Elmgreen & Dragset
Aéroport Mille Plateaux
July 23–October 18, 2015
PLATEAU, Samsung Museum of Art
55 Sejong-daero,
Jung-gu, Seoul,
Korea 100-716
Hours: Tuesday–Sunday 10am–6pm
T +82 2 2259 7726
PLATEAU, Samsung Museum of Art is pleased to present Aéroport Mille Plateaux, a major solo exhibition by the artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset that transforms the museum into a fictional airport. Inspired by the confluence of PLATEAU’s unique glass and steel architecture and the ideas of French philosopher Gilles Deleuze (1925–95), the exhibition’s title fuses the name of the museum with the landmark book by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Mille Plateaux (1980). With this exhibition, the artists align the endless and often conflicting possibilities of an airport with the rhizomatic structure of Mille Plateaux (in English, A Thousand Plateaus).
Aéroport Mille Plateaux continues Elmgreen & Dragset’s transformation of spaces to reveal social functions, thus exposing the power structures embedded in both architecture and society, thereby challenging the idea of public space as something neutral. While the exhibition is a survey of many of the artists’ most iconic works to date, it is itself a singular project. Combining works such as Uncollected (2005), a baggage claim carousel endlessly rotating with a piece of uncollected luggage, and Gate 23 (2015), a collapsed staircase leading to the doors of Aéroport Mille Plateaux’s “Gate 23,” with typical airport features such as waiting areas, check-in counters, security checkpoints, advertisements, and flight schedules, the duo creates a realistic yet absurd airport environment. This elaborate conversion of the exhibition space into an airport turns museum visitors themselves into travelers through Elmgreen & Dragset’s site-specific engagement with the museum’s distinctive architecture.
A catalogue featuring essays by three international Deleuze scholars accompanies the exhibition. In addition to an interview between curator Soyeon Ahn and the artists, the catalogue focuses on the driving theoretical ideas behind Aéroport Mille Plateaux. The authors explore subjects like Marc Augé’s idea of the airport as a “non-place” and situate Elmgreen & Dragset’s oeuvre in the framework of some key philosophical concepts presented in Mille Plateaux.
Since 1997, Elmgreen & Dragset have been creating Powerless Structures, a series that investigates the way in which sites such as prisons, social security offices, hospitals, museums, galleries, and parks act as a means of social control. Adding the airport to this list of sites, Aéroport Mille Plateaux transforms PLATEAU, Samsung Museum of Art into a wholly different environment, which, like its namesake, invites us on a journey through space and time.
Curated by Soyeon Ahn, Deputy Director, PLATEAU, Samsung Museum of Art
PLATEAU, Samsung Museum of Art was first inaugurated in 1999 as Rodin Gallery, presenting its permanent installation of Auguste Rodin’s monumental masterpieces The Gates of Hell and The Burghers of Calais. It soon established itself as one of the central institutions in the Korean contemporary art scene.
In May 2011, Rodin Gallery reopened its doors under the new name, PLATEAU, aspiring a broader scope of program, as well as higher artistic grounds for artists and patrons alike. With the new name, PLATEAU expresses our renewed commitment to embracing the dynamic developments in Korean and international contemporary art, in continuation with our permanent display of the Rodin masterpieces.
Press contact:
Shim Bokeum, Public Relations Team
T +82 2 2014 6553 / bokeum.shim [at] samsung.com
