The Artsonje Center presents an exhibition 6-8 which makes use of various spaces previously unused or off-limits to the public. The title, ‘6-8’, indicates the exhibition hours between 6pm and 8pm. When most museums are normally closed, this exhibition departs from the conventions of surrounding museum hours and regulation, thereby offering to the audience an experience beyond expectation.
Generally, art museums confine the movement of visitors to designated exhibition spaces. Working against this normal practice, the exhibition 6-8 allows the visitors and even encourages them to venture into previously inaccessible areas within the museum facility, as well as each and every corner of the Artsonje Center that makes up the architectural structure. Visitors are thus invited to encounter various works in the form of installation, light, sound, and more, laid out in various sites, such as the museum entrance, the Korean traditional house hanok, the garden, the museum building’s external walls, and the rooftop. What makes this exhibition special is freedom from a predetermined order in which to see the works, making it possible for the viewers to use their own sensibilities and attentiveness to discover the works on display. The Artsonje Center has for a long time made efforts to diversify its use of space by going beyond its white museum space and curating projects in its lounge and parking lot. This exhibition continues such efforts while also expanding upon them.
Artist group RohwaJeong draws attention to easily overlooked edges, sides, and surfaces of the Artsonje architecture, as their works are installed in several locations in and out of the Center, from the parking kiosk and the electronically-lit marquee near the entrance to the courtyard and to the rear exit. Ligyung installs red light and fog inside the tile-roof hanok located in the garden, transforming the familiar space of a traditional residential house with light and darkness and thereby enticing multisensory recognition of space.
The mechanical equipment room and the passage leading up to the rooftop are usually off-limit to the public. In this liminal space, the six-person project group Lee Ak (Kwon ByungJun, Lee EunSang, Jeon YouJin, Kim GuenChae, Yoon SuHee, and Bae MinKyung) installs their sound work. What awaits the visitors on the rooftop, where an open view onto the neighborhood can be enjoyed, is a green house produced by Wonwoo Lee. It is a space of illumination amid a dark winter night, an interior space resolutely situated outdoors. Joongho Yum, draws attention to architectural components such as venitilation windows and drainage holes by placing objects that speak of impermanence and imminent dissipation, therefore his works reflects on the architectural spaces that typically evade our vision.
Hosting the first exhibition of the year 2014, the Artsonje Center invites visitors to experience each and every corner of its structure, and the exhibition is open free of charge for the duration of the show. All this is to express to its long-time visitors a warm welcome and gratitude. As an attempt to break the spatiotemporal boundaries that normally delimit an art show, this exhibition also presents a new format of vernissage and gallery guide inspired by a treasure hunt. To this end, we would like to urge the visitors: in case of cold weather, icy ground, and heavy snow, please put on sneakers and get prepared for the adventure.
*image (left)
Lee Ak(Youjin Jeon),
Private Phone Theatre(6-8pm), 2014,
projector & telephones, variable size (c.f.)
© Lee Ak
