그들이 쓰던 무기들과 기록들, 그리고 그것들을 그린 그림들이다. 현대 사회에서, TV로 보는 전쟁에 관한 뉴스나 영상은 거의 동시간에 벌어지는 실제 상황을 다룬다. 그에 반해 우리는 고대의 전쟁에 관한 사실은 옛 문헌이나 그림자료 등을 통해 어떠했는지를 미루어 짐작할 수 밖에 없다. 현대의 미디어와 고대의 미디어는 그 해석 방식에 있어서 많은 차이를 가져다 준다.

Reference.............

Romantics at War
Glory and Guilt in the Age of Terrorism
By George P. Fletcher

omitted....
In response to the Enlightenment came the Romantic movement, first in the fields of art, writing and music, and eventually in politics as well. In reaction to the cold cerebral world of the Enlightenment, Romanticism offered emotion and passion. In the political realm, Romanticism influenced the development of Nationalism, with its attendant concepts of “glory,” “honor” and “Country.” Romantics emphasized the uniqueness of each culture and rejected the universalist themes of the liberals.
Whereas liberals value, respect and judge the actions of individuals, Romantics focus more on nations and groups. Liberals do not find war to be particularly tasteful, but Romantics, caught up in nationalistic pride, will gloriously march off to fight for grand causes. Interestingly, Fletcher describes Al Gore as a stereotypical liberal, concerned with the nuances of public policy. George Bush, particularly since September 11, is seen as a Romantic, locked in an epic battle of good against evil.
Because the fight between liberalism and Romanticism has never been fully resolved, we are seeing the consequences today. The Romantic in each of us is attracted to the idea of a war against terror (or Saddam Hussein), but our liberal selves have (or should have) problems with the full consequences of this thinking. While we may be attracted to the “glory” of a “just war,” Fletcher warns us not to forget our ideals of justice in the process.
omitted.....