I. 전시정보
Exhibition Outline전시 개요
Title: Media Landscape, Zone East
Curators: SUH Jinsuk/ Director, Alternative Space LOOP
Stephanie Seungmin KIM/ Exhibition Manager, Korean Cultural Centre UK
Associate Curators: Leng LIN/ Beijing Commune
Eugene TAN/ Osage Gallery
Dates & Venues:
September 18th, 2010 - November 28th, 2010 at Contemporary Urban Centre (CUC), Liverpool, UK
October 27th, 2010 - November 20th, 2010 at Korean Cultural Centre UK (KCCUK), London, UK
Hosted by: Liverpool Biennial and CityStates
Organized by: Alternative Space LOOP and Korean Cultural Centre UK
Supported by: Samsung
Participating Artists 참여작가
CHUN Kyungwoo
JUNG Yumi
KIM Kira
KIM Young Eun
KOO Jeong-A
MIOON
OH Min
PARK Junebum
PARK Yeojoo
SHIN Kiwoun
YI Hyunchul
HU Xiaoyuan
MA Qiusha
ZHAO Yao
IZUMI Taro
SAKAKIBARA Sumito
TAGUCHI Yukihiro
FONG Silas
HO Tzu Nyen
KUSWIDANANTO Augustinus, a.k.a. JOMPET
WU Chi-Tsung
http://biennial.com/content/LiverpoolBiennial2008/LiverpoolBiennial2010/CityStates2010/MediaLandscapeZoneEast/Overview.aspx
http://www.galleryloop.com/
http://www.kccuk.org.uk/
II. 전시글
Introduction 전시소개
Media Landscape, Zone East - Stephanie Seungmin KIM/ Korean Cultural Centre UK
Today we see a rapid growth of new cities across the globe and around the Asian world (“Zone East”). Cities are where most exciting heterogeneous societies meet and exchange their creativities. It is often the cities rather than ‘nations’ that capture the curiosity of contemporary artists, although we cannot, of course, think of cities without considering the nation states. <Media Landscape, Zone East>, as part of Liverpool Biennial exhibition “Touched”, 2010 represents a group of internationally working Asian artists from Seoul, Tokyo, Beijing, Taipei, Singapore to New York, Düsseldorf, and London. Seoul, representing South Korea, invites ten internationally working Korean artists and has nominated ten other artists, from Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Singapore to join the project. While all artists come from Asian cultures, their stories encompass both their hometown identities and their new discoveries found across the world. They often move about different cities, migrate between cities and subsequently introduce or transfer their art to the other side of the world with their new imaginations.
Why Asia? Why Kind of Asia? - SUH Jinsuk/ Alternative Space LOOP In the early 20th century, we experienced, as stated by Robert Hughes, “the shock of the new.” Western modernization had revolutionized our lives, and as soon as the scar from the time of ideology healed, the new topic known as globalization followed. However, the attitude and development of Asia toward the new 21st century are unlike that of the past century. Asia is moving towards the center from being the target of change. Having to accept the shocking changes of the Western modernization in the past, Asia is now rapidly adapting to the attributes of the digital era, making new socio-cultural paradigms and suggesting new future visions. The economy and culture of Asia have formed a vast block, which changed the map of the world market, and Asian contemporary art is making a huge impact on today’s global art market. It is no longer an issue to hear that an Asian artist’s work is a highlight at an auction in Europe or in America or be praised at important biennales. While experiencing such drastic environmental changes, we counter-question ourselves: “Why Asia?” “What kind of Asia?”By asking the above questions, we place our focus on the view of contemporary art in Asia. In doing so, we discover that Western view on Asian contemporary art has also been imprinted on ourselves. The view that art and society cannot be separated is clearly reflected in the historical traces of contemporary art in Asia. Many Asian countries went through a period of identity crisis or loss of direction over the decades, as they had to shorten the processes of modernization or skip it all together by experiencing unique situations such as colonization, closed national policies, political divisions, or civil wars. How to understand tradition is the question that contemporary Asian art needs to resolve. Before compromising and merging with things Western, each country needs to seriously consider how a complimentary relation can be built that would show the dynamism of changes within the experienced history and tradition. What we have to focus on here is that although the fact that Korea, China, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, and Taiwan have all maintained and developed their unique cultural identities; is it possible to believe that each country’s unique cultural characteristics can fundamentally construct an axis of Oriental cogitation? By seeing through the form of traditional arts, can they understand the esthetical value in them and develop them into contemporary media such as paintings, videos, and installations; and further can they make them into the origin of new imagination that can make new creations? If we can answer the aforementioned questions, then we are gaining another clue for the direction of Asian contemporary art in the new century.
November 6th, 2010 by 
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