How does art confront uncertainty and the fear of the unknown, be it the shock of catastrophic change or the depression and anxiety of everyday life? Are there alternatives to simulating terror hyper-expressionistically or represent feelings metaphorically? Does art have access to the apparatuses that might produce such tensions? Can its co-optation of the real and the virtual engender counter-strategies, like art therapy’s internalisation of the other within the self by releasing what the mind represses? However considered, art maintains a certain silence, a relative impotence in the face of the awesome power of the paranoia and hysteria of the public sphere, the stresses and dysfunctions of work and family, to say nothing of the ever-present existential threats of terror attacks and disasters, natural and manmade. Should this apparent muteness, this blankness toward what are essentially complicated abstractions necessarily be conceived as helplessness?
From Blank Pages: Eight Artistic Propositions in the Time of Catastrophe questions the role and capacities of art in dealing with such abstract social and mental spaces as panic, uncertainty and paralysis, through the reconsideration of these states as ‘blank pages’ by the poet Su-Young Kim (1921-68). Here, art is proposed as a conceptual reconfiguration of blankness, rather than as something to be subsumed and recuperated by it. Just as each artist interprets this blankness differently, the means of dealing with it are diverse, at times adventurous, even anarchic and ridiculous. The project is a speculative one, conceiving the art space as a laboratory – a necessarily messy, excessive and anti-laboratorial laboratory – in which propositional scenarios are juxtaposed, interspersed and thrown into giddy relief for the consideration of viewers developing their own strategies for blankness.
Founded in February 1999 as a non-profit organisation, art space pool works at the cutting edge of the Korean contemporary art world, developing dynamic solo and group exhibitions, academies, workshops, panel discussions and education programs. As one of Korea’s leading galleries, art space pool has made significant contributions to Seoul’s vibrant cultural scene. It is positioned as a stronghold for alternative art, a place of mutual education in which art specialists—artists, critics and curators—can engage in an exchange of ideas from which an alternative discourse of art can be produced. Through symposia, curatorial experiment, in-depth educational programs and the publication of a journal, art space pool aspires to be a starting point for the collective exploration of the possibilities of an art based on the intersection of ethics, aesthetics and the present state of the world.
From Blank Pages is supported by Arts Council Korea and the Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture. Participation of Australian artists Brook Andrew, Alicia Frankovich and Deborah Kelly are supported by the Keir Foundation and organized by Artspace under the broader framework of the Burn what you cannot steal project, supported in turn by the Australia Council for the Arts. This overall project emerges from a strategy of international collaboration with like-minded institutions in which Artspace is actively engaged on an ongoing basis. It is premised on a recognition that the sophisticated work of Australian artists demands critical contextualisation within the broader international framework in which it operates, with the inclusion of the artists made on the basis of the relationship between elements of their practice with those of other artists.
Artists Talk Friday, October 21, 2011, 5PM, Art Space Pool
The artist talk starts from 5 PM, during which Alicia Frankovich's performance intervenes. Opening reception follows the talk and on-site live performance.
Minouk Lim's presentation only happens at the exhibition "Burn what you cannot steal" in Gallery Nova, Zagreb.
Related link to ART SPACE website www.artspace.org.au
Curated by Heejin Kim in collaboration with Reuben Keehan.
