Cinemagician

Yeondoo Jung
Asia Society
Friday, November 20, 2009

WAKE UP NEW YORK CITY! PERFORMA 09, in its third edition of the biennial dedicated to new visual art performance, certainly knows how to put on a show. There was a packed house at Yeondoo Jung's performance of Cinemagician at the Asia Society, commissioned by PERFORMA with the Yokohama Festival for Video and Social Technology. Supported by The Korea Foundation and the TOBY Fund. Co-produced by Tina Kim Gallery, New York, and Kukje Gallery, Seoul Co-presented with the Asia Society.


Yeondoo Jung's Cinemagician may be viewed at the Asia Society website.

Jung's Cinemagician is an interestingly playful theater piece and performance that takes on the task of revealing the relationship between the magician and audience that unfolds as an unknown event or trick is developed. Jung, an avid lover of performance, film, art, magic and illusion, has fused these disciplines to create and direct a work that plays with perceptions of illusion and leaves the viewer feeling pleasantly perplexed.

Cinemagician presented a live performance juxtaposed with a projected one hanging directly above the action, which reveals some very interesting paradoxes between the two simultaneous events. Famous South Korean magician Eungyeol Lee, who also acts as the live magician and the lead role in Cinemagician, does an outstanding job of revealing just enough of his magical talents and holding back others in order for the rest of the crew to step in and assist him. Not a regularly practicing visual artist, Lee was tasked with making a drawing which acted as the central visual basis for the constructed work, an initial sketch which dictated the direction of the performance. Lee, along with a cast of about 15 participants was "directed" by Jung who made a brief appearance at the start of the performance by announcing "quiet on the set," through a directors megaphone. The accompanying cast was made up of set technicians dressed in bright orange jumpsuits, a solo percussionist who kept tempo and guided the audience through a series of crescendo's and little narrative vignettes, and a videographer. The magician "leaves the audience to oscillate between the "suspension of disbelief" and a paradoxically ravishing spectacle (Asia Society 2009). Using a cinematic technique called "stop trick," in which the filming is stopped, then something is substituted in front of the camera or changed for something else, and finally filming is resumed. This gives the illusion that something spectacular has happened when in reality a team has come together to create it. Jung uses both in Cinemagician, giving the audience an insider perspective on a little bit of the spectacle. The interesting twist is that Eungyeol Lee is "assisted" by a secret agent-type figure who also aids in creating the behind the scenes magical moments unbeknownst to Lee. So while Lee's character of the magician thinks that he is actually orchestrating the magical elements that bring the image together he in fact has help. This style that Jung favors was inspired by nineteenth-century French filmmaker George Melies who experimented with "stop trick."

The performance hit a few peak moments that reflect the whimsical aesthetic of Jung's photgraphic vision. Once Lee and his team had adjusted, spray painted, nudged, placed and rolled everything into place he inserted himself into the set, whereby completing the moving image projected just outside of the action. This image was cropped in such a way that Lee looked like he was inside a fairytale-like image of candy colored flowered mountain tops. This happened again where Lee inserted himself into an ice fishing scene, where the cool tones of the backdrop and accompanying props really gave a sense of context. While the audience was not far removed from the mechanics of how these images were constructed, once the elements came together on screen it created a moment that was quite magical, pun intended. For these brief instances everything and everyone was still and the image shown in real time on the video screen above was so beautiful that it drew the focus of the audience in immediately, and for that short glimpse everything else in the entire space melted away.

In this piece the audience simultaneously had the privilege of viewing the seamless magical world that Jung had conceptualized but also the behind the scenes stunts, props and mechanics involved in making such a spectacular performance. The idea that Lee has no idea of this under cover helper who ultimately completes most of his magic tricks for him, puts an even more compelling twist on this theater piece. This surmounting tension keeps the viewer shifting back and forth between reality and magic and action and illusion that is characteristic of much of Jung's photographic and video works. Jung is a master at giving just enough information away in an image that will give the viewer a sense of a constructed fantasy but the astute subtly in which he maintains this flux keeps the tension between reality and fantasy very much alive.

Born in South Korea in 1969, Yeondoo Jung received his MFA from Goldsmiths College in 1997. He is the recipient of the 2007 Artist of the Year Award, given annually by the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Seoul. Jung has an impressive list of solo exhibition held in Asia, Europe and the United States and has also been shown in the 51st Venice Biennale and the Liverpool Biennale in 2008. Yeondoo is represented by Kukje Gallery in Seoul and Tina Kim Gallery in New York.

Franklin Sirmans

New Appointment

In his first public lecture at SCAD since being appointed department head and curator of contemporary art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Franklin Sirmans gave a brief preview into his curatorial practice and the previous appointments he has held in his exciting career. Sirmans will make the short journey to L.A. in January, succeeding Lynn Zelevansky, who recently resigned to direct the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, as noted in the L.A. Times. Sirmans' first job out of graduate school was at the Dia Center for the Arts in New York where he was part of the publication team. With a double major in art history and english, Sirmans felt comfortable in this position and enjoyed the opportunity to take on a dual role of writer and curator early on in his career. He mentioned that this helped out quite a bit as "there really are only a handful of writers out there who can make it as a writer full time." Interestingly, I think this works in his favor, as he has had the tools necessary to not only conceptualize significant exhibitions but to also write about them in a clear manor and to maintain an interest in writing as part of the discourse of art history.

