전시장에 차려진 기암괴석 설치 작품이 조야하면서도 해학적이라 전통 민화에서 튀어나온 듯 정겹다. 바위는 위로 솟았는데, 바위에 칠해진 수묵의 붓질이 문인화적인 향취를 모방하고자 하는 서민의 욕망을 슬그머니 드러낸다.
대중문화에서 시작된 K-컬처의 온기가 주변부로 확산하는 가운데, 한국성에서 K-아트의 답을 찾는 작가들이 있어 주목된다.
먼저 작가 그룹 이끼바위쿠르르가 서울 종로구 아트선재센터에서 하는 개인전 ‘거꾸로 사는 돌’을 소개하고자 한다. 2022년 독일 카셀에서 열린 현대미술제전 카셀 도큐멘타에 한국인으로는 유일하게 초청받은 이끼바위쿠르르가 이번 개인전을 통해 주목한 것 중 하나는 조선시대에 ‘산수’로 불렸던 한국의 산하 풍경이다. 이끼바위쿠르르는 한국의 산천 외진 곳에서 만나게 되는 인물 돌 조각을 전통의 탁본 기법으로 찍어 전시장에 회화처럼 걸었다. 먹이 아니라, 장지에 숯으로 탁본을 해 서민적인 느낌을 내면서도 서구의 재료인 목탄의 질감을 동시에 만들어낸다. 이끼바위쿠르르는 입체도 시도했다. 중중첩첩 펼쳐지는 산속에서 하나의 정경을 이루는 기암괴석을 지점토와 먹을 활용해 생동감 있게 표현했다. 조선 18세기 최고 산수화가 겸재 정선의 산수화를 19세기 무명의 작가가 모방해 그린 민화 산수화가 주는 푸근함이 있다. 조지은씨는 최근 전시장에서 국민일보와 가진 인터뷰에서 “기후 위기의 시대다. 자연을 정복의 대상이 아니라 함께 어울리는 대상으로 파악했던 동양의 산수화가 주는 위로의 힘을 보여주고 싶었다”고 말했다.
이끼가 덮인 바위를 뜻하는 ‘이끼바위’와 의성어 ‘쿠르르’를 합친 이끼바위쿠르르는 조씨와 함께 고결, 김중원 등 연령대가 다른 세 명의 작가로 구성돼 2021년에 데뷔했다. 조씨만 미술을 전공했지 김씨는 밴드 보컬을, 고결은 연극영화학과를 잠시 전공한 독특한 조합이다. 전시는 26일까지.
자수 족자에 파리채를 붙여 해학적인 메시지를 던지는 김나영 & 그레고리 마스의 '꽃 낮잠 3'(2024, 혼합매체).
서울 강남구 신사동 아뜰리에 에르메스에서 하는 부부 작가 김나영과 그레고리 마스(독일)의 개인전 ‘파라노이아 파라다이스’에서도 한국의 전통을 느낄 수 있다. 개념미술을 하는 이들 부부 작가는 오브제(사물) 간의 기이한 조합을 통해 상투성을 넘어 놀랍고도 풍부한 해석이 가능한 세계로 우리를 초대한다. 열쇠고리, 옷걸이, 고무대야 등 일상의 자질구레한 물건을 끌어와 해학적인 세계를 선보였던 부부는 이번 전시에서는 한국의 전통적 요소를 끌어왔다. 전시장 곳곳에서 붓글씨, 병풍, 자수, 족자 등 한국적 요소를 만날 수 있다. 전시 제목을 영어 붓글씨로 쓴 8폭 병풍 ‘PARANOIA PARADIDE(파라노이아 파라다이스)’가 입구에서 관람객을 맞는다. 자수 회화 가운데는 특히 장미꽃이 수놓인 족자에 난데없이 플라스틱 파리채가 붙어 있는 게 눈에 띈다. 그 생뚱한 조합에 절로 미소가 나온다. 장미는 해방 이후 애호되던 족자의 소재인데, 작가는 거기에 뜬금없이 조야한 파리채를 붙인 것이다. 김 작가는 “병풍을 취미 삼아 수집한 게 10년이 넘지만 전시에 내놓은 건 이번이 처음”이라면서 “파라다이스는 꽃과 꿀이 흐르는 이상향이다. 그 꿈을 파리채로 ‘꿈 깨!’라며 직시하라고 말하고 싶었다”고 설명했다. 2월 2일까지.
manifesto / questionnaire / interrogation / definition / formula / policy / mission / voices by Gregory Maass & Nayoungim
ORIFICATION
or
"this is not it"
Ears, nose[1], mouth, anus, vagina/jungle/fee-fee/punani,[2] and much less inventive in my humble opinion, the penis/membrum virile/lunch box/schwanzstucker,[3] and last but not least the nipples are the major human orifices. (They forgot the eyes, whoever they are.) We try to christen a method of production, process of fabrication, under the umbrella-term of "Orification" xor "Orificing". For our Henry Moorish sculptural approach, see "Henry Moorish Dreamstone 1" (image 2) from the series "A rough day at the orifice" is one such possible outcome. Or our "booga" aka "nose-crotte" drawings (image 3).
