Art for Whom / What?

A gargantuan blob of metal pieces thrown together stands unapologetically in front of the POSCO building in the heart of Gangnam, an affluent district of Seoul, as referenced by the song “Gangnam Style” more than a decade ago. I have been told how the song became a global mega-hit, but I believe that the sculpture – worth $1.5 million – by Frank Stella wasn’t received so well by the public when it first was erected. My father told me (when we were driving by the site) that the sculpture was an eyesore back then and is still now. Simply put, he said, “It isn’t attractive.” When asked why the sculpture was erected in the first place, he said that the city enacted a law that at least 1% of the construction fund for a new building at a site should be allocated for an artwork, whether it is a sculpture or some kind of an artwork that serves the public in some way. 

The question, therefore, is what does it mean to “serve” the public? We need to look into the definition of art and what is the nature of serving. Evidently, the company POSCO, the world’s 6th largest steel producing firm, decided to commission a world-famous artist, Frank Stella, to come up with a creative piece that would best represent the ideals of the company. For those who prefer to saunter down the tony neighborhood of Gangnam on Sunday afternoon for a latte with friends, the sculpture is not the most eye-friendly piece to look at. After its erection, the piece has shown some ageing, as metals undergo a different chemical process in its deterioration. But, given that it IS a public artwork, after all, can we blame the artist or the work itself for its physically transitory process? 

One of the issues that the public has towards understanding art itself is that art should “please” the eye, but not necessarily “educate” the mind. People generally don’t watch films that complicate their thoughts or view an artwork trying to explore ideas that they haven’t encountered before. People’ outing on weekends in search of films or artworks – for those who just want to fill their time – are generally in need of pleasant exposures, not anything that would complicate their inured ways of thinking. Hence, they find it difficult to be challenged by artworks that contest their preconceived notions. At best, people’s minds would budge a little to try to understand something they are not familiar with, but still, not by a big margin. 

Unlike learning math or physics problem sets, those which require learners to overcome their own ignorance, artworks aren’t something to overcome by any means. They believe that artworks only operate within their understanding or awareness. They cannot fathom an artwork to be difficult because if they don’t seem pleasant to the eye, the artwork isn’t doing their job. Only when a financial value is assigned to an art, do people try to cope with their ignorance, that they NEED to overcome ignorance. Financial value on art dictates one to admit to his/her ignorance. 

But sadly, by that account, we can only admit to our own ignorance only in the system of economics. The law of economics is a guaranteed adjudicator of art in this contemporary society. For centuries art has been closely tied with commissions, but now art is strictly under the spell of capitalist drives.  On the one hand, the public SHOULD be thankful that the city has mandated art to be integral to private companies’ incentives, but that ideal is as tricky as a parent giving cash for a child’s getting an “A” on an exam. It is difficult to say that such an incentive can be the best method to motivate people to develop their creative interests.

Yes, public artworks in Seoul sometimes seem like strange forts that mark the city’s zones, as if they become strange beacons from lighthouses, ensuring safe passages for ships and boats to find their destinations safely. But these markers are also absolute in their own proclamations, sometimes no different from a dictator at the pulpit announcing his shocking visions for the people. 

Lens Via Krauss’s Essay

                                      (amazon.com)

Recently, while attending the opening of The Weird and the Eerie at The Page Gallery in Seoul, I couldn’t help but think of Rosalind Krauss’s provocative ideas expressed in her seminal work, The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths, against the backdrop of a talented group of artists.

The artists featured in the exhibition—Eunsil Lee, Jinn Bronwen Lee, Hyunwoo Lee, and Jin Han—employ various strategies to subvert conventional notions of representation and meaning. Eunsil Lee’s use of traditional Korean painting materials and techniques to explore taboo instincts and desires resonates with Krauss’s critique of the “grid” as a modernist trope. By metaphorically representing the fragmentation of individuals and the disintegration of communities through twisted spaces, body parts, and distorted animal forms, Lee challenges the grid’s supposed neutrality and universality.

Jinn Bronwen Lee’s irregularly shaped canvases filled with dark colors and textures further disrupt the modernist grid, echoing Krauss’s notion of the “expanded field.” By embracing deviation and decomposition as a means to find balance, Lee’s paintings become vessels for accommodating and fermenting existential processes, much like Krauss’s understanding of sculpture as a medium that occupies the space between landscape and architecture.

Hyunwoo Lee’s deconstruction and recombination of isolated parts of natural objects resonate with Krauss’s critique of the modernist fetishization of the medium. By eliminating conventional values and standards and horizontally positioning these elements as forms of matter, Lee challenges the notion of medium specificity and explores the essence of existence through a visual experience that redefines the perception of objects.

Finally, Jin Han’s attempt to visualize invisible states through meticulous drawings and multi-layered oil paintings evokes Krauss’s notion of the “optical unconscious.” By using unique sound waves to scan the unseen cracks and surfaces of the world, Han’s canvases, filled with roughness and smoothness, regularity and irregularity, challenge the modernist privileging of vision and invite viewers to engage with the strange and abstract as a means to access deeper truths.

Overall, The Weird and the Eerie presents an effective artistic afterword to Rosalind Krauss’s influential collection of essays. Through their unique and compelling pieces, the artists in the exhibition invite viewers to question their assumptions about art, representation, and the human condition.

To the Beat of My Own Drum

The din of the protestors outside grew faint as I stepped onto the festival grounds. 2024. Seoul. My first Queer Festival as a giddy 16-year-old ally, heart beating wildly. Anticipation swelling for weeks at the thought of the colors, the community, the chance to immerse myself in a vibrant queer world I so longed to support.

Boom. An explosion of hues assaults my senses. Rainbow flags undulating merrily, mocking the dull gray concrete sprawling underfoot. Laughter ripples, layered over music pulsing from stages in every direction. Sheer elation electrifies the air. Down winding paths, an endless promenade of booths beckons, a kaleidoscope of causes and voices. 

My feet move of their own accord. Tugging me to a gaggle of bright young things at the Dding Ddong booth. Bi teens preaching affirmation in a world intent on isolation. Their words buzz in my brain: be the friend you wish you had. Secrets held dear in closeted hearts, aching for an ally’s embrace.

Then, an unexpected tableau. Camouflage meets carnival in a riot of rainbow and stars. Soldiers’ stories spill forth, a catharsis decade overdue. A colonel’s confession: a life caged by conformity, now unshackled and unafraid. 

His first festival happened just one year prior. A baptism in belonging, an awakening to authenticity’s power. Advocacy now his armor as he battles to dismantle the very machinery of his oppression. So that no one else needs to serve in the suffocating silence of a hidden self.

My heart swells, brimming with a newfound knowing. The necessity of showing up, of standing alongside, of amplifying unheard voices. In this space of solidarity, hope hangs in the air, as palpable as the bass throbbing from distant speakers. 

Change comes in waves, in metered steps forward and disheartening lurches back. But here, now, surrounded by a sea of faces filled with joy and purpose, the path is laid bare. Brick by brick, story by story, hand in upraised hand, we will build the world we wish to inhabit. A world where every heart is free to love without limits, and every soul can dance unencumbered to the beat of its own wild drum.