One of the most interesting points Sirmans made, that resounded throughout the lecture, was his interest in working with certain artists or artists' works, and how the institution can provide a real opportunity to see these projects through to fruition. For example, Sirmans knew going into his current position at the Menil Collection in Houston that they had works by Robert Ryman in their collection as well as connections with his collectors. While in the end, fearful of damage to the works, collectors opted out of sending them for the exhibition, Sirmans was still able to craft a concise exhibition of three of Ryman's works from 1976 called Contemporary Conversations: Robert Ryman, 1976 exhibited in 2007. Now, this was not something new to Sirmans practice but given as an example of an exhibition that he had wanted to accomplish for some time and within an institution he was a new curator at, it is something of a dream for a curator to hear. So, I asked him, if "there are any works and/or artists in particular that he would like to tap into at LACMA?"

His first mention was that of Mexican artists Diego Rivera, which flowed nicely from his answer to a previous question asking what he was looking forward to working on at LACMA, in which he mentioned graffiti art. In many ways Rivera's outstanding murals have a political, social, and aesthetic link to contemporary graffiti art. He also mentioned a continued interest in curating works by Jean-Michel Basquiat. Sirmans co-curated "Basquiat," which was exhibited at L.A.'s Museum of Contemporary Art in 2005.

Fresh on everyone's mind is Sirmans recent exhibition from 2008 titled "NeoHooDoo: Art for a Forgotten Faith," which sprang from a book by Ishmael Reed that Sirmans had been contemplating since his days at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center in New York. Eventually, the exhibition was exhibited at P.S.1 in early 2009. While working at P.S.1 Sirmans was reading this book and sharing ideas informally with other colleagues. It wasn't until he came to the Menil Collection that he could put his plans for an exhibition into play. In the accompanying catalogue for the exhibition it is explained that NeoHooDoo, a phrase coined by Ishmael Reed in 1970, celebrates the practice of rituals, folklore, and spirituality in the Americas beyond the scope of Christianity and organized religion. Artists included were Ana Mendieta, David Hammons, José Bedia, Rebecca Belmore, and Nari Ward, among twenty-eight others, whose works strengthen the dialogue of art and spirituality.

I am quite interested to see the impact that Sirmans will have on the exhibition programming and publication to come at LACMA. His sensibility to really understanding a collection and utilizing it to potential is something that will result in additional exhibitions of interest and truly maintain an outstanding academic rigor.

Circling the Center by Nene Humphrey

Brooklyn-based artist Nene Humphrey's most recent series/project/performance/exhibition, Circling the Center is motivated by collaboration in every sense of the word. This project's origins began with a residency at Joseph LeDoux's neuroscience laboratory at New York University where Humphrey worked with scientists to visualize recorded images from the amygdala, the part of the brain where emotion, fear and anxiety reside. From these images Humphrey has created a series of layered drawings and sculptural works entitled The Plain Sense of Things. Inspired by Wallace Stevens' poem of the same name which brings us back to the simpler things in life, Humphrey's work moves us back through some of the most interesting, poignant, and fundamental examples of the origins of communication, linkage, and remembrance. Circling the Center, installation image, 2009.

For the inaugural site-specific installation of Circling the Center at Pinnacle Gallery, over sixty SCAD students, faculty, alumni and staff are participating in an exceptional feat of collaboration with Humphrey, artist Julie DeLano and sound design artist and musician Roberto Lange. Together, participants learn Victorian hair braiding patterns, woven with various colors and gauges of wire, made using simple looms. Seated in a tight circle of eight weavers, reminiscent of historical drum circles, the circumference expands as the woven sculpture grows, hanging from the center of the space. Like a ripple effect, sound also emanates from the core of the weaving group producing an intricate fusion of human chanting, spooling, spools hitting the sides of the looms, spools clanking and crashing to the floor, and the muffled thud of them hitting the felted tops of the looms. The sounds Humphrey collected and recorded from the emotional responses of lab mice make up the base sound from which Lange then records the actions in the gallery from the weavings, integrating them together to create an additional layer to this work.
Circling the Center, spools.

The work largely encompasses Humphrey's continued investigation of emotional responses through an interpretation of the patterning of the mind that we can not see with our naked eye. The results are an astonishingly beautiful forest of woven wire braids that undulate down from a suspended ceiling structure. Dark at the core, the intricate web of thicker dark wire, and wispy silver wire, are accented by bursts of red shimmers in the light, to reveal a structure that unites individual works by a large group of people from various disciplines. The linchpin of the exhibition is the haunting sound composition that Roberto Lange has arranged to accompany this new work.