The nipple[4], a definition of an archetypal orifice: by appearance, a nipple (also called teat in animals) in mammals, which includes us homo sapiens times two, who are a sub-group of primates, is a small projection of skin containing the outlets for 15–20 lactiferous ducts arranged cylindrically around the tip.
Image 1: A breast of an African woman. (2009) Source: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license.
The black hole is not a hole, it's an orifice. The defining feature of a black hole is the appearance of an event horizon is a boundary in timespace[6] [sic] through which matter and light can pass only inward towards the mass of the black hole. Nothing, not even time or light, can escape from inside the event horizon. The event horizon is referred to as such because if an event occurs within the boundary, information from that event cannot reach an outside observer, making it impossible to determine whether such an event even occurred.
"A black hole has no hair."[7] The obscene no-hair theorem.
Hans J. Eysenck, writes: "A young Californian research assistant called Jacob Bekenstein suggested, in a series of publications, just that: the surface area of a black hole was, indeed, a measure of entropy, and black holes do have Temperature related their surface area. Furious, (Stephen) Hawking attacked Bekenstein's interpretation of the equation Hawking had originally published. Later, Hawking paid a visit to Moscow and learned about the work of Yakov Zel'dovich on the way black holes interact with light. He became convinced that black holes must indeed emit radiation, and did have temperatures! He completely changed course, and advocated what earlier he had condemned, and now 'Hawking radiation' is considered one of the great achievements of the pas 50 years of physics, combining as it does general relativity and quantum mechanics in one package. Poor Bekenstein, the original discoverer, is forgotten.[8]
Fun fact: In good, old astrophysics, spaghettification (sometimes referred to as the noodle effect) is the vertical stretching and horizontal compression of objects into long thin shapes (rather like the already mentioned spaghetti) in a very strong, non homogeneous gravitational field. Bye the bye take a butcher's here.
A kind of tension/suspension/pull:
The sculptor Henry Spencer Moore, despite being an unrelenting giant of the field and highly intuitive genius re-inventor of the hole, left us a rather cringeworthy description of the same:
"The first hole made through a piece of stone is a revelation. The hole connects one side to the other, making it immediately more three-dimensional. A hole can itself have as much shape-meaning as a solid mass." (The Listener, 1937) Let us forgive him and blame it on the thick journalist instead.
The hole an IYI-definition: For instance, a circle is not a disk because the circle has a hole through it while the disk is solid, and the ordinary sphere is not a circle because the sphere encloses a two-dimensional hole while the circle encloses a one-dimensional hole. Because a hole is immaterial, it is not immediately obvious how to define one or distinguish it from others. People tend to refer to them as tangible and countable objects, when in fact they are the absence of something in another object. Holes have also been described as ontological parasites because they can only exist as aspects of another object.
Slavoj Žižek (again! What's going on with that guy?): In my shallow reflection on The Sublime Object of Ideology. What it means is that every idea or ideology has a central self-reference or feedback-loop, there hulks an infinite self-regression, or insufferable tautology[ 10] … there is nothing at the center. The master-signifier is an empty space without any content, yet is the node of, and organizes any discursive network through that absence. This negation of an object produces a new third object which in its own value factors in what it negates. This mysterious third value of an object which it has because it isn't those things is the work of ideology.
Negative space:
Image 3 Title: "A dreamstone, an orification I." (2024) Nayoungim & Gregory Maass
The ideogram 間 (pronounced "ma" Japanese or " jiān " in Mandarin) is a gap through which something shines. In this case it's literally the sun which shines through a slit in between the gates. (originally it was the more intimate moonlit gates[11]). The concept of a pregnant void has been around for ages, specifically describes both time and space through a notion of interval. This way of thinking of negative space is therefore more abstract than one that prefers concrete or tangible things. It is a great, but endless, unendangered blah-blah-blah-concept (no offense) with many faces and layers. It is reflected upon in various ways through concepts such as mu≈ nothingness; wu ≈ nothingness; wu (again? Yes!) ≈ emptiness or Śūnyatā s.a. (Sanskrit: शून्यता). This is a recurring theme in Eastern philosophies and a very ambiguous term, which is simultaneously mysti-romanticised, and usually misunderstood.[12] It is not something which is gloom-ridden or undesirable; on the contrary, it is a much-coveted state of mind which diligent (ambitious yet pietous) Hindus, Buddhists, and Taoists strive to attain through various rigorous techniques such as meditation, prayer, fasting, pilgrimage, physical exercise, or a mix of the above. Even though its long-term psychological benefits are questionable, representing/constituting a self-state where knowing, feeling, and awareness get lost in themselves. s.a. The soteriological sense of "blown out, extinguished" self-states of liberation called Nirvana (Sanskrit : निर्वाण) deserves more of our sensitive yet critical and undivided attention. TBEOL
IYI: Formulated in Japan ma was well deemed imperative in human relationships for maintaining distance. 間抜け,まぬけ, manuke (nu/抜 means to pilfer), missing or lacking distance, being supremely clueless, being a total loser, elegantly circumventing the term "dunce" also commonly known as idiot.