Lange has spent the last week of the project making the aforementioned recordings which have now come together to reveal a mantra tied into Circling the Center. It is that of the sound, the energy that resonates from the research, the tools and the people associated with this project. Voices recorded in French, Russian, English and Chinese reveal simple chants that the participants murmur to themselves as they methodically move the spooled wire into position for weaving specific hair braiding patterns. These chants are intended not only to guide the weaver through the steps of a particular braid but they also give a voice the the piece, a way in which the ear may hear and in turn be able to have the mind understand more about how all of these factors tie into Humphrey's larger concepts of memory and emotion. Along with the voices of those chanting, Lange has integrated the other noises associated with making these woven braids in order to give a sense of work, a sense of a collective effort of motion and making inherent in the overall concept of this project.

In terms of understanding Circling the Center as a way to visualize that which is not visible, Humphrey has given the viewer a myriad of avenues from which to traverse this concept. Sound, touch, visual information and historical context come together to create a unified experience, one grounded in collaboration and interdisciplinary exploration. Circling the Center will be exhibited until Dec. 30, 2009 at Pinnacle Gallery | 320 E. Liberty (corner of Liberty and Habersham). The exhibition will travel to Sharidan Art Gallery, Kutztown, PA.

Point of Entry

Artists continue to explore their love for art and architecture in ways that posit the notion of a space between; an exploratory avenue where artists examine what it is they admire of or struggle with in architecture, and present these findings in unique ways. In the Point of Entry exhibition at Pinnacle Gallery, Sept. 30 - Nov. 4, 2009 artists, Scott Ingram, Josef Schulz and Lucy Williams' work responds to the aesthetic, functional and historical presence of Modernist architecture that is very much alive in contemporary art. This idea of the space between is thought of as the expanse of visual language cultivated by Modern architecture's aesthetic sensibility.

Atlanta based Scott Ingram explores Modernist architecture by extracting its inherent structural and design elements. Ingram modifies these extracted segments for site-specific installation, bringing a new view of Modernist architecture into contemporary art. I-beam Installation, 2009 in the exhibition is a configuration of four, six to twelve foot segments of I-beam structures made of wood. Supported at a 45 degree angle from ceiling to floor the largest beam anchors the line from which the remaining three I-beams intersect and subsequently mirror the curve of a brick wall in Josef Schulz' Rot-blau situated behind and to the left of Ingram's sculptural installation.

Ingram's I-beam configuration delves into a discussion of the importance of material and line in Modern architecture further emphasized by the placement of the beams to suggest a point of entry. For instance, Ingram's use of wood for the I-beams in place of its common structural steel material changes our perceptions of structure. Whereas Modernist architecture would require I-beams to be made of steel for structural safety and not meant to be seen, Ingram has made them of wood purposefully suggesting their appeal as a sculptural element and extracting them from the interior of a structure to then reside outside and independent of their intended architectural function. Schulz does something similar in the way in which he removes modern warehouse and factory buildings from their the intended purposes to reveal unique planar compositions imbued with an abstract sensibility.

In a selection of mass-produced industrial structures, often differentiated only by a slight variety in material for the facade, Berlin-based Schulz reveals the significance of line and shape in Modern architecture through the use of photographic imagery. Seemingly banal in their functional existence as storage warehouses and factory facilities, Schulz capitalizes on these structures potential as new industrial fortresses rising up from articulated Utopian landscapes. The force of the horizontal and vertical lines of Schulz' warehouse structures juxtaposes his feathery manipulation of slices of grass in some images or entire landscapes in others. Sometimes, as in Grau-orange from 2008, landscape has been completely removed, leaving a focus on the structures' definite monumentality. Schulz strips away any trace of the structure of a modern building in favor of Modernism's abstracted qualities which are reminiscent of Greenbergian Modernism's reduction of three-dimensional space. Although, Schulz' images suggest three-dimensional space by the angle in which they are photographed, there is a consorted effort to maintain the abstracted quality offered by the intersection of line and plane in these freestanding structures.

London artist Lucy Williams' collage-like "portraits" of both famous and obscure modern buildings and interiors combines her affinity for the structural engineering and aesthetics of 1950s and 60s architecture. Layering each composition from back to front, Williams painstakingly cuts thick white board, inserts some found, some fabricated materials, paints, glues, and assembles intricate architectural vignettes. She is essentially re-engineering a photographic image of a Modern architectural space in bas-relief. Additionally, Williams is working out her desire as both sculptor and painter by utilizing tools and techniques of both disciplines. This process has resulted in a very intricate and mind boggling investigation of Modernist architecture.

One of several works in the exhibition, Shopping Centre from 2006 could be considered an engineering feat in and of itself. Williams had to not only score and cute the white board to create one unified piece to use as the structure of the interior of the lobby of the shopping center but she also had to maintain consideration of the elements that run behind and in front of this initial ground in order to create a concise depiction. She proceeds to use paint, fibers, papers, plexi, and other materials she deems sufficient to reconstruct the interior space accurately.

Ingram, Schulz, and Williams draw on certain aspects of Modern architecture to explore its form, functionality and aesthetics within the context of contemporary art as another point of entry. Together, these three artists' explorations of Modern architecture continues the ever increasing dialogue between art and architecture.