Slavoj Žižek wrote in his oeuvre majeure (The Sublime Object of Ideology)[13] ≈ Desire is negative because it is a lack of something (which causes a pull, motion towards an object), because it is a gap in something (which makes it invincible, obstacles pass through it), and because it is something anti-luminous (all attempts to peer, to enlighten/symbolize another is doomed to fail, only leaving us with a subject's own projection).
Don't miss out on Phantusee as a dissociative self-defense.
[1] See our "Booga" or "nose-crotte" drawinx. [sic]
[2] For a completer list please refer to Jason Rhoades. Hauser & Wirth: "Jason Rhoades found a total of 1724 expressions used in English for the female genitals, a figure that takes us to the half-way point of the more fortunate half of the century of Enlightenment, the year when Immanuel Kant was born." We met him (Jason Rhoades) in the flesh while he was putting up the Kant (German [ˈkənt]) show (actual title: "My Madinah. In pursuit of my ermitage... ") at the Schaulager of H&W, endlessly, and I remember him gluing towels with the biggest glue gun of the planet earth and eating Pizza with some heroin addict/noble junkie/user aka space cadet. (Name dropping is so out of fashion, King Charles recently told me.) and the expression "cock wash" staid with me until now. He passed away asudden in 2006 at the tender age of 41 from a plethora of drugs and a heart condition. Drugs are bad.
[5] Just out of pure curiosity: What the dickens is energy, as it does not exist on its own? and while we are at it: What the deuce is time (see asymmetry)? Sam Vaknin has all the good answers. TBEOL Could you please repeat the question?
[7] A hypothesis coined by Jacob Bekenstein. Stephen Hawking's final and posthumously published paper states that the black hole might have soft hair. Let us savor this.
[8] A longish quote from Hans J. Eysenck, "Genius: The Natural History of Creativity (Problems in the Behavioral Sciences, Series Number 12)", Page 41 [8]
[9] (if you are interested XOR intellectual yet idiot)
[10],which my father Ferdinand Axel Maaß always took unbridled, childish pride in upon encounter by exclaiming: "Ah, ein Pleonasmus!"
This spring, art events involving multiple genres are being held in Korea. Festival Bo:m (directed by Sunghee Kim) is an annual multi-genre art festival that has been hosted for the past six years and continues to draw critical acclaim from audiences. When Festival Bo:m began in 2007 (under the title Spring Festival), it was geared toward introducing international trends of dance and theatre art to Korea. Over the years, the festival has developed its own character, and this year Bo:m tried to strike a balance between Western and non-Western art. During the festival’s three-week run, I viewed works by both Korean and foreign artists. One thing that stood out in my mind at the 2012 Festival Bo:m was the collaborative nature of many of the projects.
Another multi-genre art event, 'x_sound: John Cage, Nam June Paik and After', curated by Sohyun Ahn, Sooyoung Lee, and Chaeyoung Lee, is taking place at the Nam June Paik Art Center. The event includes not only works by Cage and Paik, but also works by present-day sound artists building on the experimentations of the original innovators. Here, the term 'x_sound' has a triple meaning: a sound that is unknown (x), that is ex-panded, and that ex-pels fixed ideas about sound. 'Sound' itself is a neutral and straightforward term when taken literally, but in the contemporary art context, it is a complex field with innumerable questions and discourses.
The final exhibition is Nayoungim + Gregory Maass's 'There is No Beer in Hawaii', curated by Sunyoung Oh at artclub 1563. The exhibition’s central theme is illusion. Its title comes from the German schlager song ‘Es Gibt Kein Bier auf Hawaii.’ Their works are based on a variety of art trends ranging from pop art to neo-dada, fluxus, conceptual art, and minimalism, but the artists display a free command of those art trends. Their works are familiar in the sense that they borrow ideas from art history, but at the same time, they are unfamiliar due to the neutral colors and materials used to create them.
![Haroon Mirza, Backfade_5 [Dancing Queen], 2011, sound installation](https://cdn.aaa.org.hk/_source/ideas_images/09e38b3-ccc3-4a1f-aab2-6ca5211d3.jpg)
